Standard 2

Standard 2 - Educational Program and Its Effectiveness - Description

"The institution offers collegiate level programs that culminate in identified student competencies and lead to degrees or certificates in recognized fields of study. The achievement and maintenance of high quality programs is the primary responsibility of an accredited institution; hence, the evaluation of educational programs and their continuous improvement is an ongoing responsibility. As conditions and needs change, the institution continually redefines for itself the elements that result in educational programs of high quality."

Evergreen's Strategic Plan identifies the college as unique in American higher education, locating itself as “the nation’s leading public interdisciplinary liberal arts college.” Since the early years of the college, Evergreen has expected students to assume significant responsibility for their learning. They were expected to define their own work and design their own course of study from the opportunities offered by the faculty in programs (full-time learning communities) and through work designed with individual faculty members. This concept of the student differed sharply from the one presupposed by both large public universities and small private colleges. The new college in Olympia would offer a reinvigorated liberal arts teaching for all. The college’s commitment to interdisciplinarity, student engagement, and collaboration rests on this vision of an inclusive, public, egalitarian liberal arts education.

Evergreen traces its origins to debates over higher education within higher education in the nineteen sixties and seventies. This debate involves two quite distinct but crucial critiques that contributed profoundly to the college’s pedagogical assumptions and practices. First came a critique of the multiversity, the large-scale public multi-disciplinary institution that blossomed in the post-war years. From the point of view of this critique, most forcefully embodied in the Berkeley ‘Free Speech” Movement, the multiversity existed primarily for the benefit of corporate/governmental interests. It functioned to maintain a supply of useful technicians and professionals. This critique saw the public university as serving class interests rather than living up to the ideals of a democratic educational system that would educate citizens broadly. The second critique assessed the liberal arts tradition as manifested in the small private liberal arts colleges. This critique began with the stodginess and irrelevance of the canon, and the unwillingness of liberal arts colleges to take on the issues of race, class, war, and revolution. This critique centered on the failure of the liberal arts colleges collectively to act on their own professed values as they distanced themselves from the world of action. In the face of the crisis of civil rights, the Viet Nam war, and questions of class privilege the liberal arts were stuck defending texts, traditions, and positions that did not question the status quo. The critique of the multiversity questioned the failure of democratic education and the lack of moral judgment about public policy. The critique of the small liberal arts college viewed the moral tradition and ethical questions as outdated, abstracted from the world, and hence irrelevant. These debates in the context of the turmoil of the times made it possible for such important moderates as then Governor Dan Evans and State Senator Gordon Sandison to call for a new college that would take anew and alternative approch to college education.

The founding faculty of Evergreen, for the most part men in their thirties and early forties, envisioned a college that, above all, was engaging. They wanted a public college that could provide the best elements of the liberal arts college – a college that could acknowledge and deal with ethical issues, one which saw the world as intellectually comprehensible and one which offered students opportunities to learn and to act for the good of the community, not simply for individual or corporate aggrandizement. In the planning year the work of Alexander Meiklejohn, Joseph Tussman, and John Dewey provided models of educational reform that took intellectual rigor and public engagement as fundamental goals. In short, they believed in public education as a public good. They hoped for an education that would support action, engagement, and collaboration with diverse others; an education within a meaningful community context. They created an education that offered opportunities and curricular structures geared to engaged learning, not passivity. They wanted students to take control of their own education, to make real value-centered coherent choices about what they learned, how they learned, and what they did with the education they received. At the heart of these desires was a passionate debate about concern for authentic learning. All of the above characterizations of the college were contested, but in the crafting of the structure, a template the college has been tinkering with and transforming ever since, these were central values.

As was argued in the opening pages of this self-study, the President and the founding faculty wanted to create a public college devoted to teaching and learning in an interdisciplinary, collaborative framework within which students must exercise autonomy and judgment. Charles McCann’s four nos: No academic departments, no faculty ranks, no academic requirements, and no grades were seen as a vehicle to liberate faculty and students. The lack of departments and ranks allowed faculty to work and collaborate across disciplinary boundaries and across differences in age and experience. The lack of requirements and grades freed students to work together to share and collectively create their learning without endangering their own class standing. Collaboration, not competition, became the fundamental vehicle for organizing teaching and learning. While within the college the breadth of the challenge to the conventions of higher education was reasonably well understood, the external world tended to know the college in its first decades primarily on the basis of the above negatives and on the basis of the inevitable conflation of long hair, protest, and defiant optimism with a hippie haven and/or radical protest.

It is in this context of extraordinary student and faculty autonomy that the college has developed. The individual student is responsible for the content of his or her degree. The faculty, while they exercise significant control over the work of students in programs frames its desires for the overall outcomes of student work at the college in terms of expectation rather than requirements. As part of the response to the last round of accreditation the college developed six expectations of an Evergreen Graduate.

• to articulate and assume responsibility for your own work,

• to participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society,

• to communicate creatively and effectively,

• to demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking,

• to apply qualitative, quantitative and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines,

• to demonstrate depth, breadth, and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on personal and social significance of learning as a culmination of your education,

These are clearly expectations, not requirements. The faculty when they adopted them saw them as both an appropriate response to a concern for breadth across disciplines and as an articulation of the need for students to identify and take responsibility for their work at the college.

Standard 2.A - General Requirements

2.A.1 - Institutional Support to Academics

The institution demonstrates its commitment to high standards of teaching and learning by providing sufficient human, physical, and financial resources to support its educational programs and to facilitate student achievement of program objectives whenever and however they are offered.

Academic offerings are supported by faculty, facilities, equipment, and staff support.

Facilities supporting academics includes teaching spaces and offices. Each faculty member teaching half-time or more is provided an office. Those teaching less than half-time may be allocated a shared office space. Faculty offices average 140 square feet, in accord with state standards.

Faculty are allocated computers, software, and peripherals in accordance with their teaching and professional development needs. Regular faculty are provided new computers with a turnover rate that averages four years. Visitors and adjuncts are provided reassigned computers from inventory when possible or new computers if adequate computers are not available. Faculty and academic staff computers are funded from a dedicated summer school revenues pool that provides $225,000 per year for this purpose. Due to the wide range in computing needs, faculty request and receive a variety of computers: laptops, desktops, Apple, PC, high-end processors, and more standard configurations. This also applies to software and peripherals.

In addition to individual faculty resources, space and equipment are also provided for specialized facilities including computer labs, science labs, art studios, performance spaces, galleries, research space, etc. The College has a dedicated equipment fund of approximately $250,000 per year, often supplemented by additional funds when special initiatives, such as renovations, warrant it. Each year academics, like other divisional units across the campus, identifies new and replacement equipment needs that support the curriculum. These lists are prioritized in a master list for funding. In general, roughly one-third of the equipment requested by the academic division in any given year are actually able to be funded. This is sufficient to meet the most critical curricular needs, but not enough to provide all of the equipment requested.

The College depends on equipment grants to partially or completely fund the most expensive equipment. Faculty collaborate with the Grants Office to pursue this funding.

Each academic program is also awarded a budget based on the number of students expected to enroll and the kind of goods and services that will be needed to deliver the curriculum. Program faculty complete budget request that include expenses for photocopying, honoraria for guest speakers, supplies, motor-pool vans for field trips, film/video rentals, laboratory and studio expenses, etc. Programs anticipating higher-than-usual expenses, such as those with an international travel component, may include additional support in their request.

Approximately $340,000 per year is available for program budgets. This is on average two-thirds of the total requests from the faculty. There is an additional budget of $300,000 to fund student aides in support of academic programs. These budgets are divided among approximately 150 academic programs during the academic year (Summer School, Tacoma, Graduate Programs and the Reservation-Based program have their own budgets for program support). This provides approximately $40/student/quarter (ranging from $300/student/quarter to $10/student/quarter) in direct academic program support. This may appear high, but one needs to bear in mind that the Evergreen academic program operates in a very decentralized mode; without departments, there is little budgetary structure between the organizational top and the individual faculty or faculty team. Hence, faculty are given direct control over the many resources required to support their academic program. In most cases these resources prove to be adequate for the goals faculty have in mind.

A number of academic support services are centralized including academic budgeting, support for travel, institutional research and grants. Professional staff provides technical support for both the arts and sciences, and these are budgeted through the Provost’s office. Again, this support is typically adequate although demand for this support varies from quarter to quarter and year to year depending on the curricular offerings. Faculty are assigned Program Secretaries that support the narrative evaluation process and provide administrative support to program activities.

Programs at off-campus sites (Tacoma and the Reservation-Based programs) are an integral part of the college's offerings, and are supported at the same or higher level.

2.A.2 - Educational Goals

The goals of the institution’s educational programs, whenever and however offered, including instructional policies, methods, and delivery systems, are compatible with the institution’s mission. They are developed, approved, and periodically evaluated under established institutional policies and procedures through a clearly defined process.

In the work leading to the college’s first strategic plan and in the 1988 Self Study for Accreditation the five foci of an Evergreen Education were first enunciated. They have served the college well over the years as a central articulation of its mission. The following section lays out the five foci and articulates the ways in which these foci are implicated by the work of reflexive thinking, and lead the educational practices of the college.

The Five Foci of an Evergreen education, interdisciplinary study, personal engagement in learning, linking theory with practice, collaborative/cooperative work, and teaching across significant differences have played a central role in creating both a curriculum and a rationale for a curriculum. They inform both the programs and our articulation of them at all levels of the institution. These foci capture much, but not all of what we do at Evergreen. Many of our actual activities can be understood as contributing to more than one focus.

The Five Foci of an Evergreen Education

Interdisciplinary Education

Interdisciplinary study is a fundamental at Evergreen. At the heart of such study is the intellectual conviction that academic disciplines have limits inherent in their epistemology, their explanatory concepts and the like. That in the presence of complex phenomena the inadequacy of isolated of accounts from different disciplines is revealed. Seldom if ever are the accounts of any one discipline all that can or needs to be said about such phenomena. Further the attempt to understand a phenomena apart from its context in the world often simply misses the critical importance of the phenomena and its meaning. For us to know complexly and think reflexively demands that we see from diverse perspectives and ask our own questions of the phenomena we study. Interdisciplinarity provides students with at least three crucial intellectual understandings that help them recognize their perspectives and generate their questions. First, different disciplines can indeed hold different and valid understandings about a particular phenomenon. Interdisciplinarity pushes students beyond a disciplinary understanding and forces them to complicate and contextualize their views of what is at issue. Second, interdisciplinarity illustrates the ways in which different disciplines illuminate differing aspects of reality, thus complicating student views of what a phenomenon actually is. Finally, an interdisciplinary understanding more accurately reflects the world as students encounter it in internships, volunteer service, and field research. The significance of interdisciplinary work and the ways in which it supports students as they move beyond Evergreen is echoed in alumni survey data and qualitative accounts.

There is little orthodoxy about which church of interdisciplinarity we attend at Evergreen. Acolytes of instrumental multi-disciplinary, thematic study, project based experience and more teach at the college, yet nearly all agree that interdisciplinary work provides the essential pattern that allows for the emergence of connections, the creation of new kinds of understandings, and ultimately the possibility for students to find their own way/work into the curriculum. Students experience interdisciplinarity in a variety of ways, but at the center is the sense that the pieces of work that they are asked to do within a program fit together in complex and surprising ways. %(Student Focus Group 2/9/08) Faculty as they become effective as interdisciplinary teachers retain skills and competences they brought with them to the college and expand into new competences and connections as they work and learn with colleagues and students over the years. (David Marr, Personal Comments 2/08) All that is interdisciplinary is not team teaching and vice versa. Individual faculty members can expose students to more than one discipline and single program with two faculty members with similar backgrounds may or may not be interdisciplinary.

Personal Engagement

The founders of Evergreen were concerned to create a college where students felt deeply engaged with the process and substance of learning. At its heart personal engagement in learning was understood to be the students’ development of a capacity to know, to speak, and to act on the basis of their own self-conscious beliefs, understandings, and commitments. The reflexive capacity to think about one's own work that emerges and develops throughout a student’s engagement with the material and other people over time is central to their sense of commitment. The emphasis on participation, on reasoned evaluation and involvement in their own, their colleagues, and their faculty members’ work strengthen this engagement. Engagement then is more than interest. It involve complex reflection on the significance and meaning of what we know, it reflects a concern for the consequences, effects, and implications of understanding as a part of knowing. Such engagement is reflected in the college’s emphasis on full-time study for 16 quarter hours credit per quarter. The lack of graduation requirements compels students to make personal choices about their work. Such work in the end could be something quite conventional, a doctor, a wildlife biologist, a philosopher or it could be rather unconventional, a Kayak maker, an independent film-maker, or a specialty vegetable farmer. What would distinguish this work would be the way the work implicates the person as whole.

