November 28, 2011 Planning Committee Meeting

The Planning Committee of the Board of Trustees of Illinois Valley Community College District No. 513 met at 5 p.m. on Monday November 28, 2011 in the Board Room-C307 at Illinois Valley Community College.

Committee Members Physically Present

Michael C. Driscoll, Committee Chair
Melissa M. Olivero                  

Committee Members Absent

James A. Narczewski

Board Members Physically Present

David O. Mallery

Others Physically Present

Jerry Corcoran, President
Rick Pearce, Vice President for Learning and Student Development
Cheryl Roelfsema, Vice President for Business Services and Finance
Lori Scroggs, Vice President for Planning and Institutional Effectiveness
Bob Mattson, Institutional Research Director

The meeting was called to order at 5 p.m. by Dr. Driscoll.

SYSTEMS APPRAISAL FEEDBACK REPORT

The Systems Appraisal Feedback Report is prepared by a team of faculty and administrative consultant appraisers on behalf of the Higher Learning Commission and AQIP.  A team of seven appraisers from varied colleges, community colleges, and universities worked together to respond to the 100-page Systems Portfolio submitted by IVCC’s Accreditation Team in the spring of 2011.  Included in the report are any identified accreditation issues, strategic issues, an executive summary that outlines the main points in each of the nine AQIP categories and areas of strengths and opportunities.  IVCC met all five criteria and their associated components for accreditation.  There were no accreditation issues.  Every college has strategic issues and there were six strategic issues identified.  1) IVCC does have an assessment process, but the results were not ready until the summer.  Therefore, the appraisal team did not see everything.  Not all of the processes are aligned.  The results from assessment need to be reviewed by the leadership and taken into consideration through the strategic plan. This will occur over time.  The priorities need to influence the budget. Dr. Scroggs provided a sample of how the College might improve and align planning.  2) The primary objective of IVCC is to help students learn, but it has other objectives.  Community colleges try to be all things to all people.  The Systems Portfolio did not clearly articulate other objectives that make IVCC unique, such as the only institution in a 50-mile radius.  There is a special need to form partnerships with high schools and higher education institutions. The College needs to identify this and measure it.  3) Based on feedback from students, the College makes improvements and measures it.  IVCC does a good job on feedback from students, but needs more feedback from external stakeholders – business and industry, venders, donors, alumni, etc.  The College does not have a systematic process to receive feedback from external stakeholders.  4) The College has systems and processes that are being put together, but it needs to close the loop.  Targets need to be set, changes and improvements made, measured again, and continuously improve.  A trend is worth three years of data.  The College should be going in that direction now.  5) When AQIP was new there was quite a bit of participation from the staff.  As employees got busier, it became harder for them to donate their time to serve on committees.  The College needed incentivizing.  A good example of this is incorporating engagement hours in the new faculty contract.  Along with office hours, faculty must engage themselves in the life of the College through committees, advisors of student organizations, activities, etc.  The plan is to carry this out for other staff to be involved.  6) The Institutional Research and Information Technology areas collect a great amount of data.  The appraisal report asked how the College communicates the existence of the data to people who may need it for decisions.  The new employee orientation is attended by two members of the Institutional Research department and they discuss where this information is available. 

IVCC only responds to the appraisal report if information is very wrong.  In April of 2012, a strategy forum will take place where a team of IVCC employees and one board member will meet with people from the accreditation team and other colleges.  They work together and discuss the issues that they struggle with when responding to the strategic plan.  Part of the overall cycle is an accreditation team visit which will take place in February of 2013.  The team will physically be on campus and will check for accuracy on what was said in the systems portfolio document.  In the meantime, IVCC will maintain its strengths, address the opportunities, and achieve the intent of the strategic objectives.  IVCC is working on a plan and will have it in place before the forum. 

HERI STUDY

The Higher Education Research Institute survey was administered in 2005, 2008 and now 2011 and is aimed at measuring trend data about faculty values, practices and opinions.  Having trend data that spans six years is the chief benefit of using standardized surveys like the HERI Faculty Survey.  This survey helps to compare IVCC faculty with others on how they feel about their job.  It does not ask a lot of questions about student engagement, but mainly focuses on the faculty jobs and their feelings of their job.  A majority of the IVCC faculty participated.  There were no red flags.  The data was compiled and compared over the last six years and an executive summary was prepared.  The committee noticed more of a sense of service in the last five years. Faculty feel they need to incorporate service, going green, and to develop initiatives to keep people active in the community.  This is also a nation-wide trend.  There was a decline observed in faculty perceptions of the academic preparedness of students and this has been reviewed by the academic team.  This has also been seen in placement testing.  IVCC has been trying to increase the work that it does with the high schools.  The survey was frustrating and lengthy and some of the questions conflicted with one another.  This could be a result from the clarity of the questions and the results may reflect this.  The Institutional Research committee is looking at other external surveys.  By fall of 2012 a decision will be made on whether to continue with HERI, find another survey, or develop an internal survey.  Dr. Driscoll asked if the Institutional Research committee could identify three or four trends.

