Winona State University

Office of Assessment

NCA Steering Committee
Meeting Notes

April 8th, 1998

The Highlights:
1. I distributed another stack of materials. I sent them to those who were not at the meeting.
2. Fridays at 1 continue to be the best time to meet.
3. Lee Gray volunteered to be the communications coordinator, once we get rolling and need to keep in touch with deans, dept chairs, program directors, etc.
4. We will be organizing (along with Long Range Planning) the fall leadership retreat in August.
5. We will want to look at the templates the education department used for syllabi and faculty vitae for ncate.
6. We subdivided into small groups to begin outlining the criteria.
Sub groups are:

Criteria 1 (Mission): Linda
Criteria 2 (Resources): Chuck, Keith, and Vernon
Criteria 3 (Purposes): Paul and Fred
Criteria 4 (Planning): Susan and Peter
Criteria 5 (Integrity): Lee, Troy and Tim

It seems like looking at how we responded to the criteria in the 1991 would be a good place to start, keeping in mind that the criteria themselves may have chanced some in the meantime. I also have outlines of several other schools more recent reports in my office -- it would probably be a good idea to come over here (soms 211) and take a good look at them, too. Essentially, what we need is an outline of where we want to go in each criteria, keeping in mind that the purpose of the report is self study (self evaluation), and not simply description. So while in this outline we will be primarily outlining descriptive areas, keep in mind that we will also objectively review the effectiveness of what we are describing.
We will also need to start identifying what kind of information we will need in order to conduct the self study -- that is, who can tell us what (faculty, department chairs, deans, etc.)

7. Subgroups will present their outlines (and keep copies on microsoft word!)
at our meeting on May 1st from 1-3 in Soms 213B.

August 17th

This meeting was dedicated to the Leadership Retreat and discovering ways to facilitate collecting the information that we need. Members from Long Range Planning have agreed to co-facilitate the table discussions.

August 19th

The Leadership Retreat. We spent the entire day facilitating the discussions of the different criteria, gathering information, and presenting back to the campus leadership on the types of information we will need in order to conduct the self study. This session served as the official "Kick Off " to the NCA accreditation self study. Participants seemed to leave the session with an understanding of the criteria against WSU will be evaluated and the types of information required to conduct the self study.

August 31 memo

First of all, please accept my thanks for all your hard work at the Leadership Retreat!!!! I think it went well -- we established the nature of the NCA visit, gained some valuable information, and highlighted some of the information that we will be requesting in the future. More importantly, we established our credibility and competence, which will pay off significantly throughout the entire self study process.

So what happens next?

Here's what needs to happen next:

1. I would like the NCA folks who facilitated the topic tables get together and combine the information that you received. You may invite your long range planning cofacilitator if you would like, or just meet amongst yourselves.
What would be especially helpful is if you would look at the information that you received along with the previously developed outlines that you put together for the various criteria. Ultimately, what we'll need for each criterion is a revised outline along with a list of information / processes needed to collect the supporting data/documentation.

Timeline: Could each pair of facilitators plan to get together by ** September 18th ** to combine information, look over the outline and see what else needs to happen in terms of collecting information? Please contact each other and make arrangements for a meeting prior to the 18th.

September 25
I think that we're starting to get a handle on the self study process. The big thing now is to get the process *moving* -- for the next meeting, we will need to identify who has information that we need, and we need to figure out how this information builds upon itself. (In other words, there is probably some kind of hierarchy to our information gathering, and we need to figure out that order). Remember -- our steering committee probably isn't going to be doing a lot of the actual writing of the report -- what we need to do is assist in the gathering of the relevant information and formation of the appropriate group/s to really study the information and provide a summary / analysis.

For our next meeting, please look over your outlines and identify who needs to be contacted about what information. we'll get it all together and figure out a plan of attack. (And also a plan to collect and manage the information).

***The next meeting will be Friday, October 16th at 9:00 a.m. in SOMS 213.**