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4:72/ ACol/ecUan af Papers on Self-Study and Institutional Improvement, 2009
Volume 4, Choplerz
Self-Stud~ Survivor: Engaging the Universit~ Communit~ for Success Laurie J. Churchill, Roberta L. Derlin, Teresa M. Roberts, and Andrea Trimarco
Actively engaging the entire university community in the self-study process is a challenge for any institution, whether large or small,
single or multi-campus, and without regard for the types of degrees offered. The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) Criteria are well­
integrated, allowing institutions flexibility to address their unique missions in unique ways. This flexibility, however, challenges faculty
and staff members engaged in the self-study process because they must make many discretionary judgments about how to present
compelling evidence that their college or university has met the HLC Criteria_ Whether an institution is pursuing initial accreditation or
reaccreditation, each decision made along the way is high-stakes.
This paper focuses on the challenges of the final year of the New Mexico State Un iversity (NMSU) self-study process that began in 2005
in anticipation of a comprehensive self-study review and team visit in spring 2008. We identilY strategies that engaged the university
community in the broadest sense to achieve success in preparing a cohesive self-study document, (NMSU 2008), collecting resources,
and creating comprehensive online and physical resource rooms (Roberts 2008). In addressing the complexities of both the HLC Criteria
and our institutional self-study agenda, we implemented a number of different strategies. Here we focus on three of these strategies:
creating a self-study team that actively engaged faculty on writing teams to support excellence in the self-study document; creating
well-organized, comprehensive online and physical resource rooms thatthe HLCvisitors could use effectively; and using the self-study
documents to catalyze continuous improvement initiatives.
As we prepared for our own successful self-study process and Visit, past HLC sessions like the PEAQ Self-Study Workshop at the Annual
Meeting helped us focus on how to make it happen, make it real, and make it successful. Opportunities to learn from the challenges
others faced helped us overcome our own challenges as we encountered them. In this paper, we address the inevitable wrong turns
that resulted in opportunities to work together, build community, and achieve apositive outcome. Working across traditional organiza­
tionallines in our university to address the integrated self-study Criteria allowed us to form associations and collaborative strategies
that continue to provide support for our university's continuous improvement initiatives. This positive benefit of our self-study process
resulted both from making deliberate decisions along the way to address challenges as they arose and from usingwhatwe were learning
about ourselves and our university as the catalyst for ongoing initiatives for improvement.
The particular complexities ofour self-study agenda included reaccreditation for NMSU (its Las Cruces campus and its NMSU Grants com­
munity college campus) with aspecial emphasis on the Foundations of Excellence® in the First College Year (FoE), approval of a distance
education change request to allow NMSU to deliver any of its existing academic degree programs at adistance without program-specific
future action by the HLC, and approval of independent accreditation for NMSU Dona Ana, the largest of the community colleges. The two
other NMSU community college campuses are already independently accredited with the HLC, and are maintaining affiliation through
HLC's Academic Quality Improvement Program.
As in most institutions participating in self-study, the NMSU provost established a self-study steering committee that represented vari­
ous units and departments, with two appointed co-chairs, one ofwhom had been appointed self-study coordinator by the provost early
in the process (2005). This group laid the foundation for self-study by organizing subcommittees aligned with each of the HLC Criteria.
Although there are five HLCCriteria, we had two committees for Criterion Four,Acquisition, Discovery, and Application ofl<nowledge. One
subcommittee focused on the undergraduate and graduate curriculum and the second focused on research, scholarship, and creative
activity. Aseventh subcommittee, Data Management and Communication, provided technical support to all of the subcommittees in
accessing online materials and sharing documents.
The subcommittees used varied strategies in their consideration of assigned Criteria and in deciding what data needed to be gathered.
Some subcommittees created new data by conducting focus groups and surveys. Five open forums in 2006 included faculty, staff, and
students from all of the NMSU campuses, members of the extension service, alumni, and other external constituents. The steering
committee organized atwo-day leadership summit (August 2006) to expand understanding of the self-study's FoE special emphasis in
our community. These community engagement strategies provided recommendations about how to tighten the integration and smooth
the implementation of internal planning and improvement processes.
Structuring committees to conduct an internal examination that is critical to self-study and internal reflection requires consistent par­
ticipation by members of the university community over a sustained period of time. While this engagement is necessary and valuable,
Volume 4: Accreditation Pathways
Chapter 2: Maintaining Affiliation through PFAQ 14:73
and results in many documents and analyses, it is challenging to achieve the required cohesive self-study document from these broad,
community-based discussions. Consequently, the next phase required greater focus and depth.