Work in programs, especially programs that extend across several quarters, is engagement in a full time learning community. Here the relations are to the material, but also to the persons with whom one works. This conflation of persons and materials can lead to an intensification of engagement that creates powerful shared intellectual, social, personal, and aesthetic excitement. Students discover that personal growth and engagement in a community are often complementary realities. This complex reality in which students pursue their own goals through shared endeavor and cooperation is the center of the experience of a learning community and critical to most students' experience of Evergreen. The capacity students develop to know and, learn from and accept the work of others constitutes a challenging exercise in representational thinking.

Linking Theory and Practice

Linking theory with practice arises from the engagement of students to their work in a social context. Engaging in a dialogue between their intellectual understandings and direct engagement with the phenomena they study (texts, social behavior, scientific or artistic work) strengthens both and allows students to place their growing sense of personal work and commitment into a realistic and purposeful context. The necessity of linking theory with practice arises out of a central concern for educational relevance and the college’s commitment to providing an education that will promote effective citizenship.

Theory, central concepts, or ideas then are regularly tested in three major ways in students' experience at the college. First, students are asked to take their experience in the classroom into the world, in hands-on projects, internships, performances, presentations, case studies, and a wide variety of research work. Learning about a phenomenon is tested against the experience of it. Ideally an Evergreen student should be learning and being challenged in both worlds. Beyond this, theory and ideas are tested against the disciplinary and interdisciplinary phenomena they are purported to explain. Does the theory in fact illuminate the phenomena? If so how and to what extent? Finally, theories and ideas are tested against the context of culture and society within which they arise. How do theory and ideas inform cultural practices? How are theories and ideas explained by power relations, religious interpretation or some larger cultural/social reality? Thus the linkage of theory and practice is fundamental to the development of judgment, to the awareness of the cultural and political dimensions of knowledge, and the creation of active citizens who are capable of entering into dialogue with the world in which they live. In both the learning community of the program and the broader community students are challenged to take responsibility for their work and their judgments. By bringing the experience of the classroom into the world and vice-versa, the student is pressed to understand their knowledge as a substantive description, as a personal experience, and as political and social phenomena.

Collaborative/Cooperative Work

Collaborative/cooperative work is a cornerstone of the educational experience at Evergreen. The capacity for sharing and creating work within a cooperative context of respect for individuals and their diversity of perspectives, abilities, and experiences, is a central motif of nearly all Evergreen studies. In an array of practices such as seminars, group projects, narrative evaluations, peer critique of student work in all fields, the inclusion of students from widely diverse back-grounds and experiences within programs, the fundamental assumption is that students benefit from participating in a learning community to create their own educations. This practice takes the idea of representational thinking head-on and suggests that as we come to see, understand, incorporate others understandings of experience our own becomes deeper and more complex. Reciprocally as we are seen and understood by others, we come to know ourselves differently and better. As students share their understandings of their learning they transform their experience and learning into meanings. Thus work in the context of a community of learners is central to the development of a capacity for risk, judgment, and responsibility.

The fundamental pedagogic assumption is that learning is both a personal and social activity. The work of the college assumes collaboration is in the long run more conducive to the creation and acquisition of complex understandings and useful knowledge than is self -centered competition. By creating collaborative learning communities the college seeks to create both a context within which quite diverse ideas and concepts can be examined, but also a context that allows students to bring within the classroom some of that array of conversation and learning that in most schools occurs informally. This inclusiveness of experiences and ideas from other portions of the program and from student lives creates learning communities that can capture and promote the experience of real dialogue about ideas, texts, art and experience that make education engaging and exciting. The college encourages cooperation because we believe, despite the rhetoric of competition in this society, that most of the work that is accomplished in the world is a product of cooperative, engaged choices.

Teaching and Learning Across Significant Differences

Teaching Across Significant Differences reflects the fundamental recognition that as learners we do not bring to our experience of education the same array of qualities and life experiences. These differences provide the source of our capacity to learn from each other and, potentially, a barrier to that learning. These socially defined and personally experienced differences include such obvious and important categories as race, ethnicity, religion, class and gender which underlie so much of American experience, but they also include less obvious and well defined and understood experiences as age, disability, first generation college experience, rural or urban up-bringing, or personal qualities such as sexuality, intelligence, shyness, mental illness and the like. Differences bring within the context of the college both a potential for great learning and a possibility of great damage. They call upon us to develop qualities of respect, attentive listening, and sensitive and thoughtful speaking. They are at the heart of our capacity to communicate and to participate responsibly in a diverse community. Central to Evergreen’s experience of these differences is the practice of narrative evaluation and the desire to promote collaboration. While these practices have their own pitfalls, they suggest that a single standard and an assumed uniformity of experience is not the case and that respectful recognition and awareness of difference is an essential element in working with students to help them define and achieve the overall goals of an Evergreen liberal arts education. As with cooperation and collaboration this focus suggests that the role of representational thinking through the eyes of the other is a critical capacity in the development of a complex reflexive understanding and worldview. Learning and the reflexive thinking about the embeddedness of knowledge in history, in critical social differences, creates a context in which the exercise of freedom to promote new understandings entails a responsibility to imagine and know the impact of our acts on others.

The Six Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate

In the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 school years, at the urging of the Commission, the college undertook a review of its understanding of General Education. During two years of debate, discussion, and struggle, the college produced an important document that attempted to articulate the goals of an Evergreen education from the point of view of the student. This document – The Six Expectations of An Evergreen Education - has proved useful in articulating for advisers, students, and prospective students some of the elements that describe an effective pathway through Evergreen. The goals are understood to be just that – goals – not subject matter requirements nor mandatory skills. Thus while students may, and often do, undertake meeting these goals, the requirement in fact falls on faculty to make sure that as often as it makes sense the opportunities to meet the goals are present in the curriculum. As will be more explicitly argued below, the goals map in complex and important ways onto the five foci and can be seen as a rearticulation of the goals in terms of potential outcomes for students.

The six expectations of an Evergreen Graduate are

• to articulate and assume responsibility for your own work,

• to participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society,

• to communicate creatively and effectively,

• to demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking,

• to apply qualitative, quantitative and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines,

• to demonstrate depth, breadth, and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on personal and social significance of learning as a culmination of your education.

The work students are capable of is seen as complex, linking and engaging analysis from different disciplinary perspectives, responsible in seeing a cultural/social context, communicable, and significant both to the individual and his/her society. Such an education then neither replicates the faculty, nor simply replicates the disciplines, traditions, professions, and skills that they profess. Instead, it encourages each student to ask his or her own questions, to test their own hypothesizes, and to make new mistakes. This education is at once potentially conservative and radical. Conservative in that one’s work is tested against the society and academic disciplines broadly, radical in that it is always implicitly a challenge to our conventions and knowledge. At the heart of Evergreen’s understanding of education is a belief that whatever that education is in terms of substance, it should be self consciously and reflectively chosen by the student. Central to the goals of the college is the capacity of each student to see and articulate their own work in the context of their engagement with others. Skills and capacities are seen not as simply autonomous and instrumental, but as embedded in the context of a person’s education as a whole and more broadly embedded in the social order through the participation in and reflection on that order by students. Thus the fundamental goal can be seen as the developing a capacity for reflexive thought on the part of students. This reflexive capacity demands both engagement with and inquiry into the world and the work of the student as an active, self-conscious participant in the world.

The five foci and the six expectations are different articulations of very similar understandings about the central nature of Evergreen. The foci speak primarily to the content and nature of the curriculum offered. They articulate the emphasis on interdisciplinarity, cooperation, work across difference, the constant interplay of theory and practice, and student engagement. The six expectations are an expression of how the qualities of a curriculum organized around these ideas should be manifest in its graduates. Here is one version of the relationship of the foci and expectations.

Personal Engagement – Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work. Participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society. Reflect on the personal and social significance of your learning.

Teaching and Learning Across Significant Difference – Participate collaboratively and effectively in our diverse society. Communicate clearly and effectively.

Collaboration - Participate collaboratively and effectively in our diverse society. Communicate clearly and effectively. Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.

Linking Theory and Practice - Apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines. Demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking. Demonstrate depth, breadth, and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning.

Interdisciplinary – Communicate creatively and effectively. Demonstrate integrative, independent and critical thinking. Apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines.

Reflexive Thinking

As a part of our work on reaccreditation this year the college invited Elizabeth Minnich to talk with the deans and a small group of faculty working on the self study. Her discussion of reflexive thinking captured a good deal of what we felt was distinctive and important about the education and experience that Evergreen students experience as they work in and around a the curriculum as it is structured by the five foci and the six expectations. (Elizabeth K. Minnich, Knowledge, Thinking, Judgment: For Good or For Ill,” Long Island University: TASA Award Lecture, April 27, 2006; Elizabeth K. Minnich, Teaching and Thinking: Moral and Political Considerations,” Change, September/October 2003, pp.19-24)

Reflexive thinking begins with a question, an interrogation of the world, and an encounter with the other. As such it involves the student in the whole process of substantive learning about a subjects, disciplines and methods that is the standard domain of learning. But reflexivity is the capacity that a learner has to think about the situation and conditions that underlie her own personal and collective experience of thinking and knowing. One can be aware of how one has learned and what one has become through the process of learning. Minnich following Neitzche argues this form of thinking makes the learner a “problem” for herself. Not only does the learner come to know the ostensible subject of the learning (a text, a geological strata, or a piece of music), but through that knowing new questions emerge such as; how the subject is involved in a whole array of questions about the learner’s own motives, his embeddedness in society, his desires and development. Beyond that, reflexive thinking allows the student to ask questions about how the ostensible subject has come into being in a society and become enmeshed in a complex historical and social web of connections and power that underlie that discipline. Students learn to see the accounts of disciplines as partial.

Thinking that makes our understanding of self and society problematic makes inquiry that is not bound by disciplinary categories necessary for understanding one’s position. As person strives to understand his situation an extraordinary range of understanding from the very personal to that of any array of disciplines can become critical lenses for seeing the situation. We become problems for ourselves that can be seen as arising from multiple points of view.

As learners come to understand themselves and learning in this complex way, they exercise freedom and judgment about what they have learned about themselves, and the material, social conditions that allow this way of knowing to exist. In other words the learner starts to exercise freedom and responsibility about the knowledge he has about the society, himself. Through judgment he creates new meanings. These meanings typically do not take the given assumptions that lie behind the disciplines as settled truths; they inherently challenge established understandings. This process of creating new meanings necessarily engages the learner with others in a public process of sharing understandings. Participating in this world of reflexivity pushes the individual learner to recognize difference and diversity of views and positions. In particular it demands that the learner engage not simply in reflection but in representational thinking, thinking through the eyes of others. This extraordinarily difficult and never completely successful mode of thinking forces a learner to take seriously the understandings and ways of perceiving and knowing that exist in the world. This process of thinking though the eyes of others demands that the learner and indeed the community he/she is a part of must learn to think historically. This means that we see how the structure of ideas that define our views of others has come into being and is changed over time. It also implies that we see how the social institutions that have grown up historically to define the place of others and ourselves in a society. Finally, knowing of this sort is iterative, each encounter, each attempt at restatement, each expanded understanding or more clearly defined insight opens the door to response and further learning. The fun never stops. Thus reflective and representational thinking are ultimately necessarily both very personal and public.

What is attractive about this way of describing the work of an Evergreen education is that the process of thinking about the conditions that make it possible for us to know and to think about the process and significance of knowing are both simple to pose - “How do you know what you know?” and “So what?” – and can be the opening for an extraordinary range of learning and thinking. Evergreen programs make a wide range of choices about how much they engage in these questions, but nearly all pose them for students and urge students to take on these issues as they think about their work and evaluate their experience.

2.A.3 - Degree Programs Offered

Degree and certificate programs demonstrate a coherent design; are characterized by appropriate breadth, depth, sequencing of courses, synthesis of learning, and the assessment of learning outcomes; and require the use of library and other information sources.

At the time of this writing Evergreen offers three graduate degrees, Masters in Teaching (MIT), Masters in Public Administration (MPA) and a Masters in Environmental Studies(MES). A fourth Masters program a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with emphases in Mathematics and English as a Second Language (M. Ed.) is scheduled to begin enrolling students in the summer of 2008. All of three of the established Masters programs have regular structures and well-established requirements that organize their work and the award of degrees. See Standard 2. D.,2.E. and 2.F.

The college offers two degree programs at the undergraduate level. The Bachelor of Arts degree and a Bachelor of Science Degree. The Bachelor of Arts degree requires the successful completion of 180 quarter credit hours of college level work. The Bachelor of Science degree requires 180 quarter hours of work. Requirements also include credits in Mathematics, natural science, or computer science, of which 48 of which must be upper division science credit. The college has worked to identify upper division science work and faculty who have appropriate credentials to award such credit over the past several years. A combined Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of Science Degree requires at least 225 Quarter Hours credit 90 of which must be earned at Evergreen and the meeting the requirement for a Bachelor of Science. (Catalog)

2.A.4 - Degree Requirements

The institution uses degree designators consistent with program content. In each field of study or technical program, degree objectives are clearly defined: the content to be covered, the intellectual skills, the creative capabilities, and the methods of inquiry to be acquired; and, if applicable, the specific career-preparation competencies to be mastered.