IPEDS REPORT

This is one of the few reports online and open to everyone and every college.  The intent is to have it available for students and parents to compare the information in selecting a college.  One of IVCC’s strengths is the percentage of students receiving certificates and degrees.  IVCC students are more degree oriented than some of its peer institutions.  IVCC has fewer students that have been using financial aid services and initiatives are in place to increase this number, but the awards are higher than the peer group.   Housing costs are slightly higher than the peer colleges and tuition is slightly lower.  The net price for attendance is fairly similar.

NCCBP REPORT

The National Community College Benchmarking Project offers a method of comparing over 140 measures between community colleges across the nation.  IVCC has taken part in the growing survey for the past five years, and is currently one of over 275 participants, 20 of which are Illinois community colleges.  It is the most comprehensive comparison among community colleges.  IVCC uses it to trend against itself and against other colleges.  This report can also be used for best practices.  If a College scores poorly in one area, there is a feature in which contacts are provided from the best colleges. This report is difficult to read because it is hard to switch from percentage from other reports to percentile rank.  Items of concern or items to be noted were identified

PROGRAM REVIEW REPORT

The Program Review Report was submitted to the Illinois Community College Board.  Programs are reviewed on a five-year cycle.  The Paraprofessional Educator Program enrolls a small number of students, but all courses in the program are also required by education majors; therefore, class sizes are good.  There is not a high demand for this degree because most prefer to take a test rather than receive a certificate or degree and the test is much faster and not hard.  In the future, it might be possible that the State will require a certificate in this area.  The program is relatively inexpensive to operate.  There have been no enrollments in the process course unique to the Process Operations Technology certificate.  The program was developed in response to being approached by a local leader in the chemical field and then not requiring employees to have the certificate for a job. The advisory council for this program met and is looking at the possibility of moving this program to the Continuing Education area and offering it on demand.  The Horticulture program has been struggling and efforts have been made to promote the program. There have been no signs of improvement.  IVCC has reached out to the College of ACES at the University of Illinois. There is a huge demand for crop science and IVCC’s horticulture program would couple well with the crop science program.  IVCC is hoping to establish a dual enrollment program with the College of ACES.  The Auto program has seen a decrease in the number of degrees awarded.  Employment opportunities focus on certificates.  The degree program is a ladder program in which students start earning specialty credentials prior to moving toward the AAS degree.  Many students obtain jobs in these specialty areas and do not continue their education for a degree.  The auto program plans to reach out to students who have received certificates and encourage them to come back for a degree.  Having the degree program helps with accreditation from the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation and having the accreditation is a draw to area students.  There was a question regarding internships for Industrial Maintenance students, but most certificates do not have internships built into the program.  Rick Pearce will check on this.  Also, Rick Pearce has been discussing internships with Jean-Batson Turner for the Certificates in Substance Abuse Treatment since Sheridan has discontinued this program.

BOARD POLICY MANUAL – SECTIONS 5 AND 6

Board members reviewed Sections 5 and 6 of the Board Policy Manual.   

Suggestions:

• Policy 5.2 – Institutional Planning - Add the strategic planning process diagram.
• Policy 5.3 – Learning Resources, Community Borrowers – Add a statement that speaks to the consequences if materials and equipment are not returned to the library.
• Policy 5.4 – Records Retention – Include the form that is sent to the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State, Division of Archives and Records before documents can be destroyed.
• Policy 6.3 – Drug-Free Work Place – The committee discussed changes to this policy, but decided to leave as is.
• Policy 6.9 – Sex Offenses on Campus – Add the statement “the College will fully cooperate with law enforcement procedures.”
• Policy 6.10 – Sexual and Other Harassment – It is a direct conflict of interest for an instructor to be dating a student.  In the second paragraph under IV, it was suggested to include dating relationship after sexual advancement.  Rick Pearce will discuss with the faculty president, Steve Alvin.
• Policy 6.11 – Smoking/Tobacco Use – A survey was conducted with other community colleges on their smoking policies.  Four or five tried a smoke-free environment, but had difficulty enforcing the issue.  A wellness committee will be formed next semester.
• Policy 6.12 – Sustainability – It was suggested that the College needs a KPI with measures to go along with this new policy.

ADJOURNMENT

It was moved by Ms. Olivero, seconded by Dr. Driscoll, and carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting at 7:15 p.m.