Student Learning Outcomes at
Pacific Heritage Community College
Pacific Heritage Community College (PHCC)i serves 11,500 students. PHCC
was established over 75 years ago by the citizens of Pacific County and provides higher
education to the area’s 500,000 residents. Due to the college's location, PHCC is for
many the only affordable option for postsecondary education in the region. The school's
motto is: "The Future…in real time!"
The college has established four institutional level outcomes based on four core
competencies: critical thinking, environmental sensitivity, communication and live-long
learning. The college began assessment in 2007 with voluntary faculty participating in a
curriculum and assessment program for one of the core competencies –
communication.
The college has 45 academic “departments”, but only offers 12 degrees due the
small size of a number of the departments (e.g. physics, astronomy and philosophy).
The college also offers 8 career and technical degrees and certificates including
cosmetology, allied health, construction technology and welding. Outside of the
standard degrees and certificates, the college has had a difficult time defining a
“program” because a large percentage of the students that come to PHCC and want to
transfer to the regional state university without securing an associate’s degree. In
addition, the college serves a large military student body from three local installations
who attend the college in short and unpredictable intervals due to the deployment and
reassignment. Finally, PHCC’s noncredit center has multiple curricula avenues such as
ESL, GED, high school diploma and family literacy because the local adult school in the
K-12 setting is financially-strapped.
PHCC has 10 departments in the student services division: admissions and
records, financial aid, transfer and placement, DSPS, EOPS, CARE, athletics, academic
support, student affairs, counseling. The student services division has an overarching
learning outcome that students will learn to navigate the educational system to reach
their individual academic goals. Each of the departments has learning outcomes for
students that feed into the division goal.
In 2003, PHCC created an ad hoc SLO steering committee whose charge was to
look at the new ACCJC standards with respect to student learning outcomes
assessment. The ad hoc committee became a standing committee of the college in
2005. The college appointed a faculty member from the chemistry department as SLO
coordinator who was given release time of .2 for the 2003 to 2006 academic years. The
release time was increased to .4 in 2007 and 2008. The SLO coordinator has indicated
that it is difficult to work with the other divisions of the college on the existing release
time schedule and has requested an additional .2 release time. The college has agreed
to add the .2 release time, but wants a counselor to act as the student services liaison
to assure that the student services division’s needs are met. Thus, the SLO coordinator
would remain at .2 release time and a counselor would be allocated the same amount to
handle the student services division. The academic senate requested that the release
time be increased to .6, but the college has indicated that the .4 is sufficient.
In 2008, the SLO coordinator resigned his position to focus on coursework again
and the academic senate appointed a faculty member from the economics department
to take over as the SLO coordinator.
As of spring 2009, 82% of the courses have SLOs identified at PHCC; 45% of the
courses have an assessment method identified; 11% have assessed the SLO and 4.5%
have closed the loop.
In the Student Services division, all ten of the departments have identified SLOs
and the assessment methods. In fall 2008, the college brought in a trainer on SLOs and
the student services division decided that the SLOs that were written were not high
enough on Bloom’s taxonomy and focused on lower level thinking. The division decided
in 2008 to rewrite all of the SLOs using higher leveled thinking to raise the analysis from
objectives to outcomes. As a result, all of the SLOs are new as of spring 2009 and
assessment is happening this semester. The Student Services division decided that to
continue to work on the inadequately written SLOs from the past would not be the best
use of time.
The college has no administrative unit outcomes identified and no program
review is currently conducted on administrative departments in any unified manner.
Some departments, such as maintenance and operations and the bookstore
systematically look at the impact their departments have on student success, but the
analysis models has not been shared with other administrative units.
In a recent survey of the school faculty and staff, the research department asked
whether there was a general feeling on the campus that SLO assessment was a viable
method to improve student learning; only 4.9% agreed and 53.7% somewhat agreed.
Importantly, 17% somewhat disagreed and 5.1% disagreed.
The college has experienced some push back on the SLO process mainly from
the college’s faculty union which indicates that the assessment process needs to be
bargained. The college administration has indicated that the assessment process
should be completed on flex days. Alternatively, the college administration has
indicated that at the end of each semester the college hold “assessment’ days - when
the entire college would close down to focus on student learning. The college faculty
wants the work done more systematically with faculty paid on stipends. The manner of
and method of SLO assessment has yet to be resolved.
The college has established 1 SLO per course for assessment each year and
three SLOs per course for identification. A number of the departments have had
significant difficulty coming up with common SLOs for a course due to differing teaching
pedagogies and territoriality of some of the faculty. In some classes, the same SLO is
being identified, but faculty are using differing methods to measure the SLO.
The SLOs are used as part of the program review process in 45% of the
instructional programs, 40% of the student services departments and 0% in the
administrative units. Results from the departmental discussions are not disseminated to
the college at large.
Course level SLOs are published in the syllabi in 95% of the courses and
program level outcomes are posted in the offices in 25% of the departments and in
departmental literature. Only 15% of the course level SLOs are published on the
website; no course level SLOs are published in the catalog. The SLOs are located in
the course outlines of record, but a recent analysis showed that 17% of the course
outlines of record had old or inaccurate SLO information.
For distance education, course level SLOs are published in the syllabi in 75% of
the courses and program level outcomes are posted on the web in 25% of the
departments and in departmental literature. No program level SLOs are currently
published on the distance education server.
Some of the college departments are run exclusively by adjunct instructors. The
college’s growing distance education program has increased the number of part-time
faculty also. Most adjunct faculty have evidenced a willingness to participate in the SLO
assessment process, but most are fully employed in the community. Time constraints
or lack of payment for the time have been the biggest barriers to adjunct faculty
involvement in outcomes assessment at the institution.
At the program level in student services, the SLOs are printed in all literature and
on the walls of the departments.
Real-world assessments have been created in the arts and CTE programs.
However, authentic assessment in traditional soft sciences and humanities has not yet
occurred on the campus.
15% of the departments use the SLOs are part of the planning and budget
process.
Assessment plans have been created for most of the courses and for the
programs that have been clearly identified, especially degree and certificate programs.
The research capacity at the college is strained and the research duties are
handled by an economics instructor with statistical training who is placed on release
time to complete the work.
The college recently invited three major commercial producers of software
technology to manage assessment data. The College’s academic senate refused to
approve any of the three indicating that to do so would increase faculty workload under
the contract. The academic senate has indicated that such data work is clerical in
nature and should be done by staff personnel, not faculty. The college used the existing
MIS department to come up with a home-grown model for database management using
the Nichols 5 model. Data is input manually in cells which populate a database
management system.
In 2007, the College initiated “SLO Fridays” once a month to increase campus
dialogue of SLOs. Attendance at the events is erratic depending on the topic.
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PHCC is a purely fictional institution and information has been created by the presenters for educational purposes.