The institution offers two undergraduate degrees, the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Sciences as described above. Each degree program requires one hundred eighty quarter hours of credit and expects students to develop a focus for their work using the college’s offerings and independent work developed with faculty to complete their program of study. The Bachelor of Science requires a minimum of 72 quarter hours in natural science, mathematics, or computer science, including at least 48 upper division quarter hours of credit awarded by faculty in the sciences. Each Masters program has program specific outcomes for the degrees offered as described in sub-section 2.D.

2.A.5 - Intensive programs

The institution provides evidence that students enrolled in programs offered in concentrated or abbreviated timeframes demonstrate mastery of program goals and course objectives.

Over the past ten years Evergreen has moved to offer weekend intensive programs at both the graduate and undergraduate level. We believe that this schedule has increased the accessibility of our programs to place based students. Programs offered on either the regular or intensive schedule expect approximately 30 hours of study and class attendance for each unit of credit earned. Faculty hired for such programs are hired either by the regular continuing, visiting, or adjunct faculty processes.

2.A.6 - Program Tuition

The institution is able to equate its learning experiences with semester or quarter credit hours using practices common to institutions of higher education, to justify the lengths of its programs in comparison to similar programs found in regionally accredited institutions of higher education, and to justify any program-specific tuition in terms of program costs, program length, and program objectives.

Evergreen tuition is based on level (Bachelor or Masters), residency, and the number of credits. There is no special program specific tuition.

2.A.7 - Curriculum Planning

Responsibility for design, approval, and implementation of the curriculum is vested in designated institutional bodies with clearly established channels of communication and control. The faculty has a major role and responsibility in the design, integrity, and implementation of the curriculum.

The process of undergraduate curriculum planning and design at Evergreen is a complex mixture of regularly repeating offerings, irregularly repeating offerings, and one-time efforts. The curriculum is revised annually. Each planning unit is responsible for defining and staffing its offerings and is expected to contribute 20% of its faculty time in each year to Core (First-Year) programs and another 20% to inter-divisional program work. Planning in any given year is designed to develop a catalog for two years hence. Thus in the 2008-9 school year faculty will be designing the curriculum for the 2010-11 school year. The curriculum dean(s) in collaboration with the Planning Unit Coordinators (PUCs) organize a series of all faculty meetings in early fall quarter that are designed to solicit ideas, proposals, and suggestions for inter-area work at the First Year and above level.

Usually planning units meet at the fall faculty retreat and in the latter half of the quarter to identify their on-going staffing needs and to identify planning unit members interested in working in inter-area and Core. These meetings involve looking at the curriculum of the unit over a four year period: the year being planned, the current year, the next year and usually consider the year following the year being planned for. This iterative retrospective-prospective overview helps identify the needs for prerequisites, help identify the appropriate cycle year for regularly, but not annually, repeating programs, identify questions of balance in subject matter, and clarify individual contributions to the units’ work. Most of the on going repeated work and advanced disciplinary work at the college is organized by planning units.

Simultaneously Core and inter-divisional planning which began early in the fall with the meeting to share ideas continues more or less informally as faculty follow up ideas with each other and attend meetings called by either the Core dean or the Curriculum dean to firm up and to identify programs. In addition to the intricate matchmaking that occurs within program teams, the PUCs and curriculum deans are involved in a complex process of informal negotiation and planning to ensure the appropriate number of first year seats (those in Core and then those seats identified for freshmen in all-level or lower-division programs) and appropriate coverage of planning unit repeated offerings. All of these decisions are made in negotiations among faculty and deans and are vetted to the planning unit meetings in winter quarter so that faculty can evaluate and respond to the area’s curriculum and its relation to other Core and inter-area offerings. This complex two-tracked process within and between the planning units culminates in a draft curriculum by the end of winter quarter. The final negotiations between Planning Units and the deans, the creation of catalog copy for programs and the identification of staffing needs is carried out by PUCs who are given release time in spring quarter to complete these duties. One important byproduct of the curriculum planning process is the identification of areas of demand in the curriculum and the need for supplementary short and long terms hiring needs.

Unlike the full time curriculum, the EWS curriculum is planned on a one-year cycle rather than the two-year cycle for the full time program. This structure allows the curriculum to adapt more quickly to shifts in the student body and is an aspect of the service to student orientation of the EWS area. The Evening Weekend Studies Dean and the continuing faculty in the area jointly control planning for the area.

Planning in the graduate programs is controlled by their respective faculty and is described in 2.D.

2.A.8 - Library and Information Resources

Faculty, in partnership with library and information resources personnel, ensure that the use of library and information resources is integrated into the learning process.

The tension between the demands of discipline based curriculum where programs are created to meet known (or presumed) needs with known prerequisites and outcomes on the one hand, and the demands of freely chosen inquiry based on broad skills of knowing, reasoning, and communicating about issues whose outcome remain to be discovered through experience on the other, is the context within which the curriculum and the college comes into being at Evergreen. Library and information services at Evergreen have from the very beginning had to adapt themselves to the complex ever changing focus of the programs and faculty. This has mean that these services have had to be very broad and carefully coordinated with emerging curricular needs. Standard 5 details the complex intersection of library, media, and information services needs at the college.

2.A.9 - Structural Elements of the Evergreen Curriculum

The institution’s curriculum (programs and courses) is planned both for optimal learning and accessible scheduling.

The curriculum at Evergreen is designed by the faculty to further students’ ability to develop and meet the goals of an Evergreen education. The practices and structures implemented in the educational experience embody both complex substantive learning and the five foci. Four critical elements underlie the structure of the curriculum at Evergreen: team-taught coordinated study, full time study, student self-direction, and narrative evaluation. While these elements are universally present, they most clearly and distinctively embody the practices and goals of the Evergreen educational experience. These elements are designed to optimize student’s capacity to understand and integrate material, develop complex insight and to create schedules that facilitate program level work and interaction.

Programs

Programs are the distinctive mode of study at the college. A program consists of two to four (in the deep past as many as 7) faculty who together plan and deliver, generally full time, a course of study organized around a theme or body of knowledge to 50 to 100 students. Programs can be as short as one quarter or as long as three. These programs are often centered on a specific theme or set of questions that invite exploration from two or more disciplinary points of view, or they may be linked conceptually around method or subject matter in a way that promotes more complex understanding of disciplines by being taught in a collaborative fashion. In addition to coordinated study programs Evergreen offers single faculty programs that provide full-time study of advanced topics. Programs as Academic Communities

By providing a structure which links ideas, questions, disciplinary understandings together with a specific on-going group of faculty and students, coordinated study lays the groundwork for the formation of an academic community. By having the full attention of students and extraordinary freedom to design programs, faculty members are empowered to create very different often innovative, usually exciting, learning experiences. Programs can, and often do, require, major field trips, built in research times, intensive laboratory work, opportunities for travel, productions, exhibitions, and a wide variety of smaller scale curricular innovations. Ideally faculty members help shape a multi-dimensional, multi-leveled conversation that helps students form and shape their own work and builds a knowledgeable audience for their writing and research. Within a coordinated study students and faculty can develop strong friendships, working relationships, and intense conversations that draw heavily on the shared experiences of the texts and activities of the program. Coordinated study as a concept has been usefully adapted to a wide variety of time frames, persons, and levels of work. Today it is found in some form or another in Graduate programs, off-campus programs, and throughout both the full and part-time undergraduate curriculum.

Coordinated studies, their part-time counterparts, and single faculty full-time Programs are organized into the curriculum of the Graduate Programs (MPA, MAT, and MES), the Tacoma Program, and the community-based Reservation Program, as well as into the undergraduate program on the Olympia Campus. On the Olympia campus the array of offerings is organized and coordinated through five planning units (Environmental Studies; Culture, Text and Language; Scientific Inquiry; Expressive Arts; and Society, Politics, Behavior and Change) and the Native American and World Indigenous Peoples Center. These areas will be discussed fully below.

Full-Time Study

Most student work at Evergreen is carried out in one form or another of full- time study. The pedagogical rationale here arises out of the coordinated study programs, especially those with a thematic base. These complex, multi-stranded, highly integrated programs make little or no sense when significant elements are removed. Similar intensive full-time work is often expected in single faculty full-time programs. This feature of the college provides the intellectual intensity described above, but also provides the flexibility of scheduling that allows the college to offer genuinely innovative work in a number of fields where large blocks of time and travel are required. Beyond this the reality that most faculty, in most programs, have control of most of their students’ time in class, and meet with those students generally 14-20 hours per week means that they know their students needs, capacities, and desires well. This knowledge allows for strong guidance and modification of program tasks, allows complex reflective evaluations of students, and lays the groundwork for effective advising. Full time study is obviously not a necessary feature of part-time work and the college has allowed significantly more part-time work in recent years. The part-time study is structured both through half-time coordinated studies and course work.

Student Self-Directed Study

While the structure of the college’s program offerings provides a series of pathways that students may follow in pursuing their education, there are no requirements for graduation beyond the accumulation of 180 quarter hours credit. Many of the pathways will be described in the discussion of planning units below. This open invitation to students to design their own work at the college has been a central feature of student experience from the beginning of the college. Our assumption is that working with multiple faculty and being exposed to a variety of disciplines, questions, and practices helps each student to develop a clear pattern of interests and can, with faculty and advising help, find a way to build an exciting, demanding, and persuasive educational path for each individual student. Choices are not entirely unconstrained, prerequisites, finding and appropriate faculty member for an individual study or internship, and the nature of the programs offered by the faculty in a particular year, limit a student’s choices, but underlying all this is the understanding can use the opportunities presented to identify and pursue their own work. Clearly the decision of the college to put students in charge of the choices to create their education is a radical one. Indeed of all the founding “Nos” the most radical in many ways is the relinquishment of the faculty’s authority to determine for students what is important for the student to study. Students who take this challenge seriously create an education that necessarily implicates themselves as persons, not simply as products of an educational system or consumers of educational prescriptions. Individual contracts and internships are an important manifestation of student autonomy.

Narrative Evaluation

Evergreen’s origins as an innovative “experimental” college, the rejection of tenure and the substitution of three-year renewable contracts, and a flat administrative structure imbued the college with a “culture of evaluation” at the institutional level. The decision to reject standardized grading provided an impetus for careful work on evaluation of student achievement by both faculty and students. Narrative evaluation of student work is premised on the assumption that to create a community in which cooperation is central, evaluation must be personal, not invidious. A narrative evaluation is based on the idea that attempting to place each student on one scale when each student is pursuing the work of the program for different ends with different backgrounds and capacities makes little sense.

Evaluation takes many forms at Evergreen, but at the heart of the educational process is the faculty evaluation of students. This document reflects the faculty’s authority to grant and to withhold credit, to identify the transferable content of the work, and, more importantly, attempts to identify the strengths and capabilities of the student and to locate his or her most important work within the context of the program’s themes, content and experience.

Student narratives offer a critical response to the educational experience and often provide the rationale that links one educational experience to the next. The capacity for students to provide their accounts in the transcript evaluation speaks to the college’s commitment to taking students and their account of their experience seriously.

Learning and Planning Through Evaluation

Formal evaluations, the ones that appear in the transcripts, are important, but their significance is primarily documentary and retrospective. Informal evaluations, the ones that occur within programs have the quality of being retrospective and reflective on the one hand and prospective on the other. They situate the student and the experience in midstream and ask for an assessment, adjustment, and reframing. Student self-evaluations review their work and introduce their in-program portfolio. A faculty member in conferences asks students to connect their experience in the program with their work, to think about how they can come to own this experience as their own education, and provides an assessment from the faculty member’s perspective. This process of reflecting is not only on the direct content of the program, but often on the experience of learning. Students are asked how they have changed as learners, how such basic acts as reading, knowing, writing have changed for them through experience. This evaluation practice, seeing one's learning and competency develop, opens up questions and helps students see a path within the program and at the end of the program provides a key to where to go next.

The evaluation process serves and important role in advising. Informal evaluations by both faculty and students focus on the students' learning, opportunities for improvement, and possible future directions. The preparation for this review by both students and faculty is a major opportunity to reflect on future directions and to develop a reflective critical assessment of the work of the student and the program.

Three major initiatives in the past 10 years have affected transcript evaluations. All of these start from the premise that a complete and well written transcript is an asset to students as they proceed from Evergreen and from a resistance to the idea of reducing evaluation to grades or rating forms. They reflect the need to create more concise and well-voiced evaluations in a timely and coherent manner. Two major committees, the first in 1997-98 and the second in --------- produced a set of arguments for the continuing utility of the evaluation process and support for the idea that there was no single universal process for evaluation. The latter DTF developed an important document on faculty narrative strategies and provided guidelines on the length and nature of the evaluation process. A second DTF in ------------- focused on procedures for the reorganization of the handling of evaluations and their storage and maintenance as electronic documents. This process has speeded the production of transcript evaluations. The formal faculty evaluation documents contain a program description identifying the work of the program, a formal assessment of the student’s work, and the identification of the program’s activities as equivalencies.