Rctivelq Engaging Facultq Writing Teams to Support Excellence
The organization for conducting the self·study and ultimately writing the report evolved over time at our university. The process began
with amodel that had worked in the past. The self-study coordinator, with the help of an editor, consolidated the various reports and
analyses submitted by the subcom.mittees to prepare initial draft chapters for the Criteria. Under the prior HLC Criteria that were more
discrete, this process had worked well to create a single, cohesive self-study document.
With the more-encompassing current HLC Criteria, this process wasn't as effective as it had been in the past. During the two years while
the steering committee and subcommittees met to conduct and reflect on their work, many challenges and opportunities for improve­
ment were identified that made their way into the initial chapters. However, the initial consolidated chapters did not fully reflect our
university's accomplishments over the entire ten-yeartime frame, and we were thin on evidence to support our assertions about NMSU's
accomplishments and quality and that we had, in fact, met each HLC Criterion.
To address these challenges, the recently appointed "new" provost assembled a self·study team of writers, editors, and researchers
who worked exclusively on the preparation of NMSU in 3D and organization of the online and physical resource rooms in fall 2007. The
self-study team closely collaborated on writing, editing. and gathering information and facilitated engagement in the university com­
munity and across units. NMSU in 3D shows the level of collaboration and engagement the self·study team achieved among faculty,
administrators, staff, and students participating in the writing and review of the self·study document. In conSidering the integrated,
mission-driven, and future-focused HlC Criteria, the self-study writing team recognized that writing a cohesive self-study document
provided an opportunity to capitalize on the open and broad conversations of the subcommittees and expand opportunities for reflec­
tion in the NMSU faculty community.
With the provost's and president's strong support, the self-study team actively engaged NMSU faculty on Criterion-based teams in
writing NMSU in 3D. To achieve an authentically collaborative self-study report, staff writers, faculty writing teams, and faculty and
student commentators worked together to prepare the self-study document. We chose faculty writing team members from among our
most dedicated and highly accomplished faculty. The teams helped us recognize and balance competing priorities, reflect on the full
range of our strengths, view more clearly our challenges for the future, and appreciate our capacity to address these challenges.
We realized positive synergy in working together to successfully meet the many challenges stemming from this ambitious self-study
writing process. Through our cross-college and cross-unit collaborations in preparing NMSU in 3D, an opportunity to envision future
institutional growth and to cultivate support of our ongoing commitments unfolded.
Creating Well-Organized, Comprehensive Online and PI1~sical Resource Rooms
Two strategies helped us create well-organized, comprehensive online and physical resource rooms: the chapters and references in
NMSU in 3D and "Materials to Be Available to the Team during the Visit" (HLC 2003. 9.4-1-2). Again, this was a collaborative effort,
involving the self-study team, together with library personnel, including reference librarians, technical staff, and archivists. Additional
student workers were employed in the final months prior to the visit specifically to assist with resource room organization and develop­
ment. Strategies for developing the rooms emerged over time, undergoing revision and adaptation in response to occasional pitfalls,
unanticipated glitches, and the inevitable ticking of the clock.
We had ahigh volume of previously submitted and incoming materials, such as reports, memos, meeting minutes, agendas, and faculty
and staff publications that supported every aspect of the self-study. In the early phases of the self-study process, materials had been
delivered to different individuals, offices, and units. As we began to organize and develop the resource rooms, we clearly needed a
single "point of entry."
Library archivists who would preserve self-study materials for posterity agreed to catalogue materials into the library system before
forwarding the documents to the resource room team that consisted ofom librarytechnician and threeofour brightest and best students.
This workflow was effective, but as we drew cioserto the site team visit this process required revision and we decided that the "point
of entry" needed to be resource room staff. with materials to be delivered to the archivist after the visit.
Among our most important strategies was the development of a database and reporting mechanism to assist in managing and orga­
nizing the large volume of diverse resources. In order to meet this challenge, the library technician used Microsoft Access to create a
database used to organize resource room documents as they were delivered. The database design was extensible, allowing revisions
as needed. Additionally, the database allowed multiple users in multiple locations to enter and review data. These combined features
meant we were able to include not only self-study supporting documents, but also the books, articles, and journals that supplemented
our evidence of faculty and staff scholarly and creative achievements in NMSU in 3D.
