AY 2012/2013
Unit Strategic Planning Report
Unit: Music
Reporting Authority: Todd Shiver
Date: October 30, 2013
A: Please complete the column titled “Outcome Assessment” on your own Unit Strategic
Plan. Complete with as much detail as you can provide. Where you cannot obtain data to
complete the assessment, put “Data not available.” in the space. See attached spreadsheet.
B. Please summarize each of the University’s Five Core Themes from your Unit Strategic
Plan Outcome Assessment report.
1. Teaching and Learning
Graduation rates have been a concern in our department, they need to improve. We feel as a
department that more informed advising and properly tracking our majors would help improve
graduation rates. As a result of the department strategic planning process and concerns expressed
by NASM during the reaccreditation process, the department received a new staff position that
will serve as the advisor/recruiter for the music department. We will be able to assess the impact
of this position over time as we track our graduation rates. The immediate impact will be the
reassigning of FT faculty load devoted to advising back to the classroom, which should impact
the quality of instruction and decrease our adjunct teaching needs.
Other concerns were expressed in our NASM reaccreditation process and we are addressing
those concerns as this report is being addressed. The biggest impact on our department is the
fact that we will have to eliminate our BA Jazz degree. This degree did not meet NASM
standards for liberal arts degrees and will be transitioned to a certificate program available to all
of our majors as an enhancement to their program of study. Other concerns dealt with educating
our faculty and students about musician’s hearing health and safety, and the institution’s
definition of a credit hour. There were also concerns expressed about the accuracy of our online
catalog listings, many of these inaccuracies occurred when the catalog went from a hard copy to
an electronic catalog (errors of transcription). All concerns have been addressed in our optional
response to the NASM visitor’s report.
The department annual assessment of student learning is in progress at the time of this report, so
our findings are inconclusive at this point. We have been looking at our core music classes in
the music theory sequence, and also the effectiveness of our new tracking system for the required
recital/concert attendance for all music majors. Next year we are going to access the performing
ensembles and the applied study.
In response to APTF concerns about our graduate program, we have added a summer graduate
program in music education. This program was in its second year last summer (2013) and had
24 students enrolled. We anticipate this number to be around 36 students next summer and our
goal is to maintain this number each summer.
Our faculty have all gone through the appropriate RPT and PTR evaluations and all have
received acceptable evaluations. Currently there are no professional development plans in effect
in our department.
2. Inclusiveness and Diversity
Unfortunately inclusiveness and diversity can mean that we recruit all of the instrumentation
needs of the department. In reality this university objective seems to be speaking about ethnic
diversity more that diversity of instrumentation. We are hoping that with the addition of the
department advisor/recruiter position that we will be able to target under represented populations
in our recruiting for musically talented students. Our goal is to reflect the diversity that is found
in the general university population.
We would like to have additional scholarship funds that can be used to attract musically talented
students from underrepresented groups. We would like to focus on the Tri-Cities area and
Wenatchee. Currently the university offers two waivers to the winners of the Wenatchee
Mariachi Festival, but there are no obligations for these students to major in music or to
participate in music at CWU associated with these awards. This would be an excellent
opportunity to recruit under represented students to our program.
We would like to add a full-time musicologist to our faculty so that our students can learn about
music from different cultures from someone who is an expert in the field and current in the
scholarship. Currently we feel that Jazz history is our multi-cultural offering in the general
education curriculum. We would like to see jazz history required for our black studies students.
3. Scholarship and Creative Expression
According to the CBA each full time faculty member receives $700 per year for faculty
development. The department depends on summer income to supplement these faculty
development funds as well as the department operating budget. Unfortunately the department
has not earned enough summer funds to supplement faculty development over the past 3
summers. However, through better management of summer offerings and the growth of our
summer masters, we are anticipating a large increase in the department share of the summer
revenue. In anticipation of this increase, we have awarded our probationary faculty an additional
$1,000 for faculty development.