2.A.10 - Prior Learning from Experience

Credit for prior experiential learning is awarded only in accordance with Policy 2.3 Credit for Prior Experiential Learning

Prior Learning from Experience

The Prior Learning from Experience Program faculty assesses the student's past academic experience and past life experience before recommending Evergreen's PLE program. The full time staff position was cut from the budget in spring of 2003 and the program was reorganized into the Evening Weekend curriculum. The coordinator from the previous staff position was moved into the adjunct faculty position. The adjunct faculty forms teams of full-time continuing faculty to assess the PLE documents. A central tenet of Evergreen's PLE program is that credit is granted for learning and not for experience. Students must document that learning by drawing on current theories in particular academic fields. They accomplish this by interviewing appropriate faculty about their documents and by completing necessary research. Because faculty members grant credit for PLE documents, they grant credit only for learning which would normally occur within regular curricular offerings.

The documentation currently required for credit through PLE at Evergreen is rigorous. Most interested students, beginning in fall of 2003, take "Writing from Life", a course taught by the adjunct faculty. Course requirements include writing an autobiography, their PLE document outline, and one learning essay or chapter of their PLE document. Students then move into PLE document writing (taught by the same adjunct faculty) the following quarter and take that course for 4, 6, or 8 credits until they have earned 16 credits. At that time their essay writing is finished and they are ready for a faculty review. All students include a resume, an autobiography, a narrative description of their learning, and appendices documenting that learning such as reports or guidelines the student developed. Faculty reviewing the PLE process found the documentation to be generally more demanding than other undergraduate credit they awarded.

Evergreen awards up to a maximum of forty-five PLE credits, but sixteen of those forty-five are earned in PLE document writing. They can be awarded any additional credit above 16 to achieve the full forty-five but most are awarded less than that. Students are not assured of receiving the credit that they may expect at any time in this process. Credit is identified as PLE via the narrative evaluation of the student's work.

The Prior Learning adjunct faculty ensures that any credit requested does not duplicate credit already on the student's transcript. After the faculty team awards credit, the student receives a formal evaluation, is billed for the credit awarded, and the credit is entered on his transcript. (www.evergreen.edu/priorlearning)

2.A.11/12 - Program additions or deletions

Policies, regulations, and procedures for additions and deletions of courses or programs are systematically and periodically reviewed.

Evergreen has added relatively few new programs during the past five years and has not deleted any programs. The four new programs include:

1. A new concentration track in Tribal Governance and Administration within the existing Master of Public Administration (MPA) program 2. The Extended Education program 3. A new pathway for students seeking to earn a dual Master of Public Administration and Master of Environmental Studies degree. 4. One additional site for the Tribal: Reservation-based/Community-determined Program (RBP) 5. The Master of Education (M.Ed.) program

New academic programs are vetted through the deans, planning unit coordinators, Agenda Committee, and ultimately the faculty. If approved, the Provost requests Board of Trustee approval.

The new Tribal MPA concentration and Extended Education were approved in this manner. The additional RBP site consisted of an expansion of an already approved academic program and was approved by the Board of Trustees.

The M.Ed. had been included in the Enrollment Growth DTF report as one of three graduate programs that ought to be studied further for feasibility of implementation.

Normally, approval of the M.Ed. program would have been vetted through the channels described above culminating in a faculty meeting discussion and vote. Given the unusual circumstances in which the college received funding for the M. Ed. program, this process was transposed. Essentially, the governor’s office informed Evergreen during winter break that they intended to include additional high demand enrollment growth funds for Evergreen in the state budget (funds that Evergreen did not include in its biennial budget request). This forced Evergreen’s academic administration to determine, within a very brief window of time, that the M.Ed. program was the most feasible to implement in the subsequent 07-09 biennium. This decision was immediately taken to the first faculty meeting in winter quarter for discussion. The faculty was justifiably upset that the normal a priori faculty vetting and approval process occurred after the fact but did not oppose the decision to accept the funds and to initiate the new M.Ed. program.

Standard 2.B - Educational Program Planning and Assessment

Educational program planning is based on regular and continuous assessment of programs in light of the needs of the disciplines, the fields or occupations for which programs prepare students, and other constituencies of the institution.

Evergreen has a multi-leveled, multi-faceted, and reflective culture of planning and assessment. Ongoing assessment and planning activities are regular and continuous, and each year specific issues which arise from the ongoing processes are identified for in-depth investigation. Assessment takes place at the level of each curricular offering, at the planning unit level and during the ongoing annual processes of curriculum design, at the level of institutional research and assessment, in governance activities and work groups tasked with investigating specific issues and problems, and by individuals who want to look deeply into particular areas of interest.

2.B.1 - Curriculum Assessment and Planning

The institution's processes for assessing its educational programs are clearly defined, encompass all of its offerings, are conducted on a regular basis, and are integrated into the overall planning and evaluation plan. These processes are consistent with the institution's assessment plan as required by Policy 2.2 Educational Assessment. While key consitutents are involved in the process, the faculty have a central role in planning and evaluating the educational programs.

At the level of individual curricular offerings, faculty design their programs and courses to challenge students and provide opportunities to demonstrate their learning in myriad ways, such as through writing, student research, performance, testing, labwork, community-based projects, seminar, creative work, and collaborative work. Each program, course, independent contract, and intership closes with the faculty writing an evaluation of each student's work and each student writing a self-evaluation of their own work and an evaluation of the faculty. Faculty write self-evaluations of their work for their own portfolios that are integrated into faculty peer review processes. The self-evaluation and peer evaluation processes encourage deep learning and personal responsibility and provide directions for improvement and growth. (Student and faculty evaluation processes are addressed more thoroughly in 2.A.9 and 4.A.5.)

The curriculum at Evergreen is planned by the faculty, the academic deans, and the directors of the graduate and off-site programs. Planning units meet regularly thoroughout the year to discuss current issues, faculty initiatives, and future curriculum planning and staffing needs. Each planning unit has one or more faculty designated as planning unit coordinators. The coordinators also meet regularly during the year with the curriculum deans, which serves as a space for intentional dialogue across planning units. Each summer, the Dean of Faculty Hiring and Development offers a series of planning institutes in which faculty teaching teams convene to plan the specifics of their upcoming programs, share practices, and explore mission-critical questions. The Dean of First-year Programs offers a special colloquium for faculty teams who will be teaching first-year programs each June. The Planning Unit Coordinators and the Academic Deans each hold a summer retreat where they assess the previous year and plan for the coming year. Two faculty curriculum planning retreats are held in fall and spring where faculty get to know one another, share current scholarly interests, identify future teaching partners, and discuss pressing issues. All of these curriculum planning activities draw upon experiential data, the evolving interests of faculty and students, institutional strategic directions, data from Institutional Research and Assessment, ongoing planning unit dialogues, and the research and recommendations of work groups and disappearing task forces. (Curricular planning details can be found in 2.A.7; the organizational structure and functions of planning units are elaborated in the introduction to 2.C; planning institutes and faculty development are also addressed in 4.A.2.)

Role of Institutional Research and Assessment

The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment supports the assessment and planning of educational programs through a series of regular surveys and administrative data analyses. In addition, the Office convenes assessment workshops, provides exisiting data and collects specialized data for college work groups and task forces, responds to state-level accountability requirements, coordinates inter-institutional data-sharing and assessment activities, and supports faculty-initiated research about teaching and learning. Institutional Research and Assessment continuously refines its data-collection strategies and reporting techniques to improve the usefulness of collected data for assessment and planning purposes. All of the data-collection practices present in the 1998 accreditation self-study have been refined to some extent over the past decade. The overall effect of the changes in practice is that the results represent a wider range of students, research approaches and presentations are better aligned to evolving needs and goals of the college and external reporting requirements, and engagement in the results by stakeholders has improved.

New Student Survey

Evergreen administered the Cooperative Institutional Research Project (CIRP) freshmen survey for the last time in 2001. Students found many of the survey questions to be offensive and excessively personal. The incentive of paying each participant to complete the survey had become less effective with the response rate dropping from 38% in 1999 to only 19% in 2001. Furthermore, Institutional Research staff concurred with the recommendation of the Commission in 1998 that assessment processes should include transfer students given that they make up an even greater proportion of the incoming class than freshmen do. The CIRP excluded this important part of Evergreen's student body.

The Evergreen New Student Survey was developed by Institutional Research staff in collaboration with staff, faculty, and students. The entering class of 2003 were the first participants. The collaborative design resulted in a survey which better responds to the questions of the primary audience, and subsequent revisions have been made based on feedback from faculty, staff, and students who have engaged with the results. New first-years and transfer students are surveyed every two years, which allows a year in between administrations to analyze and share results. The survey has a strong response rate due to offering web and paper options for completion, an incentive chance to win a bookstore gift certificate, the critical cooperation of advising staff who allow us to administer surveys during New Student Advising Workshops, and on-site administration during Tacoma program Orientation. In 2005, 57% of all new transfer students and 69% of all new first-years participated in the survey. Survey results have been distributed widely and many audiences have engaged in dialogue and consideration of the results. The questions collect information about the goals, expectations, confidence, demographics, intended fields of study, and college selection process that are specific to Evergreen. The ability to ask Evergreen-specific questions, control over question refinement, improved response rates, and inclusion of the previously omitted transfer population, including new Tacoma and Tribal: Reservation-based students has been worth the trade-off of losing the national comparison which the CIRP provided.

In 2004, Evergreen participated in the pilot of the national Beginning College Student Survey (BCSS). Response rates were very low, which did not allow for strong comparison potential with its partner survey, the National Survey of Student Engagement. Given the strong response rates of the locally developed Evergreen New Student Survey and the stronger buy-in of college stakeholders, we have not chosen to participate again in the BCSS.

Student Experience Surveys

A second survey, the Evergreen Student Experience Survey, was also developed as a companion survey to the Evergreen New Student Survey. The Evergreen Experience survey is administered every other spring to collect feedback from students about their learning growth, fields of study, satisfaction with experiences, use of campus resources, and other varibles of interest to particular committees and interest groups at Evergreen. The survey is administered to random sample of undergraduates, stratified by class standing, and to a targeted oversample that includes all remaining respondents to the New Student Survey and all Tribal: Reservation-based program students. Students are assigned a common sample identification number to allow for longitudinal analysis of the relationship between incoming goals and characteristics from the New Student Survey and subsequent experiences collected through the Evergreen Experience Survey and Alumni Surveys. Over the three administrations of the survey, questions have been added to survey to respond to the needs of newer work groups, such as the Sustainability Task Force and Curricular Visions Disappearing Task Force.

Evergreen has participated annually in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) since 2000. This survey collects a set of data from first-year students and seniors related to student engagement and satisfaction with learning growth. For a national survey, it has a surprising relevance, in that many of the teaching and learning experiences addressed by the survey are common, mission-related practices at Evergreen. In addition, NSSE provides the opportunity to understand our students' feedback relative to three comparison groups each year. This context is especially important, since our local new student, student experience, and alumni surveys do not provide external reference. NSSE data are used for accountability measures with the Higher Education Coordinating Board and as supplemental indicators of learning for our general education assessment; both of these purposes make the external comparisons especially useful. Evergreen had been locally administering the learning growth index of the College Student Experience Questionnaire (CSEQ) on an annual basis and using selected results for an earlier iteration of Washington performance accountability. We adminstered that survey for a final time in 2003. (CSEQ 2003) By that time, we had sufficient experience with NSSE to understand its effectiveness in engaging college stakeholders in assessment, and we implemented the Evergreen Student Experience Survey in spring 2004.

In Spring 2005, all Evergreen faculty who taught undergraduates during academic year 2004/05 were asked to participate in the NSSE’s companion survey, the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE). The results of the student NSSE survey and the faculty FSSE provided the opportunity to explore the relationship between faculty and student perceptions of Evergreen. Faculty self-identified on the survey as to whether they primarily taught lower-division, upper-division, or "other" students. The most useful analysis of Evergreen's results was a comparison of the 21 lower-division faculty members to the results for first-year students.