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VollJmq, Chapter 2
Using receipt slips at the "point of entry" provided specific names and descriptions of the materials, together with information that
identified its destination for the visit (the electronic or physical resource room or both), and if, where, and how the material would be
returned after the visit. The slips were attached to each corresponding item. This system facilitated alignment and tracking of materials;
we needed to be able to locate materials easily and assure that each item was linked to the NMSU in 3D chapter or item specified in
9-4 of the HLC Handbook (HLC 2003).
For initial storage, we used various sized binders, hanging folders suspended in crates, and magazine/periodical holders to accom­
modate oversized items. Ultimately, all physical resources were moved to library shelves installed in the site team room.
The site team room housed all the physical resources that supported the self-study. This spacious room was located in the student center
and served as a central meeting place for the team, where they had access not only to the physical resources. but also to computers,
printers, a shredder, comfortable chairs. asofa, and snacks. This space also allowed us to provide supplementary evidence in the form
of focal point displays that featured faculty and staff publications, student research, the first·year experience, and internationalization.
Indexes of more than 1.100 items that comprised our online and physical resources were critical reference documents for the site team.
allOWing them to identify and easily locate items in print in the site team room. The library technician used a tree-view as an efficient
and intuitive way to locate the many online documents related to the Criteria, the distance education change request, the Foundations
of Excellence special emphasis, faculty and staff scholarly or creative work. and items on the list of "Materials Available to the HLC
Team" (Higher LearningCommission 2003. 9.4, 1-2). This feature provided auser·friendly way for the HLCvisitors to identify and search
through supporting documents. thus allowing them to delve as deeply into the secondary materials as needed. By organizing so many
online and hard·copy documents effectively, the resource room team developed processes that not only supported this HLC visit, but
also created a system we can use to collect documents and index them for future visits.
Using Self-StlJdQ Documents to CatalQze Continuous Improvement Initiatives
While the completion and submission of NMSU in 3D and other required documents to the HLC and the HLC visiting team represented
a Significant milestone in the self-study process. ourwork on NMSU's continuous improvement initiatives did not cease. For example.
we continued to capture opportunities for engagement in our community in relation to the FoE special emphasis and our ongoing work
to enhance student learning and other assessment activities at NMSU long after NMSU in 3D had been submitted to our printer.
To fully inform the HLCvisitors ofthese ongoing activities, we developed twosupplemental documents that were presented to thevisitors
upon their arrival. NMSU faculty and staff members who had been working with john Gardner, Executive Director of the Policy Center
on the first Year ofColiege, on our FoE self-study special emphasis since 2005 prepared First Year Improvement-Actions for Continued
Transformation (fYI-ACT): Continuing Work on First Year Initiatives in collaboration with an assigned self-studyteam contributor and writer.
Continuing engagement to enhance outcomes assessment activities directly influenced NMSU's capacity to improve the teaching
environment. and more importantly, the learning that occurs on our campuses. NMSU in 3D identified that one aspect of our continu­
ing outcomes assessment activities was the formation of a University Outcomes Assessment Council. With support from an aSSigned
self-study team contributor and writer, faculty and staff who were past chairs of the university's ongoing assessment committees and
other members of the recently formed Council prepared Continuing Efforts in Support ofStudent Learning and Outcomes Assessment:
Progress Since Submitting the 2008 Self-Study. This document also was made available to the HLCvisitors upon their arrival.
The strategies discussed in this paper and the other processes we used to engage the NMSU community throughout the self-study
process allowed us to achieve asuccessful outcome with HLC, one that we view with pride. Even more important, setting a clear agenda
and providing aready-reference. NMSU in 3D, and the related documents support our further work together, both within the university
and with The Higher Learning Commission.
References
Higher Learning Commission. 2003. Handbook of accreditation, 3rd ed. Chicago: Author.
New Mexico State University. 2008. NMSU in 3D: Dedicated, diverse, dynamic.
Roberts. T. 2008. Accreditation Web site. http://Ub.nmsu.edu/accreditation/.
Laurie J. Churchill is Director ofAssessment, Roberta L. Derlln is Associate Vice President for Student Success and Associate Dean,
College ofExtended Learning, Teresa M. Roberts is a Web Developer, and Andrea Trimarco is an Assistant Staff Writer and Editor at
New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.