We have identified three core commitments that will inform the organization of our Self-Study, shape our research questions, and determine our goals for the accreditation process.
The last WASC visiting team praised CSULB’s shared decision making and our high level of collegiality, but they raised questions about the effectiveness of the decentralized nature of our organizational structure. CSULB faces several key organizational issues at this moment in its history:
Communicating effectively in a large, complex environment,
Making effective decisions at the university, division and unit levels, with particular attention to planning for anticipated growth and pervasive technology,
Implementing our new program review process in order to improve student retention, graduation, and learning outcomes assessment.
This is the question we propose to study in our Capacity Review:
Following are the questions we propose to study in our Effectiveness Review:
As a result of examining these issues, we expect to attain several results. First, we expect to assess our communication practices and understand how to improve communication. Second, we expect to assess our decision making practices and understand how to improve those practices, particularly for planning enrollment growth and technology. Third, we expect to assess our new Program Review process and better understand how to use it to drive the student learning outcomes assessment process.
CSULB currently faces several key staffing challenges that are particularly urgent at this point in time:
Recruiting and retaining dedicated and diverse faculty and staff,
Following are the questions we propose to study in our Capacity Review:
What are our current challenges with respect to recruiting, retaining, and supporting a highly qualified and diverse faculty, particularly as they relate to workload, salary, and satisfaction?
What are our current challenges with respect to recruiting, retaining, and supporting a highly qualified and diverse staff, particularly as they relate to workload, salary, opportunities for advancement, and employee satisfaction?
Following are the questions we propose to study in our Effectiveness Review:
As a result of examining these issues, we expect to attain several results. We expect to develop a recruitment strategy that attracts and retains diverse, high-quality faculty and staff with a genuine commitment to the university’s mission. We expect to better align our personnel policies and practices with the university’s current mission. We expect to better align our reward system to support curricular and instructional innovation grounded in the assessment of student learning. We expect that program assessment plans will integrate the assessment of student learning into the faculty’s existing workload to the fullest extent possible.
We have identified a set of current challenges to study regarding the quality of our programs and how this relates to student retention and graduation.
Using assessment data to improve student success,
Removing barriers to graduation,
Using learning outcomes in academic programs and General Education,
Integrating student learning outcomes in programs and services outside the classroom,
Identifying assessment practices that can be incorporated into existing faculty workload,
Meeting expectations of employers and graduate schools.
Following are the questions we propose to study in our Capacity Review. With each of these questions, our focus will be upon examining the processes and organizational structures that underlie our capacity to be effective.
What is our current pattern of retention and graduation rates by department, college and student subgroups and what are our institutional practices to respond to this pattern?
What are our current common barriers to graduation, with particular emphasis on high failure rate courses, the Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement, and advising?
Following are the questions we propose to study in our Educational Effectiveness Review. With each of these questions, our focus will be upon examining the results of our efforts with respect to each of the issues that we examined in the Capacity Review.
As a result of examining these issues, we expect to attain several results. We expect to foster a campus-wide commitment to student success. We expect an increase in our retention and graduation rates. We expect an increase in student success in current high failure rate courses and an alleviation of common academic problems preventing graduation. We expect widespread use of learning outcomes data by colleges and departments, as well as in General Education, to shape curricular and instructional innovation and thus improve student success. We expect to better integrate student learning outcomes in our programs and services outside the classroom. Finally, we expect modifications to our academic programs based on the perceptions of our graduates by both employers and graduate schools.