Alumni Surveys

The regular series of Evergreen undergraduate alumni surveys are the least changed since the last ten-year self-study. Washington State's Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) no longer requires its public baccalaureate institutions to conduct biannual alumni surveys, but external incentives are not necessary to recognize the importance to the College of seeking alumni feedback. Institutional Research and Assessment continues to administer the following:

• Biannual Alumni Surveys, one-year after graduation

• Greeners at Work, every four years which surveys alumni three-years after graduation and their current employers

• Five-year and Ten-year Alumni Survey, once per accreditation cycle

Alumni surveys are now administered via the web with paper survey follow-up for non-respondents. Response rates with these methods continue to be about 30% of the locatable members of the graduating class, despite discontinuing the telephone completion option. The list of self-reported learning outcomes have been updated and aligned with the Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate and our other longitudinal surveys. Employment data collection has been refined to allow for the complexity of alumni employment activities and to allow categorization and comparison in terms of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classification codes. Since 2002, the survey is requested from the entire graduating class and is no longer limited to graduates of the Olympia campus. Volunteer activities of alumni are now captured by the survey. Graduate school acceptance, as opposed to simply attendance, is collected and is a new legislatively mandated performance measure. Results are disaggregated by the alumni-reported primary planning unit of their studies at Evergreen and for off-campus sites as possible given staffing and sample size constraints. An unfortunate side-effect of the removal of alumni surveys from the HECB Accountability agenda is that the "14 common items" that were previously shared by our public baccalaureate peers are no longer collected and shared between institutions. Each institution exercised the freedom to update the series of alumni learning growth items to better align with their own educational objectives. Thus, we each have more mission-specific learning outcome data from our alumni, but we've lost a peer context through which to explore our results.

General Education Assessment

New assessment techniques were developed by the Assessment Study Group in academic year 2001-02 to assess the implementation of the new general education initiatives. The End-of-Program Review instrument collects information from all programs as to whether they included work in Art, Humanities, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, quantitative reasoning, writing, critical thinking, and information technology literacy. Advising practices were collected during the first few years. And based on the evolving emphases of the Evergreen community several new data collection elements have been added to include oppression, privilege, and difference; opportunities for advanced work; community-based learning/service learning; and most recently sustainability. Results of the annual End-of-Program Review are presented in 2.C.3 as evidence of the teaching of general education

A team of faculty, staff, and a student developed a rubric based on the Expectations of an Evergreen graduate that was used in summer 2002 and 2005 to assess a random sample of transcripts of graduates. A credit equivalency analysis is also conducted on the set of transcripts. The transcript review is the primary method of assessing learning outcomes related to general education at Evergreen. The review will take place every four years to allow changes in practice and curriculum to be evidenced in the transcripts. A set of indicators of learning in terms of the Expectations were identified from surveys of students and alumni to supplement the information obtained from the Transcript Review activities. Learning outcomes are detailed in 2.B.2.

Administrative Data Analysis

Administrative data analysis is an integral aspect of the overall assessment strategy. Annual analyses of the curriculum; student retention and graduation rates; and demographics of students, faculty, and staff are shared through the website, targeted presentations, and with various external audiences. Institutional Research has been a key participant in providing data for the college's development of new dashboard indicator metrics for senior staff and the governing board. Every five years an in-depth analysis of faculty-student load is undertaken. These regular processes are continually expanded to include new programs and areas of interest. Most recently new processes have been developed to track data about the Extended Education program, revised demographic definitions for low-income and first-generation students, and specific analysis for each of the graduate programs. Survey results are often linked to administrative variables in order to explore potential differences in student and alumni experiences. In-depth analysis is also conducted to understand the impact of new initiatives and major changes in policy, (for example, Beginning the Journey, raising the credit limit, or implementing a new graduate degree pathway).

External Data Resources

External data resources have been incorporated into research and analysis approaches. The National Student Clearinghouse is used annually to explore the enrollment of prospective students who were offered admission to Evergreen but chose not to attend. These data help us to identify institutions with applicant overlap for different student market groups. This resource has also been used to explore the subsequent enrollment of former Evergreen students, such as non-retained students and alumni. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) peer analysis database, the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) annual data-sharing process, and annual participation in the Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange (CSRDE) provide sources to explore Evergreen’s demographics and performance indicators. These sources are used to set accountability targets, research potential peer groups, and benchmark Evergreen performance. Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and Law School Admission (LSAT) scores of Evergreen alumni were obtained in response to prospective student inquiries.

Institutional Research and Assessment also participates in a variety of ongoing state-level research, assessment, and accountability initiatives. Some activities are ongoing regular work such as the accountability process coordinated by the Higher Education Coordinating Board, serving on the Public Centralized Higher Education Enrollment Statistics (PCHEES) Steering Committee, Statewide Institutional Research Directors, Statewide Assessment Coordinators, and workgroups associated with the new legislatively mandated Education Research Data Center. As a public baccalaureate institution, Evergreen also participates in other special statewide projects, such as the Statewide Transfer Study, Writing Assessment Project, Graduate Follow-up Study, Transitions Math Project, Workforce Board Alumni Wage Match, and other periodic research. Staff participate annually in the Pacific Northwest Teaching and Learning Conference to share Evergreen assessment results, build relationsips with other professionals, and learn about emerging practices. State level research activities support practice sharing and strategic thinking across institutions and educational sectors.

Special Projects

Each year as new committees and task forces are charged by college administrators, Institutional Research and Assessment tries to connect relevant data to the workgroups. Excerpts are drawn from the rich collection of existing data generated through regular institutional assessment activities and often conducting or supporting additional specialized research in support of the work. Recent examples of workgroups that used Institutional Research data in their work include the Diversity taskforce, First-year Experience taskforce, Beginning the Journey, Sustainability workgroup, Campus Spaces Assessment, Enrollment Growth taskforce, and Curricular Visions. In addition, the Office provides grant-related research for National Science Foundation scholarship grants, TRIO Student Support Services, and the Lumina Foundation grant supporting new Tribal Program activities. As staff time and resources allow, the office supports other specialized queries and research initiated by deans, faculty, staff, and students.

Evergreen’s institutional researchers also participate in other occasional national educational quality improvement projects, including Symposia on Diversity in the Sciences, Documenting Effective Educational Practices, Campus Compact community-based learning/service learning coalition, and Consortium for Innovative Environments in Learning (CIEL).

Planning Unit Self-Assessments

The following sections serve as a demonstration of how data are integrated in planning and program assessment. Each planning unit provides a self-assessment of its primary themes and educational objectives and integrates evidence from faculty experience, planning unit dialogues, curriculum analyses, and surveys of alumni and students to explore how well they are acheiving their goals.

Culture, Text, and Language

Theme and Mission

The Culture, Text and Language planning unit organizes itself around the study of culture as webs of meaning that individuals and groups create to make sense of their experience in the world, around a diverse range of texts as embodiments of these meanings, and languages both as means of communication and as carriers of transformative potential. The faculty and students design work together to create living links between their past and their present, in order to become, in the words of Charles McCann, Evergreen’s first president, “undogmatic citizens and uncomplacently confident individuals in a changing world.”

The area provides four direct and distinctive contributions to the college. It directly supports student engagement with the five foci and the achievement of the six expectations through the provision of skills and capacities for critical thinking, reading, writing, and interpretation. It offers students an opportunity to do focused work in humanities and interpretive social science. It provides strong support for general education through its support for Core and all level programs. And it provides an orientation to a Global worldview through its language and culture programs and its attention to larger questions of ethics and action. The planning unit organizes nearly all of the advanced humanities, much of the interpretive social sciences at Evergreen.

Faculty and Programs

Faculty in the area cover a wide range of humanities and interpretive social science disciplines including: literature, history, women’s studies, philosophy, religion, classics, art history, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, politics, folklore, creative writing, French, Spanish, Russian and Japanese.

Interdisciplinary Programs

Typically the faculty offers several interdisciplinary, theme-based programs that include inter-area programs working with a diverse range of faculty from other planning units. Themes in these programs explore the social origins and meanings of a broad array of questions in the arts, social sciences, and environmental studies. CTL offers a curriculum based in divers cultures and languages so that students have opportunity to learn about shared legacies and significant differences across issues of race, class, sexuality, and gender. Within the area interdisciplinary studies dealing with these issues in the context of community and historical studies that include service work or research that draws upon interpretive social science are offered. The Planning Unit provides opportunity for studies in philosophy, European history, British and American Literature, and other literature in translation. Many of the programs offered are area studies understood as the interdisciplinary study of topics framed by geography, language, culture, and history. These programs usually offer opportunity for study abroad, and offer a complex combination of language and culture studies. The planning unit is committed to offering regular programs in American Studies, French language and the Francophone world, Japan, Middle East Studies, Russian Language and Eastern Europe, Spanish and the Hispanic world.

Introductory Programs

Language based Area programs are available to students in their sophomore year and typically serve both to introduce work in languages and often offer opportunity for more advanced work within them. CTL as a whole does not have a single repeating introductory offering, but builds introductory work in library and qualitative field research, critical thinking, essay writing, and issues of complex and layered reading into all-level programs which admit freshman through senior students, and sophomore level programs that emphasize similar skills. Sophomore entry and All-level programs in the area support the development of distinct skills in such areas as languages, historical method, and literary interpretation. They also provide broad support for and help students see the importance of interpretation and the creation of cultural meaning as a social process. Creative expression of complex social and personal experience and effective communication of these experiences is fostered in most programs. Critical thinking is a central element in the work of the area. All programs report an emphasis and 93% report a major emphasis. Critical thinking in CTL focuses particularly around issues of analysis of texts and synthesis of ideas an s we;; as critiques and argument and diverse perspectives. (EPR 2006-07 - Critical Thinking by Planning Unit) All of these capacities directly support meeting the expectation of an Evergreen Graduate.

While the exact percentages vary from year to year, CTL faculty members are consistently among the most committed to inter-area teaching both in Core and in inter-area programs. During the review period CTL provided nearly 40% or more of its faculty to teaching in either core or inter-area programs. (Proportion of each planning unit’s total program FTE by type of Program, Curricular Visions 97-07 Doc, Inst. Research) The widespread involvement of area faculty in inter-area and Core programs helps to support General Education expectations of exposure and engagement of students across the curriculum with issues of writing, interpretation, and expression.

Pathways

Pathways in CTL exist primarily within those sections of the curriculum dealing with language and culture. The existence of introductory language classes in the Evening and Weekend program, the use of area studies programs especially in French and Spanish and the provision of some support for advanced work through one-faculty programs and contract work constitute a pathway that has been effective for many students. The difficulty of providing more than two years of language training has been a serious issue for the development of language and culture pathways.

Other areas in the curriculum are less systematically organized, but there is the capacity to do both work that supplements and broadens original entry-level work, and opportunities to do more advanced work in small one-person programs. Often groups of students who have formed particular attachments to subject matter and each other form a core of students in a series of programs leading to advanced work. Individual students can and often do find advanced contract work either individual work or small student originated study groups engaged in contracts with a single faculty member.

Student Response to the Curriculum

Over the past five years the CTL area has carried an average of 400 FTE per year in programs within the Planning Unit (The fact that there are both humanities faculty and social science faculty within the area means that intra area programs may be inter-divisional) and has contributed an average 305 additional FTE in Core and Inter-area programs. (Olympia Undergraduate Fulltime Program FTE distribution by Planning Unit , Curricular Visions 97-07 Doc, Inst. Research) The area has typically been among the most consistent contributors of faculty to core and inter-area programs and has in recent years been a location of a great number of all level programs. In some measure these tendencies reflect the propensity of the area to take on broad issues and develop thematic programs that pull into conversation a variety of disciplines rather than attention to what at most schools would be seen as survey courses. Further the relative lack of hierarchy within the area and the willingness of faculty to work with younger students to include them in the conversation has allowed for an expansion of all level programs in the area.

Clearly humanities teaching occurs widely across the curriculum and is not restricted exclusively to the programs of CTL. The EPR data for 2001-2 to 2005-6 show that between 81 and 86 % of all programs included elements of Humanities and that a significant majority of those programs 55-67% had a major substantive interest in the humanities. Major elements of humanities are embedded in CTL, EA, Evening/Weekend, Inter-Area, and often Core Programs. While more minor elements of humanities show up in SI, ES, and SPBC where humanities content was much more often illustrative of issues rather than the subject of direct inquiry.

Alumni Survey Data

A critical mode of assessing the work of the area is satisfaction of area graduates with their experience. The 2006 Alumni survey of the class of 2004-5 is the latest set of data on Alumni Satisfaction. All data in this discussion is drawn from this data set. (Alumni Survey 2006: Culture, Text, and Language) Overall Students report very high rates of satisfaction with Evergreen’s contribution to their academic and personal growth. In 21 of 24 aspects of their Evergreen work over 80% of CTL alumni were somewhat to very satisfied with their experience. Students were most satisfied with their capacity to work independently, followed by participation in class discussions, understanding different philosophies and cultures, knowledge of a broad range of subjects, capacity for critical analysis, and working cooperatively in groups. Indeed for 15 of 24 categories mean satisfaction was 4 or better on a five-point scale. Students gave low marks to their perceived readiness for a career and to their capacity to use mathematical and scientific principles.

