IRAC: Institutional Research Advisory Council
Minutes
April 24, 2003
10:00
President’s Conference Room
Attendees: Rebecca Tillberg, Janice Love, Jackie Ireland, Merrill Eastcott, Lawrence Bradford, Celena Alcala, Reagan
Romali, MaryAnne Des Vignes, Dana Cohen
Rebecca welcomed the group and gave an overview of the IRAC purpose. The group will advise the researchers
(Rebecca Tillberg, Dean of Research & Planning and Janice Love, Research Analyst). The group has responsibility
for the Vital Signs, measures of the success of the college in meeting its strategic priorities. It also will provide an
overview of the data and information needs of the campus and work toward meeting those needs.
Meeting tasks:
 Collect input on the Vital Signs, Socrates, and Campus Climate Survey
 Decide how often group will meet.
The following materials were distributed: A binder containing an IRAC summary and member list, Vital Signs with
related data, the reinforcing loop diagram, list of research goals from the Matriculation Plan, Fall 2002 Student Survey
form, Fall 2001 Campus Climate Survey form, Campus Climate Survey report, Fall 2000 Student Survey report.
The first task was to review the Vital Signs. The following comments were generated from the review of the data
associated with the Vital Signs:
 Priority 1
o The table that reports the number of new academic courses and programs offered includes LAPD
courses. The increased number of courses and programs may not reflect academic excellence. This
is one of the measures that may need to be revised.
o Issues related to degrees and transfer data were discussed.
 The addition of skill certificates by many departments contributed to the increase in skill
certificates awarded.
 Transfer to UC and State are down.
 Transfers to UC are low - 69 transfers from a campus of 18,000 are extremely low. Transfer
is not a priority on this campus. Transfer is the only Partnership For Excellence 2005 goal
not met already.
 Priority 3
o The large increase in vocational course completions is due to LAPD. That measurement and the
number of off-campus FTES will decrease as the LAPD program ends and Koreatown is closed.
o The “number of request for use of campus facilities” includes Civil Center Permit events only. It
does not include use of facilities for non-credit classes, seminars, student services events, clubs,
plays, concerts, faculty events. We discussed the possible revision of this vital sign, and ways that
new measures could be collected.
 Priority 5
o The group discussed other ways to measure the college’s visibility and reputation for quality,
including measures of publications or conference presentations. We can only use measurable vital
signs.
The group stopped at Vital Sign #5 due to lack of time.
The Campus Climate Survey is one of the significant instruments used on campus for collecting data for strategic
planning. The survey is administered every 2 years, and is scheduled to be done in again in August 2003. The group
reviewed the Fall 2001 Campus Climate Survey and discussed possible revisions.
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We should add the following categories to the rating of campus support services: Sheriff’s office, Copy
Center (place under Instructional Media), Student Discipline. The group debated breaking administrative
services into budget, mailroom, and other categories but decided against it.
The group discussed the relevance of listing student services on the campus survey because it is equivalent to
allowing the other departments to rank academic programs. Because faculty do refer students to various
student services, the group suggested adding a response column to the survey: “have you referred a student to
this service”?
Modifications to layout and questions.
o Group the student services by type.
o Add “Department Chair” to the list of categories on page 4 and tell employees to “pick one”.
o Group the ethnicities into: Asian, Black/African-American, Caucasian, Filipino, Hispanic, and
Pacific Islander.
o Divide Question 6 into two questions to eliminate confusion.
Adding too many demographics to the survey eliminates the privacy of the survey respondents.
The Fall 2001 Campus Climate Survey Report has an incomplete list of data from the survey. Distribute the
complete set of data for the surveys. The data has been used for program review and other purposes.
SB46 will ban the collection of all personal information (if it passes). If we don’t collect demographics we
can’t do anything about equity issues.
The group discussed the advisability of adding questions related to the budget crisis, and noted that Question
41 gets at the issue of budget.
Agenda item for next meeting:
 Review list of research office priorities to ensure that large institutional priorities are met.
Next meeting: Thursday, June 5, 10am.
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