The department has consistently received funding for sabbaticals with Hal Ott, Mark
Goodenberger, and Larry Gookin each receiving one quarter sabbaticals. While one-year
sabbaticals are more preferable and allow for more comprehensive research, given the nature of
the music program it would be difficult to grant sabbaticals of this duration without having a
negative impact on the program.
4. Public Service and Community Engagement
Given the amount of volunteer hours it takes to organize and host festivals, workshops,
competitions, conferences and camps, and to put on concerts and recitals. A vast majority of our
students donate their time to making these events successful. At least 250+ students volunteer
each year as the department hosts these events that bring tens of thousands of visitors to our
campus each year.
Hosting these festivals can also be a burden on our staff, especially the fiscal tech who has to
process all of the various expenses associated with the festival. We would like to increase the
hours of our fiscal tech position, which is now 5 hours a day or 25 hours a week. This would
allow this position to stay current and to do more than just pay the bills.
We have collected audience data from concerts and recitals during spring quarter 2013. We are
currently looking for someone who can take this data and supply the department with an
economic impact statement.
5. Resource Development and Stewardship
The department has depended on self-support generated revenue to make up for budget short
falls for so many years that self-support has become a part of the department’s culture. This fact
is true in the fact that the department no longer requests much needed additional operating funds
and ensemble operating funds, but it is constantly looking for entrepreneurial opportunities to
generate these much needed funds. Most recently the department has had fund raising success in
three different areas: Summer class revenue, summer camps, and S&A funding.
The addition of a summer masters, with 24 graduate students enrolled, has generated additional
summer income for the department that can be used to supplement faculty development and the
department operating budget. The summer camps (with over 200 students this past summer
2013) generate a summer income for housing and food services and will eventually create
additional funds for the department that can be used to supplement operating budgets. The
department successfully requested a 4-year base budget from S&A for $60,000 per year or
$240,000 total for student travel.
According to our NASM visitors report, the department needs to be a better steward of classroom
management and elective load for full-time faculty.
The department has a replacement plan for desktop computers/software found in faculty offices
and for technology found in the classrooms and labs. However, it has no funding in place to
maintain this replacement schedule. In addition, it would like to expand its technology into by
adding screens and internet access to our jazz, choir and instrumental rehearsal rooms. Currently
there is no funding to upgrade or to add technology in our class/rehearsal rooms.
Toward which theme(s) did you make progress, and how are students benefitting from
this?
The addition of a full-time advisor/recruiter to our staff will make a big impact on our
department especially in the areas of teaching and learning, Inclusiveness and Diversity. This
should improve the advising of our 400+ majors, which will hopefully improve our graduation
rates through more consistent advising and better tracking of our students. This also gives our
students access to a professional advisor who will have an open door policy, 40 hours per week.
The recruiter hat that this position wears will make for more targeted recruiting and more
organized recruiting. This will hopefully result in attracting musically talented students from
under represented populations as well as better meeting the instrumentation needs of the
department.
Which theme(s) deserve special attention next year?
Resource Development and Stewardship
Inclusiveness and Diversity
C. How do you intend to utilize the data gathered this year to assist you in developing
stronger programs?
Obviously the department graduation rate is a concern; hopefully the addition of a full-time
advisor/recruiter will make a difference. Immediate improvements will be difficult to evaluate,
but over time we should see an improvement in our graduation rates.
The elimination of the BA Jazz degree will be a difficult challenge, but the addition of a jazz
certificate will have a more positive impact on all of our majors. Again, immediate effects will
be difficult to monitor but how this evolves over a few years will tell the story.
Stewardship: The reassignment of faculty load (as recommended in our NASM assessment) from
elective hours to more curricular teaching will be a challenge. Advising load previously
assigned to faculty advisors will need to be reassigned now that we have a full-time
advisor/recruiter. We also need to monitor the enrollment of our classes and combine sections
when numbers allow.
D. Based on your learning from this first year report, what parts of your strategic plan will
you modify, add to, or omit for next year? (Please attach an updated Strategic Plan with
changes highlighted.) Suggested changes are highlighted in red deletions are in red with
strikethrough on the spreadsheet.