When alumni were directly asked their satisfaction with Evergreen experiences over 90% reported being somewhat or very satisfied with Interdisciplinary education, faculty narrative evaluation, quality of instruction, the education they were able to construct, self evaluation process, independent contracts, community service, culminating projects, internships and study abroad. Students were most dissatisfied with opportunities for advanced undergraduate work, tolerance for different or opposing views, and advice from faculty.

In terms of 10 work related skills, a plurality of CTL alumni rated themselves as good in four categories and excellent in six more. Evergreen was seen as contributing to some extent or a great deal in all skill areas with particular help in the development of skills in creative thinking, independence and initiative, and willingness and aptitude to learn new skills. They saw themselves a learners with an ability and willingness to take on new tasks.

In terms of employment 78.5% of the CTL concentration alumni were employed one year after graduation compared with 84% of all Alumni. Of those employed 69.3% of CTL were employed in an area that was at least somewhat related to their area of primary study at Evergreen. 75.8% of employed CTL alumni felt that their Evergreen experience had prepared the adequately or very well for their current positions.

In terms of graduate or professional school, 32% of CTL Alumni applied to graduate/professional school within one year of graduation. Of 24 alumni who applied 21 had been offered admission (87.5%) and three applications were pending. None had been denied thus far. Of 79 CTL alumni, 19 attended or are currently attending graduate or professional school within one year of graduation. The 19 alumni were continuing their work in Washington (11), other states (6), and internationally (2). Two had enrolled in graduate studies at Evergreen in this time frame. The rate of 25% of alumni going directly to graduate school was slightly higher than the 21% of all Evergreen alumni respondents who entered graduate school in this period.

Issues

The most pressing issue in the area is number of faculty. The number of faculty members affiliated with the area has declined from a high of 49 active full time teaching members in 97-98 school year to 28 active full time teaching members in the 2007-8 school year. If we restrict the range from 98-99 to 2006-7 the loss is 46 to 30. (Data from Catalogues for 98-99, 2006/7,2007/8 and faculty retention master list) Obviously, the area has suffered significant attrition during the past ten years. This attrition affected two broad tendencies in the area. First, the planning unit in its formation in 1995 drew heavily on a pool of older experienced faculty who saw this area as the most open and creative location for “traditional” coordinated study work. This group of faculty formed the creative heart of the early years of the college. Many of these people were not obviously humanities hires in terms of training, but all addressed themselves and pushed the college to address issues from a deeply humanist perspective. (For a clear sense of the loss that this transition has signified for the area and the college please read the Comments of Tom Grissom during the Emeritus Faculty Ceremony June 13, 2007) Over the past ten years nearly all of these people have retired. This has meant that these positions have reverted to the faculty wide pool of positions. The second tendency develops from this propensity of the area to see its curriculum as addressing broad themes and issues and the consequent refusal of the area to define its curriculum in ordered hierarchical patterns (with the partial exception of language programs). This has meant that the area has had a difficult time asserting the need for any particular position in order to meet the demands of a particular field of study. Thus until very recently the area has not been particularly effective in obtaining positions. Even with the recognition of a need for more humanities hires in the last two years, the area has serious issues in terms of hiring in support of Spanish, American History, Religion, American Literature, art history, creative writing, and philosophy. The efforts of the curriculum deans during the 2007-8 school year to reorganize the roles of planning units by diversifying the locations for the identification of possible hires and by creating inter-divisional positions has begun to make some inroads on this problem. In addition the area has entered into conversation that have explicitly addressed Planning Unit’s role, its rationale, and the implications of that role for hew hires.

Related to this set of issues is the development and continuity of teaching in languages. This issue is connected to the choice of languages to be taught, the support of these languages within the full time faculty, and the relation of full-time teaching to part-time language offerings. Recently the college has moved to support the teaching of Russian by adding a second faculty member in Russian History and is moving to hire a second classics hire to support the teaching of Latin and Ancient Greek. Yet there is clearly a need to hire additional support in Spanish and the complex questions about how to support languages that are seldom, if ever, included within repeating language and culture programs, e.g. Arabic, Chinese, or Gaelic.

But the call for more faculty members in the area is only part of the issue. While it is indeed the case that we “need” more faculty members in a wide range of subject areas, we also need more people who have the capacity to bring to programs a broad sense of inquiry and engagement with the fundamental questions of what it means to be human and to engage in the making of culture and social life. While such a formulation is vague and very broad, it points at the central issue of liberal arts education; the making of reflexive and engaged thinkers about themselves and the world that they inhabit. This sensibility is characteristic Evergreen students and graduates. It is a way of being that asks students not just to know a particular skills, or a specific piece of information, but to synthesize, reflect, critically analyze, and engage knowledge as it affects students as individuals and as members of groups and the political universe. If the area is going to continue take a leading role in the creation of such students across the campus, it needs faculty members who can inspire such broad views not simply those who posses specific disciplinary skills and knowledge.

Finally the area needs to clarify and advocate for its central mission. The essential nature of the questions of cultural and personal meaning, the critical nature of language and interpretation, and the central responsibility to engage the world in a way that speaks to values and choices that lie at the heart of humanistic studies need to be seen as essential to all of the work at the college. The area needs colleagues in other planning units to see the importance of these questions and potential students to see the value in these studies. This will require us to articulate what the planning unit can do and what it can offer to both in terms of general education and in terms of breadth and complexity of experience to students within the area and from across the college.

Environmental Studies

Theme and Mission

The Environmental Studies planning unit is organized around the study the interactions between human systems and the natural world in order support and sustain them both. Environmental Studies includes both natural and social sciences and provides students with the opportunity to

1) Qualitatively and quantitatively investigate the chemical, physical and biological elements that define terrestrial and marine ecosystems;

2) Understand the physical systems that underlie life on Earth;

3) Understand the nature, development and interactions of human societies with

the environment;

4) Examine the richness and limits of environmental and social resources

available to sustain both human and natural systems; and

5) Engage in applied research and work to develop skills that support this

effort.

Environmental Studies utilizes Evergreen’s full-time modes of study to provide a curriculum that emphasizes hands-on, experiential learning in field and community studies. The area is deeply committed to the engagement of students with active efforts to find scientific, social, and personal understanding of and responses to ecological destruction.

Faculty and Programs

The Environmental Studies faculty include a wide range of training in environmental chemistry, geology, hydrology, botany, marine science, sustainability, ecology, vertebrate biology, land use and environmental planning, forest and plant ecology, cultural/ecological anthropology, geography, zoology, evolutionary biology, entomology, environmental health, law and policy, environmental economics, forest ecology, community studies, agriculture, ornithology, conservation, ecological agriculture. Faculty members in the Environmental Studies area are shared with the Masters in Environmental Studies Program and provide a wide range of resources for students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. In the 1998-9 school year there were 26 full time regular faculty actively teaching in the area. In 2006-7 school year the number was 27. While the numbers are stable, the personnel of the area has changed significantly with 11 new hires over the period. It is important to note that 4-6 faculty each year teach in the Masters in Environmental Studies Program.

Environmental Studies offers introductory work at the freshman and sophomore level and more advanced work in three major areas: Human Communities and the Environment, Natural History, and Environmental Science. Environmental Studies is the one planning where interdivisional work is the central core of the unit. Thus while three major areas are identified, teaching in the area very often deliberately and necessarily integrates natural science and social science (particularly policy) issues into its offerings at all levels. In addition to the work directly identified in the area the campus wide initiatives in sustainability (see the President’s Sustainability task force and the faculty initiative on sustainability and social justice) have significant implications for work that is broadly environmental across the curriculum.

Introductory Program

The area teaches two sophomore or all level two-quarter programs that serve as useful introductions to major concepts, techniques and foci of study within the area. In addition the area often teaches a Core program that provides a strong introduction to the unit’s work. These programs are deliberate kept relatively small (usually on social science and one science faculty member and fifty students) in order to accommodate field trips, the use of laboratory facilities, and to provide somewhat different foci for students entering the area with differing concerns. The central issue in introductory programs is to help students develop a complex multi-disciplinary understanding of environmental issues and to begin to acquire the scientific and tools and social scientific understandings that will allow them to work effectively as practitioners or more generally as citizens. In addition to these programs the Introduction to Natural Sciences program offered by SI provides an very useful alternative entry point. Environmental Studies is a major contributor to the fulfillment of general education goals at the college. The 2006-7 EPR data shows 100% of area programs included some mathematics in their work with nearly 45% reporting extensive to moderate uses of mathematics. Even more clearly 100% of the programs in Environmental Studies reported extensive scientific work. The strong scientific and social scientific base of the area helps push students who arrive with simply “a love of nature” into thinking precisely in scientific, often mathematical terms and in terms of a sophisticated political economy of environmental issues.

Pathways

The area groups its offerings under three major headings. These headings include both repeating programs and annual programs and often times involve students in inter-area work that supports their understandings of major issues. The first deals with Human Communities and the Environment. These programs have a strong emphasis on issues involving environmental, policy, economics, history, geography and law, multi-cultural perspectives, planning, design and ecological agriculture. Programs in these areas often involve community study and advanced work in group projects. Second, Natural history, the focus on observation, identification and interpretation of flora and fauna using scientific field methods as a primary approach is one of the unique strengths of Environmental Studies at Evergreen. Full time studies provide the opportunity to do introductory and advanced fieldwork at sites throughout the United States as well as in Central America. Studies in botany, ecology, entomology, geography, invertebrate zoology, vertebrate evolution, mammalogy, herpetology, mycology and ornithology are undertaken in support of understanding ecology and biodiversity. Finally, Environmental Sciences engages students in study of the underlying mechanism and the structure of natural systems both living and non-living. Students are involved in a wide array laboratory and field studies including biology, geology, chemistry climatology, evolutionary biology, forest ecology, hydrology, marine biology and oceanography. Students who intend to focus in the environmental sciences are encouraged to participate, in such programs in SI as Introduction to Natural Sciences, Molecule to Organism, and Environmental Analysis. Regularly offered programs beyond the introductory level include, Practice of Sustainable Agriculture, Animal Behavior, Ecological Agriculture, Hydrology, Marine Life, Plant Ecology and Taxonomy, Temperate Rain Forests and Tropical Rain Forests. Students in this concentration often work toward a B.S. or combined B.A./B.S. degree.

Enrollment and Student Response to the Area

Environmental Studies is one of the primary fields identified by both new first year and transfer students who made a choice. In the 2006 New Student Survey fully 16.4 % of all first year students identified Natural Resources and Conservation as their primary interest making it the second most popular field of study at the college. Among out-of-state students Natural Resources and conservation was the most popular option with over 30% of students identifying this choice. Given the significance of out-of-state enrollment to the college budget, having broad environmentally appealing first year programs makes both pedagogical and fiscal sense. Among transfer students both in-and-out of state, Natural Resources and Conservation was the third most popular choice of fields of study. On the most recent Evergreen Experience survey 8.3 % of respondents who identified one planning unit as an area of focus chose Environmental Studies. Another 5.7 percent of students had Environmental studies as one of multiple choices.

The area has generated between 300 and 400 FTE per year since the 1998-99 school year. The contribution to Core programs has varied widely over the time with a high of 100 FTE in 2002-3 and a low of 27 FTE two years later. The area’s contribution to inter-area programs has hovered between 30 and 60 FTE with a high of 80 FTE in the 05-06 school year. In only 1 of the years from 1998-99 did the area contribute at least 40 percent to Core and Inter-area programs. In part the relatively weak showing in these segments of the curriculum reflects a high level of demand for more advanced work in the area.

Alumni Survey Data

The last major survey of Alumni was the 2006 review of 2004-05 graduates. The data cited in this section comes from this survey. (Alumni Survey 2006: Environmental Studies)

This report demonstrated a very high level of satisfaction with the Evergreen experience on the part of alumni who identified Environmental Studies as one primary area of studies. On a four-point scale very satisfied the highest category was the modal score on all but one of 14 categories. Among those activities where all respondents had experienced the work, the quality of instruction and the interdisciplinary approach to instruction were ranked highest. The 60% of respondents who had participated in internships and 75% who had participated in Contracts and Individual research work with faculty ranked these experiences very highly. The 40% who had studied abroad were also very satisfied with their learning from these experiences. Students were less satisfied with senior culminating experiences, academic advice from faculty, learning interactions with other students, and the tolerance shown for opposing viewpoints.

When asked about Evergreen’s contribution to their own growth, “learning independently” followed immediately by “working cooperatively in a group” occupied the first two positions. All of the rankings had a mean of 3.33 or better on a 5 point scale. Ironically the lowest score was of “readiness for a career” as 90% of graduates indicated they were employed and 65.7% of these said that their work was somewhat in or in their primary field of study at Evergreen.

In terms of 10 work related skills, a plurality of Environmental Studies alumni rated themselves as good in six categories and excellent in four more. Evergreen was seen as contributing to some extent or a great deal in all skill areas with particular help in the development of skills in effective communications, independence and initiative, and research skills.

