THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON
Engagement Council
Meeting Minutes – August 10, 2010
Members Present: D. Ayers, C. Beller, T. Beyerle, J. Boyes, D. Hickey, B. Jenkins, B. Jordan, J. Kovatch, B. Kraus,
J. Kristofco, A. Mast, L. Meek, C. Menzemer, E. Perduyn, K. Ross-Alaolmolki, J. Savery, D. Steiner, D. Weber.
Chair: H. Harris Bane
Recorder: K. Haverkamp
TOPIC
Future of Engagement
Council (EC)
DISCUSSION
Discussed previous focus of EC:
 New Market Development
 Broad outreach and partnership
 Curriculum engagement topics
 Barriers and best practices
How has EC helped you and your college/department:
 Help connect with colleges/depts. that we do not have
direct contact with on a regular basis.
 See different levels of engagement.
 Know what is going on at UA outside of own area.
 Opportunity to see different levels of engagement.
 A chance to see both credit and non credit side of UA and
know who to contact when opportunities/questions arise.
Ideas about future focus of EC:
 Do not make focus too narrow.
 Beneficial to meet people and see how colleges/depts.
have energy with each other.
 Match up people in smaller subgroups for collective
purposes.
 Funnel barriers to see commonalities among connections.
 Removing myths & miscommunications.
 Structure meeting to collaborate ideas.
 Create assessment tool – value in knowing what other
people are doing when developing new initiative (see
Engagement Database topic for more details).
 Help remove institutional barriers to do new things.
 Have community partners/businesses make a presentation
about their needs or go out to businesses and report back
to group about their needs.
Ideas about structure of meeting:
 Agenda - time limits, topic, and contact info.
 Minutes – shared and posted more regularly
 Create Ad Hoc Committees (see Ad Hoc Committee topic
for more details)
ACTION
Engagement Database
Create a database for outreach and partnerships – gather data,
assessment and best practices.
 Organized by College/Department
 Include description, contact, action items/where in
progress
 Work with Institutional Research
Committee:
H. Harris Bane,
J. Savery, D. Steiner
Suggested assessment/outcomes:
 How service learning helps student retention
 How Student Success Seminar using service learning
 Assessment with Coops and Internships
Ad Hoc Committees
Eduventures
Suggested committees:
 Best Practices/Research – to be proactive in addressing
problems. Draw from proposed Engagement Database,
Eduventures website.
 Assessment Tools – what are metrics/tools for new
market, outreach and engagement, external messaging
 Challenges/Issues – when taking new product to market.
Link with Cross Functional Team.
 Market Research
 Communications
 Curricular Engagement Survey. Committee:
D. Steiner, K. Ross-Alaolmolki, B. Lyons, J. Savery,
H. Harris Bane
Next meeting:
Brainstorm around
agenda items for each
Ad Hoc Committee.
Divide EC members into
committees.
Report from members attending annual meeting (H. Harris Bane,
J. Savery, K. Ross-Alaolmolki)
Affirmation of push for online learning. Companies that market
course development cost a lot of money.
Internationalization:
 Protocol on foreign universities going into a US university
system.
 Professions feel that there is a language problem. Some
universities do this well. UA does not have support to do
this in volume.
Adult Learners:
 Universities need to be strategic to be successful
 Be innovative with course/program offerings
 Adult learners need options – they will go where it is
available.
Tuition Plateau
Students at Wayne and MCUC do not receive tuition. Main
campus students receive tuition plateau, but they also pay higher
tuition than students at Wayne and MCUC.
Recommendation: No one pays more than maximum that main
campus students pay for 12 credit hours.
Recommendation went
to the Provost for
approval.
Upcoming Year Reports
School of Law (B. Jordan) – Working on interdisciplinary
community engagement course to with healthcare/hospitals for
law and nursing students.
Enrollment (B. Kraus)
 Fall: increase of 6% head count & credit hours, Freshman:
increase of 7%, Transfer: increase of 8%.
 Space utilization: IT is developing a new scheduling
application that will help determine best way to schedule
classes – more spread out classes and access to rooms
owned by Colleges/Depts.
Wayne (J. Kristofco) – Formalizing partnerships with career
centers. Wayne Co. Career Center, LPN to BSN partnership,
partnership with Amish Community.
UA Foundation (E. Perduyn) – Foundation is doing well.
Nursing (K. Ross-Alaolmolki)
 RN to BSN program should be totally online by May
 Partnership with New Mexico Military Institute for a 2year program in health education.
 Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program with
Akron Children’s Hospital has grown to 15 students. One
of 13 approved programs in US.
 Developing Adult Gerentology Nurse Practitioner
Program with Law School.
Summit College (D. Weber)
 Launched a Bachelors of Organizational Supervision
 Industrial Computing Applications degree was approved
by OBR
Medina County University Center (J. Boyes)
 Delivering 3rd and 4th year Spanish, French and German to
Medina City Schools as postsecondary option due to
budget cuts at high school.