Action Steps Bearing on Distinctive Identity

5. Action: improve mentoring/advising programs

a. Explanation: SFA continues to improve its advising of students. However, both faculty and students see need for additional improvements. Contact between student and adviser/mentor is particularly important during the initial years of college. Juniors, seniors and graduate students can assist faculty and staff in the advising/mentoring process.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by the percentage of first and second year students who know the name of their adviser/mentor and the percentage of first and second year students who meet with their adviser/mentor at least twice each semester.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost with the assistance of the Deans and the AdvisingCenter

11. Action: expand service learning and community involvement opportunities for students

a. Explanation: Cultural diversity can be experienced not just on-campus or through study abroad programs. The Nacogdoches community and the East Texas region provide new and different cultural environments for many of our students. Service learning and community-involvement projects provide structured opportunities for SFA students to experience cultural diversity. Furthermore, there are so many individuals and groups in the local and regional community that would welcome assistance from or interaction with members of the SFA community. Service-learning projects, both on and off campus, also provide an excellent way of integrating academics with the larger university and area communities.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by the percentage of SFA graduates who have participated in service-learning projects and the percentage of SFA students who have participated in community programs.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost with the assistance of the Deans

20. Action: increase participation in and success of SFA101 and Jack Camp

a. Explanation: SFA1O1, the universityís first-year seminar program, enrolls approximately 60 percent of the entering first-year class. It has in every one of its eight years of operation been found to improve the grades and retention of its students. SFA intends to seek ways to expand and improve the program so that it involves an even greater proportion of the first year class and shows even greater effects on grades and retention. Jack Camp is an optional three-day summer program for incoming students designed to establish friendships, learn about campus life, meet student leaders and become familiar with SFA traditions ó all in a relaxed camp atmosphere. Approximately 15 percent of incoming first-year students participate in Jack Camp.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by the percentage of first-year students participating in these programs and the GPA and retention differential of students who do and do not participate in these programs.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Executive Director of Enrollment Management

21. Action: increase the number of departments offering senior-year capstone/transition programs

a. Explanation: A studentís senior year provides an important opportunity to both look back and look forward. SFA should assist students in integrating what they have done in college and preparing them for their future. SFA wants to provide personalized assistance to students as they bring together their college experiences and translate college knowledge and experiences into life plans and job strategies. These senior-year capstone/transition programs can take a variety of curricular and non-curricular forms.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by the annual percentage of SFA graduates who have participated in a capstone/transition program.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost with the assistance of the Deans

22. Action: provide more assistance to students experiencing problems such as anxiety disorders, binge-drinking, sexually transmissible diseases and eating disorders

a. Explanation: A university which is concerned about the achievement of its students must recognize the high frequency certain problems among college students nationally. SFA should adopt a proactive stance regarding such things as anxiety disorders, binge-drinking, sexually transmitted diseases and eating disorders. It should help students recognize these problems, inform them of the harmful consequences and assist students in overcoming them. The university should enlist not only its own support offices such as theCounseling Center and HealthCenter but also faculty, staff and student organizations in this effort.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by average waiting time between student requests to meet with a counselor and the first meeting.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Vice-President for University Affairs

23. Action: increase links between extracurricular activities and the universityís mission and core values

a. Explanation: To be successful, students must learn from the entire college experience. The 1997 Kellogg Report (ìReturning to Our Roots: The Student Experience,î Washington,DC:

National Association of State Universities and Land-GrantColleges) speaks of a healthy learning environment where all college activities are extensions of the universityís central mission of student learning. We cannot afford to separate the 15 hours per week students spend in class from the much greater number of hours they spend in student activities, in residence halls, in student organizations and in conversations with their peers. As an institution we must strive for a more unified college experience in which academics and student life work together and support one another.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by the percentage of student organization charters that explicitly cite the universityís mission or core values.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Vice-President for University Affairs

24. Action: establish a regular university-sponsored lecture series

a. Explanation: SFA already has a speaker series organized through Student Activities and lectures sponsored by individual colleges, departments and groups of faculty. This needs to be expanded to include a university-sponsored lecture series which would offer the students, faculty and staff the opportunity to join together outside of their traditional academic enclaves to listen and learn as a university community. Several lectures a semester should be held with both local and national speakers. A lecture series would make SFA more of a laboratory for learning, an arena for debate and a center for the dissemination of information. Using speakers who represent a wide range of viewpoints will not only generate interest in the lecture series but also assist the university in its obligation to present students with different perspectives. A lecture series would also bring prestige to SFA, engage the population in this area of the state, create excitement among the faculty and the staff, and be of significant value to the educational growth of the student body.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by total annual attendance at lectures as a percentage of the student population.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost

25. Action: encourage all students starting their very first semester to participate in a co-curricular or extracurricular organization

a. Explanation: It is well-established that students who quickly develop a sense of identification with a college will make great efforts to stay at that college. Such a sense of identification need not occur only within the classroom. It can also occur socially through campus organizations. While the danger of over-involvement in organizational life is real, the dangers of under-involvement are just as great if not greater.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could, be assessed by the percentage of first-year students who report belonging to at least one cocurricular or extracurricular organization.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Vice-President for University Affairs

26. Action: create more residence-based learning communities

a. Explanation: Learning communities bring together students with similar academic interests. Residential learning communities allow students with similar academic interests to reside together on particular floors of residence halls. Residential learning communities have been found to increase academic interests while also supporting friendships and college retention. SFA already has an academic enrichment hail and an academic excellence hail. Additional residence-based learning communities should be created.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by the percentage of students living in a residence-based learning community.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Vice-President for University Affairs with the Provost.