In terms of employment, 90% of the Environmental Studies concentration alumni were employed one year after graduation compared with 84% of all Alumni. Of those employed 65.7% of ES alumni were employed in an area that was at least somewhat related to their area of primary study at Evergreen. 77.8% of employed Environmental Studies alumni felt that their Evergreen experience had prepared the adequately or very well for their current positions.

In terms of graduate or professional school, 18.4% of ES Alumni applied to graduate/professional school within one year of graduation. Of 7alumni who applied 5 had been offered admission (71.4%) and two had been denied. Of 41 ES alumni, 4 attended or are currently attending graduate or professional school within one year of graduation. The 4 alumni were continuing their work in Washington (3), and internationally (1). Two had enrolled in graduate studies at Evergreen in this time frame. The rate of 10.5% of alumni going directly to graduate school was lower than the 21% of all Evergreen alumni respondents who entered graduate school in this period.

Issues

Environmental Studies confronts two significant issues as it moves forward. The first is simply to replace retiring faculty and expand the hiring of new faculty who can support the present offerings of the area and their growth. In particular the college’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2020, the sustainability initiative, and the faculty sustainability and social justice curriculum initiative create the need for a revived commitment to community organization, architectural design, land use planning, environmental economics, and policy. These areas, which were major elements of the first years of the college, have diminished within the curriculum. A hiring effort that sustains the social science side of the area is crucial as the area takes on policy initiatives as a part of the undergraduate program. Finding a way to engage, support, and guide the sustainability initiatives is a major task one that is made a bit more difficult by the necessity to include a significant number of the area’s social science faculty in the MES program. A final note, the disproportionate number of Environmental Studies faculty members who have taken on administrative duties at the college over the past 20 years has meant that there have been and continue to be significant impacts on the ability of the area to offer its curriculum. Replacement hiring for long term (3-8 year) administrative appointments should be a matter of course.

A second major issue is teaching, logistics, and facilitates support. The area needs better and more consistent maintenance and support for teaching facilities. Current requests from the area are for a greenhouse facility to support botany, agriculture, and organismal biology. In addition to the building of this facility, better coordination planning and repair/maintenance of such facilities as the Organic Farm and teaching gardens is a high priority.

Beyond this, current faculty student ratios make it very difficult to do significant fieldwork without support of knowledgeable teaching partners. This reality has been a major force in pushing upper division work into smaller and more specific one person, one-quarter programs. To create a more interdisciplinary upper division program and in particular to allow collaboration between faculty who have very different backgrounds and knowledge (field science and social science) it is important to find a way to have instructional technicians, upper division or graduate assistants available to help with both the logistics and the instruction in the field. This issue is shared (as indeed the facilities and technicians are shared ) with Scientific Inquiry.

Finally, the area needs to provide a consistent presence in the first year curriculum. The college has a strong reputation in Environmental studies, particularly though not exclusively, in natural history and field studies. The fact that in many years Environmental studies was very weakly represented in the curriculum at the Core level may well discourage students from the college, and in particular discourage out of state first time first year students some 30% of those who identify a field of study come here specifically to do work in environmental studies.

Expressive Arts

Themes and Mission

Expressive Arts provides an opportunity for students to undertake significant rigorous work in Visual, Performing, and Media arts within the context of a liberal arts education. The work of the area is designed to provide an opportunity for students to gain skills and experiences in the arts that both encourage collaborative work and the application of theoretical questions to the practice of making art. Programs emphasize the development of hands-on skills in the arts within the context of theme-based programs. The planning unit sees creative work as a central element in a broad, liberal arts education. Thus students in the arts are often required to do work outside the arts for admission to arts programs and interdisciplinary work is incorporated into arts programs. The area has high student demand and controls access to many arts programs quite rigorously through portfolios and prerequisites. In the years since the last review the area has made significant and successful efforts to develop programs that more widely integrate arts across the curriculum. The unit has made significant efforts to provide increased opportunity for building writing and quantitative reasoning skills into their programs while continuing to emphasize the provision of visual media and performance literacies. The emphasis on projects that involve hands-on work helps students develop a sense of their own work and their own engagement with the techniques and skills that area programs provide. The planning unit emphasizes the development of learning communities within the programs that help students develop responsible and useful critical responses to each others work. These aspects of the area’s work help connect it directly to the expectations. The area works hard to

The Expressive Arts planning unit, supplemented by the courses in Evening and Weekend studies, provides nearly all of the advanced teaching in the arts with the exception of creative writing. Yet significant amounts of work in the arts occurs across the college with 66% of all programs reporting at least some work in the arts and CTL and Inter-area programs reporting well over 80% of their programs reporting work in the arts. There is incredible variety of use of the arts in the college’s programs and faculty have worked hard to include some experience with arts in their programs. (End of Program Review 2006-7 and EPR Review Summary and supplement August 2006 Institutional Research)

Faculty and Programs

Expressive Arts planning unit is divided into sub-units that not only plan somewhat independently but also provide a distinct curriculum in visual arts, media, and performance. The Expressive Arts area, like the Scientific Inquiry area, has worked very had over the years to develop and systematically staff its offerings. Each sub-unit offers a year-long introductory program, and both individual and group opportunities for more advanced work. The planning unit as a whole systematically supports individual contract work and supports senior thesis work in the arts both with personnel and funds. Currently there are 24 full time actively teaching faculty associated with the area. At the time of the last review there were 23. While there have been seven new hires over the period nearly all of these faculty have hired to replace retired faculty, not to open new initiatives. Data from 1998/9 Catalog 2007-8 Catalog and Master List of Faculty)

The Moving Image Group (MIG) sees media production as a fundamentally interdisciplinary activity. The pedagogy and that develops from this perspective links theoretical understanding and critical analysis of images with the practice of working together to create images of their own. The group focuses its work on non-fiction film and video and supports work in animation, multi-media, performance, and installation. The sub-area is confronted by a continually and rapidly evolving technological setting. The constant revisions of formats, equipment, and access have challenged the area’s faculty and staff. The recent remodel the media facilities in the library will be a significant achievement in support of the area when it is finished in the fall of 2009. However, it has caused significant current disruption. Five faculty members are associated with this sub-group

The Visual and Environmental Arts sub-area is organized around the recognition that in an increasingly complex and visually oriented society, the visual arts and environmental design have a vital role in all aspects of culture. Curricular offerings address critical analysis of visual culture, strategies for visual thinking and communication and the role of creative expression in addressing social and environmental problems. The sub-area provides full-time interdisciplinary, theme-based programs as well as specifically focused studio work for beginning, intermediate and advanced students. Our facilities support academic work in drawing, art history, painting, printmaking, photography (analog and digital), sculpture (wood and metal), sustainable design, fine metals, fibers, ceramics, installation and performance art. Many faculty teaching in the sub-area are versatile in teaching skills in multiple areas. Currently we have ten full-time faculty, four full-time staff (to manage facilities in wood and metal, printmaking, and photography), one half-time staff (for ceramics) and six to eight adjunct faculty teaching in Evening-Weekend Studies and Extended Education. Most part-time studies are are skill-oriented. The area has recently completed a redesign of its curricular pathways and looks forward to joint longer-term planning for the full-time and part-time curriculum.

Performing Arts offers work in theater, dance. The sub-unit currently has nine faculty members (4 Music, 2 Dance, 3 Theater)and is supported in its efforts by four theater staff and two full time building staff. The area supports interdisciplinary performance work, inter-arts work, and disciplinary work. Faculty emphasize commonalities between the performance disciplines and collaborative project work. Programs stress the role and function of the performing arts in human culture and history; they also investigate social and political situations. In recent years there has been significant reevaluation of the sub-area’s offerings. The introductory-level program in the area has undergone changes in the way it is staffed to better prepare students for advanced work. The upcoming hire in modern dance and kinesiology (to begin in fall of 2008) will bring dance faculty numbers into balance with the other performing arts faculty, and is expected to ease the burden of the dance faculty from having to fully staff their own programs as well as part-time offerings.

Introductory Programs and Pathways

The area focuses attention in first- and second-year programs in developing skills in inquiry, critical thinking, and arts literacies. In addition, Visual Arts is experimenting with studio skills at the CORE level to improve the general skills of lower division students and prepare them more effectively for advanced work. Faculty across the Expressive Arts have consistently offered introductory programs, which have experienced increasingly strong enrollments. In the case of Visual Arts, a portfolio is required for entry to the program. In the case of Mediaworks, faculty members request a written application for consideration. The programs have required significant time in out-of-area study for entry and have been aimed at advanced sophomores, juniors or seniors. These programs have served as prerequisites for advanced work, in small Student Originated Study (SOS) group projects, in Senior Thesis projects, and in admission to upper-level programs. Performance Works (the new title of the introductory program in the Performing Arts) is offered annually. There is variation among the Performing Arts faculty about pedagogical priorities in the area. The sub-area’s changes are yielding better enrollments.

The area’s introductory programs have helped to define some clear basic competencies, and have encouraged not simply the acquisition of skills, but the development of a broader perspective on the role and place of arts in society. Faculty have taken on a series of strong collaborative efforts with colleagues in other areas; specifically, Scientific Inquiry, Culture, Text and Language, and Environmental Studies. Overall the area has worked to provide sufficient support to interdivisional and core programs. Expressive Arts is the only planning unit that systematically provides not only financial, but faculty and staff support for Senior Thesis projects. The area also provides support for students to do advanced work in all three areas.

Student Response to the Curriculum

Expressive arts is popular area with students. Among students brand new to the college 16.5% of transfers and 27.7% of freshmen indicate that they want to pursue work in the visual and performing arts. (2005 New Student Survey Question 11) On The Evergreen State College Evergreen Student Experience Survey 22% of students who identified only one Planning Unit (75.2% of respondents) indicate that Expressive Arts is their primary field of study or concentration. Another 12.4 % of respondents identified EA as one of multiple areas they were studying. (Inst Research, 2006 Student Experience survey Question 4 by Planning Units 2007) Enrollment in the area’s offerings has remained essentially stable between 1998-99 and 2005-6 at approximately 440 FTE per year. The area has made significant efforts to contribute to core and inter-area teaching over the period contributing between 35% and 52% of its teaching effort to work in these two modes. (Curricular Visions Select Curriculum Trends 1997/8-2005/6)

Alumni Survey Data

A critical mode of assessing the work of the area is satisfaction of area graduates with their experience. The 2006 Alumni survey of the class of 2004-5 is the latest set of data on Alumni Satisfaction. All data in this discussion is drawn from this data set. (Alumni Survey 2006: Expressive Arts)

Overall, alumni who concentrated their studies in Expressive Arts report very high rates of satisfaction with Evergreen’s contribution to their academic and personal growth. In 21 of 24 aspects of their Evergreen work, over 80% of Expressive Arts students were somewhat to very satisfied with their experience. Students were most satisfied with capacity to express themselves in an creative or artistic way, their understanding and appreciation of the arts, their capacity to work independently, their capacity to work in groups, their functioning as a responsible member of a diverse community, and their knowledge of a broad range of subjects. Indeed for 10 of 24 categories mean satisfaction was 4 or better on a five-point scale. All but three means were greater than 3.5. Students gave lower marks to their perceived readiness for a career and further education and to their capacity to use mathematical and scientific principles.

When alumni were directly asked their satisfaction with Evergreen experiences over 90% reported being somewhat or very satisfied with Interdisciplinary education, faculty narrative evaluation, quality of instruction, the education they were able to construct, advice from faculty, self evaluation process, independent contracts, culminating projects, internships and study abroad. Students were most dissatisfied with opportunities for advanced undergraduate work and tolerance for different or opposing views.

In terms of 10 work related skills, Expressive Arts students scored a modal score of excellent on a four-point scale. Evergreen was seen as contributing to some extent or a great deal in all skill areas with particular help in the development of skills in creative thinking, effective communications, independence and initiative, and willingness and aptitude to learn new skills. They saw themselves a learners with an ability and willingness to take on new tasks.

In terms of employment, 84.3% of the Expressive Arts concentration alumni were employed one year after graduation compared with 84% of all Alumni. Of those employed, 55% of Expressive Arts alumni were employed in an area that was at least somewhat related to their area of primary study at Evergreen. 66.7% of employed Expressive Arts alumni felt that their Evergreen experience had prepared the adequately or very well for their current positions.

In terms of graduate or professional school, 24.5% of Expressive Arts Alumni applied to graduate/professional school within one year of graduation. Of 12 alumni who applied 8 had been offered admission (67.5%), two applications were pending, and two had been denied. Of 51 Expressive Arts alumni, 8 attended or are currently attending graduate or professional school within one year of graduation. The 8 alumni were continuing their work in Washington (3), other states (4), and internationally (1). Two had enrolled in graduate studies at Evergreen in this time frame. The rate of 16.3% of alumni going directly to graduate school was slightly lower than the 21% of all Evergreen alumni respondents who entered graduate school in this period.

