ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COUNCIL
(COUNCIL CONSISTS OF DEANS AND DIRECTORS THAT REPORT TO ACADEMIC AFFAIRS)
MARCH 25, 2014 - 2-4 PM - DEPUTY 301A
AGENDA
1. Freshmen not taking online courses Attachment #1 - Doug Olney
Doug shared a spreadsheet of course completion rates for students taking at least
one on-campus course and at least one on-line course. The completion rates were
split out by a student’s admission condition (regular or conditional) and when they
registered (April-May vs June-August). The completion rates of freshman students
are very low particularily if they register in the latter timeframe and are conditionally
admitted. Freshman students will not be encouraged to take on-line classes. Last
year it was noted that these classes were made available to AAR advisors. This
year the plan is to focus on the on-campus courses for the freshman students.
Departments do have the option to move their on-line classes to ‘high demand’ to
prompt the use of the ‘course work only’ form which allows a conversation with the
student’s advisor and the course instructor prior to submitting the form for
registration processing.
2. Assessment Update - Patrick Guilfoile
We continue to provide six month updates to HLC on our progress in the
Assessment Academy. May 13th is the deadline for academic programs to turn in
their findings. The academic calendar, beginning in FY15, includes additional inservices days in September and November.
3. Graduate education - Joan Miller
Joan shared that the MBA is taking off, we have 6 applications in, there was an open
house held in February, and she has been working with Scott Faust on marketing.
This program is a cohort model where students take 9 credits per term.
The M.S. in Education is going to be offering a cohort model program where
students take face-to-face courses in the summer and their content during the
academic year. The program has traditionally been on-line, but now will include this
additional delivery method.
Three of the four on-line teaching certificate courses will be offered on-line this
summer.
The Camp Certificate program proposed by the Nursing Department is on its way
through the process. There are 5 course required for this certificate. The
Association of Camp Nurses has been one group involved in its creation.
There continues to be work on developing the matrix of graduate programs in our
system in the hopes of using the matrix as a resource for keeping students in our
system.
The on-line graduation application should be coming out soon. Once that is
released the plan is for MnSCU to roll the features to the international on-line
application and the regular on-line application.
4. Deans List Criteria change Attachment #2 - Martin Tadlock
There is a proposal to move the Deans List from 3.25 to 3.50, other criteria would
remain the same. Mankato, Southwest, and Winona also have 3.50 minimum GPAs.
This would affect about 346 students, under the current criteria there are 1301
students who are on the Deans List each term. The proposed change would be
applicable to new Fall 2014 students and current students would have until the 20162017 year under the old criteria.
5. Other
VP Griggs shared an update on state authorization (institutions providing courses in
another state need authorization in that state). Work continues with meeting the
requirements, researching reciprocal agreements, and legislative changes.
Authorization has already been applied for and granted in some states. We may get
to a point where there are some states we can’t accept students from based on the
complexity and/or cost of the application. There was some conversation about being
exempt, but exemption can’t be claimed until authorization is granted.
6. Questions / comments from forum - Martin Tadlock
a. Academic Forum – VP Tadlock asked for any comments on the slides presented
at the academic forum. There was a follow-up question about the 60 credit major
and there being differing information in different documents. Experience from
prior institution has been that the expectation has been that no majors, except
Education and Accounting, are over 60 credits. There could be a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3
model where liberal education, major, and electives each make up 1/3 of a
degree program.
Discussion continued regarding course rotations and the ability to deliver majors
in 4 years. Doug mentioned that the average credit amount a student graduates
with is 132. A follow-up question was asked about graduation rates by program.
There are also a question about electives in the major and what is gained from
taking those electives.
VP Tadlock indicated program size will be reviewed department by department
next year as part of the MAP. There is interest is the marketability that multiple
awards would mean for students.
b. Enrollment – There was a question about when scholarship dollars from the
campaign will be available to students. At this point, the Foundation will release
that information as it is available.
c. FYE/FYRE Retention – There was a question about the retention of students
take FYE/FYRE. Doug provided that in the past those taking FYE did better than
those students who did not take FYE. He also mentioned that there wasn’t a lot
of difference among the type of FYE class (TRiO, etc.)
d. AAR – Dean Barta shared his experience visiting with students and parents at
AAR, specifically about international study opportunities. He promotes that if
they plan on this experience now it could impact their interest in staying.
Other (VP Tadlock)
e. Business Administration and Biology are considering whether to bring their
bachelor’s degrees to North Hennepin Community College in an on-ground
delivery method. There are 100-200 students there that would be interested in
these programs.
f. There are programs that our region needs that we don’t have the capacity to
deliver. One potential option is to collaborate with another state university to
offer that program at BSU, maybe in a 3+1 program where the student does the
first three years here, then does the last year by taking courses offered on the
BSU campus by the other state university (the degree granting institution would
be the state university partner). This has not been explored, but is something we
should talk about with faculty.
g. Faculty searches – we may be facing some failed searches. The national PhD
pool is shrinking and some potential candidates in high demand fields can find
positions that are paying six figures. This may raise some questions for us such
as: Why are we fixated on a terminal degree for all probationary positions? Can
some probationary positions be research focused positions and others teaching
focused positions?
h. Graduate Programs – According to a recent Pew study, bachelors and beyond
make the most impact on a student’s potential earnings.
i. Relocation of faculty – Question to consider: We recruit from anywhere – could
faculty teach from outside BSU? One comment received was regarding the 5
areas of the contract and faculty work on committees and advising may be
challenging if their presence is not on the campus.
Good News Sharing
j. There is a manufacturing training center in the works at NTC.
k. The summer pre-survey had 500 responses. We have 3.4% more courses than
last summer and are at about 50% enrollment compared to last year’s total
enrollment.
l. Adult Basic Education is being added back in at NTC.
Submitted by: Michelle Frenzel