27. Action: turn more class projects into service-learning opportunities by making public presentations, poster sessions and open-houses more common

a. Explanation: These types of service learning give students an opportunity to think about and communicate what they have learned and done. They provide occasions for bringing different campus groups together as well as bringing more members of the public to campus. While many of these presentations, sessions and open-houses might bring just a few visitors, those few add up over time; furthermore, some presentations may have substantial interest across campus, in local schools and among the general public.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by the number of announcements appearing in mySFA for course based presentations, poster sessions, or other course-based events open to the public.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost with the assistance of the Deans.

28. Action: establish a ìCampus Visual Identity Committeeî to advise the university In regards to the purchase and placement of art on the campus, landscape design, the renovation of university structures and new construction

a. Explanation: SFA is well known for its attractive campus. How a university campus looks is an outward manifestation of its value system. Although SFA has done a credible job in the past, there has been no coordinated effort in this regard. The result is that the campus has not reached its full visual potential. The visual opportunities created by new construction are not fully realized, various highly visible buildings need attention and opportunities for the purchase of public art on the campus grounds and in its hallways and offices are being neglected. The Campus Visual Identity Committee could provide focus and coordinated leadership to guide the university into a more forceful aesthetic stance. The presence of student and faculty art on campus would provide a vital forum for the exchange of ideas regarding aesthetic theory between artists and the university population as a whole.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by whether or not such a committee is created and becomes operational on campus.

c. Office responsible for implementation: President

29. Action: create an Implementation advisory committee for the masteries approach

a. Explanation: Developing a masteries-based view of the curriculum will be a complex task. What is proposed is not just a public relations gimmick but rather a thorough reorientation of what a college curriculum provides. Therefore, an on-going committee will be established to organize, monitor and recommend actions to the provost. The committee would recommend ways of informing the campus about the masteries approach, which mastery areas to consider, which courses substantially teach which mastery areas and how much course work in the mastery areas would be required for graduation.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by whether or not an advisory committee is created and utilized.

c. Office responsible for implementation: President

30. Action: provide the campus with further information and learning opportunities about the masteries approach

a. Explanation: The successful implementation of this masteries based approach will require buy-in from a variety of groups on campus. Such buy-in should be based on a thorough understanding of what is being proposed. Therefore, the first semester after the publication of this strategic plan should be devoted to information dissemination, discussion and feedback to the implementation advisory committee and to the provost. Representatives from universities already using a masteries-based approach should come to SFA. The faculty excellence center called for elsewhere in this plan could also play a part in showing how masteries can be taught.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by amount and quality of information released to campus concerning masteries approach.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost

31. Action: adopt a set of masteries to expect of all SFA graduates and identify the courses and other initiatives by which these masteries can be attained

a. Explanation: Once the campus is clear on what a masteries approach involves, then discussion of the skill areas, both individually and as a set, should follow. For each skill area there should be discussion of what constitutes the skill, ways it can be effectively taught and methods of assessing student skill mastery. Once again, presentations by persons from both on and off campus would be of value. While some departments may propose new courses to teach these skills, most will probably identify existing courses as presently taught or with minor changes which address a particular mastery area. Some masteries may be partially supported by university initiatives rather than specific course work. A year might be used for the campus discussion and course identification of the initial two mastery areas and another year for an additional two or three mastery areas.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by the number of masteries adopted as graduation requirements.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost

32. Action: put in place and continually refine methods by which the university can determine that the knowledge and skill areas are, in fact, being mastered

a. Explanation: If mastery areas are to be one of the distinctive characteristics of an SFA education, then the university must substantiate the claim that its graduates have mastered those skill areas. This should not be done by an exam of students at the time they apply for graduation since that would be both administratively cumbersome and anxiety-producing for students. Nevertheless, the university must develop assessment mechanisms by which to continually improve the ability of the university to deliver on its distinctive promise.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by whether or not assessment mechanisms are in place for each mastery adopted as a graduation requirement.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost

46. Action: help health care providers identify and assist underserved populations in East Texas

a. Explanation: Not all regional residents have access to and receive good quality health care. In particular, individuals living in poverty often fail to receive adequate care. SFA intends to work with public and private health care providers to improve the services received by the poor in our region. Efforts in this regard may take many forms including working to obtain grants to improve health care, changes in health care rules, helping to improve the Spanish-speaking skills of health care providers, mapping of underserved areas and areas with .high incidence of particular illnesses.

b. Implementation: Progress on this action could be assessed by mortality and morbidity rates for the poor in the region.

c. Office responsible for implementation: Provost with the assistance of the Deans.

Return to Distinctive Identity Implementation homepage. | SFA Home