Update on QEP from President Martin

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From the Office of the President, April 25, 2017–

I want to extend my thanks to all in the St. Edward’s University community who welcomed the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) on-site committee to our campus earlier this month as part of our normal process of re-accreditation. The committee expressly stated that it felt a sense of true hospitality and that St. Edward’s stands as an “example of an institution whose mission permeates every corner of the campus, from its curriculum to its co-curricular activities to its way of thinking and talking about the purpose of higher education in general.” In particular, I want to thank those on the on-site logistical and technical teams who made themselves available around the clock to support the needs of our visitors.

QEP
A major focus of an on-site visit is the review of the required Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP).  Reflecting the fine work of our QEP committees, the on-site committee praised our proposed QEP as noble and ambitious and in keeping with our Holy Cross mission. They did, however, offer some specific and very useful recommendations about the QEP design:

  • Narrow the focus of QEP activities by honing and articulating a clearer definition of “vocation.”
  • Reduce the number of student learning outcomes to be tracked.
  • Consider piloting the QEP within a smaller subset, such as a school or a group of targeted majors.

These recommendations are intended to be helpful and ensure the success of the QEP going forward.  They will allow us to re-engage in community dialogue that will sharpen the focus and reduce the scope to be more manageable and measurable.

Next Steps
The university will prepare a written response to the recommendations and submit it to SACSCOC by September 7, 2017.

  • The QEP Implementation Team, led by Nicole Trevino, AVP for Student Academic Support Services, has a plan to gain broad-based community input — including several faculty, staff and student forums over the next few weeks — to refine the QEP topic of vocation and its associated goals.
  • Forum invitations will appear in Horizon and other communication channels soon; I encourage each of you to participate.
  • Work will continue through August as the response gets finalized for the September deadline.
  • The QEP Implementation Team will share further updates with the community in August.

The September written response should conclude our portion of a very long and important process of re-accreditation. I greatly appreciate the enormous number of hours of work contributed by so many people across campus who have been involved in the process over the last two years. They gathered data, wrote the Compliance Certification and the Focus Report, hosted the on-site committee and selected, developed and planned the implementation of the QEP. Thanks to their service, we have impressed SACSCOC representatives with a very strong presentation of the mission and quality of our beloved university. All the reports will be reviewed by the SACS board of trustees in a process that leads to re-accreditation in December 2017.

George E. Martin, PhD

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About Rebecca Davis

Rebecca Frost Davis Director of Instructional and Emerging Technology Rebecca Frost Davis joined St. Edward’s in July 2013 as Director of Instructional and Emerging Technology, where she provides leadership in the development of institutional vision with respect to the use of technology in pursuit of the university’s educational mission and collaborates with offices across campus to create and execute strategies to realize that vision. Instructional Technology helps faculty transform and adapt new digital methods in teaching and research to advance the essential learning outcomes of liberal education. Previously, Dr. Davis served as program officer for the humanities at the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE), where she also served as associate director of programs. Prior to her tenure at NITLE, she was the assistant director for instructional technology at the Associated Colleges of the South Technology Center and an assistant professor of classical studies at Rhodes College, Denison University, and Sewanee: The University of the South. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in classical studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. (summa cum laude) in classical studies and Russian from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Davis is also a fellow with the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE). As a NITLE Fellow, Dr. Davis will develop a literature review relevant to intercampus teaching, which will cover contextual issues such as team-teaching, teaching through videoconferencing, and collaboration; a survey of intercampus teaching at NITLE member institutions; and several case studies of intercampus teaching at liberal arts colleges, including interviews with faculty, students, support staff, and administrators. This work will be summarized in a final report or white paper to be published by NITLE. At Rebecca Frost Davis: Liberal Education in a Networked World, (http://rebeccafrostdavis.wordpress.com/) Dr. Davis blogs about the changes wrought by new digital methods on scholarship, networking, and communication and how they are impacting the classroom. In her research, she explores the motivations and mechanisms for creating, integrating, and sustaining digital humanities within and across the undergraduate curriculum.

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