Issues

The most persistent issue voiced by faculty in the area is faculty/student ratio. Faculty have several concerns that emerge from this question. First, in some spaces there are fewer of the necessary pieces of equipment than there are students in the class. This either means students do not get to do all of the work or that faculty are pushed toward repeating workshops. Several faculty members noted that they regularly carry thirty or more contact hours in studio per week. Second, the ratio of 25/1 is seen to be too high for effective critical support of student work. Many noted that simply speaking effectively to each student’s work was difficult and that the need to add important skills development and written work beyond that made finding time to do a strong job very problematic. Finally, several faculty members noted that students coming to the college were younger and often in need of quite basic skills. This relative weakness of students in comparison to years past lead to more academic and also more psychological difficulty. The high student faculty ratio means it is extremely difficult and/or time consuming for faculty to meet the needs of challenged students. Finally, higher student-faculty ratios make it harder to maintiann safty in such areas as dance and in the wood and metal-shops.

The relationship of the planning unit to Evening and Weekend Studies, and especially to Extended Education initiatives by the college raises considerable concern about whether these activities are supplementing or supplanting the areas offerings. There have also been concerns raised about hiring processes and decisions in these areas.

The current presumably temporary usurpation of teaching areas by staff displaced by the major remodel of the library has and the continuing remodeling of this major facility has inconvenienced faculty as they try to allocate scarce space resources and diminished the opportunities for students in this period.

The area identified issues dealing with replacing retiring faculty and the replacement of support to the unit when faculty members go on leave without pay. They argue strongly for more permanent lines to facilitate planning.

Scientific Inquiry

The central concern of the Scientific Inquiry planning unit is the scientific understanding of nature. Its goals are to engage students in a community within which ways of scientific thinking about the natural world are developed and utilized to create an understanding of natural phenomena. Scientific thinking is understood to involve the identification of hypotheses, the use of appropriate instruments, theory, and models to arrive at sound conclusions about the hypothesis. The area understands thinking as a scientist as a valuable piece of a liberal arts education in its own right. Scientific thinking is seen as a necessary part of a general education for a democratic society within which science and technology play a major role. Reciprocally scientists are understood to need a broader social, historical and ethical context within which to consider the consequences of their work. The area sees its responsibility to both provide depth for students who hope to become members of the scientific community and to provide breadth for students who will be citizens within a democratic society. SI is the primary location for instruction in chemistry, mathematics, computer science, biology, and physics in the college curriculum.

Faculty and Programs

Faculty in the SI area are trained and provide instruction in a wide variety of scientific disciplines including: chemistry, biology, computer science, mathematics, physics, and history of science and technology. In the period from 1998-99 school year to end of the 2006-7 school year the SI area grew from 20 to 25 active regular faculty. 14 of this 25 are new to the faculty since 98-99.

Faculty in SI have developed and organized a set of repeating programs that provide increasingly sophisticated instruction in five major areas, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics. These programs emphasize laboratory work, engagement with real world phenomena, and collaborative work. Students are taught to formulate questions and devise means for solving problems, collecting data, and analyzing data in light of underlying theory. Evergreen’s teaching of the sciences is notable for its hands on qualities its collaborative effort, its attention to integration across disciplines, and the way in which each discipline contextualizes the other. Access at the undergraduate level to sophisticated analytic equipment including mass spectrometry, NMR, scanning electron microscopy, and infrared spectrometry allow students to do advanced work.

Biology	Chemistry	Computer Science	Mathematics	Physics
Foundation of Health Science Introduction to Natural Science	Foundations of Health Science Introduction to Natural Science	Algebra to Algorithm Computer Science Foundations Models of Motion	Models of Motion Computer Science Foundations	Models of Motion Astronomy and Cosmology
Molecule to Organism Advanced Biology	Molecule to Organism Environmental Analysis Atoms Molecules Research	Computability Student Originated Software	Methods of Applied Math Computability Mathematical Systems	Energy Systems Physical Systems

Introductory Programs and Pathways

The SI area systematically provides introductory programs to the five major pathways it identifies in its curriculum. Programs such as Introduction Health Sciences and Introduction to Natural Science provide alternative vehicles for entering work in the Biology and Chemistry paths. The former emphasizes allied health science while the latter is a more general college level introduction to science. Similarly Models of Motion, Computer Science Foundations are shared between Mathematics and Computer Science. Together they provide a strong introduction to Mathematics, computer science and physics. Advanced work in the area is s reflected in End of Program review data where SI faculty were far more likely than faculty from other areas to identify advanced work in their area as doing upper division work in upper division programs as opposed to independent work. In addition, the area does provide significant opportunities to work with faculty on faculty research projects as another vehicle for advanced work. Works on these projects has frequently led to professional presentation and publication by Evergreen science students. In terms of General education, as we might expect, SI makes a major contribution to the teaching of both mathematic and science to students who undertake some work in the sciences during their time at Evergreen and to students who participate in Core and Inter-Area programs where SI faculty teach. 100% of area programs report using Mathematics and quantitative reasoning in their programs and 75% of those report this as a major emphasis. (2006/7 EPR Mathematics in Programs Institutional Research) 88% of SI programs reported Natural or Physical sciences with 81% of these reporting extensive use of Science. Clearly area faculty members are instrumental in teaching both mathematics and sciences in first-year and inter-area programs.

The significant and continuing effort to provide systematic and coherent pathways for science students has been a major effort on the part of SI faculty. This effort has lead historically to a relatively low participation of science faculty in Core. Between 1997/8 and 2005/6 the area’s participation in Core has ranged from a high of 14.4% of the FTE generated in the area to a low of 1.6%. The participation of SI faculty in inter-area programs has been much more substantial ranging from a low of 13.2% of FTE generated to a high of 28.4%. The area has made significant efforts in the past few years to increase their participation in Core and has opened up a considerable number of freshman seats to students in Foundation of Health Science, Introduction to Natural Science and other programs by treating them as all level or lower division programs. This has meant that finding consistent faculty support for the teaching of quantitative and scientific concepts in a general education setting in Core and Inter-area has been difficult. The hiring of faculty in health sciences is designed to lead to a new integration around issues of health between social science and science faculty. The success of these efforts depends heavily on the ability of the college to encourage students to participate and to locate social science faculty interested in working on health issues. The area has done some quite effective work with creating innovate short-term collaborative efforts with the visual arts areas in recent years.

Student Participation and Satisfaction

In the time since the last accreditation faculty in SI area have accounted for between 16 and 20 percent of the total FTE generated in undergraduate full-time programs or between 370 and 461 FTE. There is no distinct trend in the data although the numbers seem to have stabilized around 17%. Students who are attracted to the area have strong interests in biology and in health related fields as well as lesser interest in computer science and physical sciences. (Institutional Research,2005 New Student Survey, Question 12) On the Evergreen Experience survey 14.6% of the 75% of student who indicated a single area of focus identified themselves as studying in Scientific Inquiry. Another 9% of students listed SI as among the areas in which they were working.

Alumni Survey Data

A critical mode of assessing the work of the area is satisfaction of area graduates with their experience. The 2006 Alumni survey of the class of 2004-5 is the latest set of data on Alumni Satisfaction. All data in this discussion is drawn from this data set. (Alumni Survey 2006: Scientific Inquiry)

Overall, alumni who reported that Scientific Inquiry was a primary focus of study at Evergreen report very high rates of satisfaction with Evergreen’s contribution to their academic and personal growth. In 22 of 24 aspects of their Evergreen work over 80% of Scientific Inquiry students were somewhat to very satisfied with their experience. Alumni were most satisfied with learning independently, understanding and applying scientific principles, working cooperatively in groups, defining and understanding problems, participating in class discussions, and critically analyzing information. Indeed for 15 of 24 categories mean satisfaction was 4 or better on a five-point scale. All but one mean were greater than 3.5. Students gave lower marks to their perceived readiness for a career and understanding different philosophies and cultures.

When alumni were directly asked their satisfaction with Evergreen experiences over 90% reported being somewhat or very satisfied with Interdisciplinary education, faculty narrative evaluation, quality of instruction, the education they were able to construct, independent contracts, community service, culminating projects, internships and study abroad. Students were most dissatisfied with quality of learning interactions with other students and the self-evaluation process.

In terms of ten work related skills, a plurality of Scientific Inquiry alumni rated themselves as excellent on five skills and good on five more on a four-point scale. Evergreen was seen as contributing to some extent or a great deal in all skill areas with particular help in the development of skills in independence and initiative and research skills. SI graduates saw themselves as well organized, capable of taking initiative, communicating, making decisions, and willing and able to learn new skills.

In terms of employment, 91.5% of the Scientific Inquiry concentration alumni were employed one year after graduation compared with 84% of all Alumni. Of those employed 65.1% of Scientific Inquiry alumni were employed in an area that was at least somewhat related to their area of primary study at Evergreen. 67.4% of employed Scientific Inquiry alumni felt that their Evergreen experience had prepared the adequately or very well for their current positions.

In terms of graduate or professional school, 41.3% of Scientific Inquiry alumni applied to graduate/professional school within one year of graduation. Of 19 alumni who applied 12 had been offered admission (63.2%), 4 applications were pending, and three had been denied. Of 49 Scientific Inquiry alumni, 12 attended or are currently attending graduate or professional school within one year of graduation. The 12 alumni were continuing their work in Washington (5) and other states (7). No one had enrolled in graduate studies at Evergreen in this time frame. The rate of 26.1% of alumni going directly to graduate school was slightly higher than the 21% of all Evergreen alumni respondents who entered graduate school in this period.

Issues

A major issue confronting the area is the creation of a large enough faculty and a small enough core curriculum that a sufficient number of faculty are available for work outside of the regular offerings of the curriculum. While many students do gain significant exposure to scientific and mathematical ideas through SI’s introductory programs and another significant group gain some exposure to scientific concepts through the participation of some SI faculty in Core and inter-area programs, concern to create coherent and legitimate paths that allow Evergreen students access to graduate work have made engagement with more general science education difficult. In the past three years the area has worked to restructure the planning process to put a higher priority on creating more freshman seats by opening some programs as all-level and allowing freshman registration, by converting programs from sophomore level programs to lower division programs, and by staffing Core and Inter-area programs. This highlighting of the necessity of providing instruction for freshmen has lead to more all-level teaching, the development of some lower division programs, and greater participation of area faculty in Core programs. While this solution works well to increase the number of science based seats available to freshmen, it does little to expand the teaching of science in to a non-science constituency.

The area self-study notes that although there is considerably more talk about what science for “non-majors” should look like at Evergreen, there is not a well developed agreement, concomitantly there is not a clear idea of what the non-science portions of the major scientific introductory and mid-level programs should be. This difficulty when combined with quite different levels of integration of program concepts from year to year makes it difficult to create anything beyond ad hoc materials in support of a context for thinking about broader scientific and social issues.

The area also identifies the difficulties that accompany the decision to offer major disciplines in programmatic structures. Primary among these is difficulty supplementing math skills and other prerequisites for transfer students or students who avoided mathematics early in their college careers. The tension between the desire for integration and full time coordinated study work and the need for particular pieces of content is a continuing tension, one which will necessarily engage a conversation with Evening and Weekend Studies and the QuaSR Center.

Society, Politics, Behavior and Change

Themes and Mission

The SPBC planning unit provides the overall umbrella for most of the formal teaching in the social sciences and also includes most faculty members who rotate in and out of the Masters in Teaching (MIT) and the Masters in Public Administration (MPA) programs. The Planning Unit was drawn together after the 1995 Long Range curriculum DTF report from five quite different specialty areas. To this day the planning unit represents the very different understandings of the social sciences that were embodied in these earlier planning groups. The overall goal of the area is to use a variety of social science disciplines to provide students with a better understanding of society as it operates at a local, regional, and international level. Within the generally shared concern with an analysis of issues of diversity, the area also helps students understand how to use different levels of analysis from the individual through the global level to develop an understanding of social issues. Student work is seen as requiring the development of a variety of writing, research skills, practices and theoretical perspectives. Five major sub-units organize the area’s work. Masters of Public Administration (MPA), Masters in Teaching (MIT), Political Economy, Psychology, and Business/Management. In addition several other faculty members trained in social sciences are affiliated with the unit. Finally, although the area is the primary place where social sciences are taught, it is far from being the only place. Important elements of social sciences are taught in Culture, Text and Language, in Environmental Studies, and in the Masters in Environmental Studies areas.

Faculty and Programs

The disciplines of anthropology, economics, history, public policy, public administration, labor studies, management, political science, international affairs, philosophy, sociology, health sciences, business, teaching and learning, and psychology are represented in the area. The Masters of Teaching program and the newly approved Masters in Education program provide advanced work in public K-12 education and the Masters of Public Administration Program offers work in public, non-profit, and tribal administration. The presence of graduate programs in the area simultaneously enlarges the range of capacities and the numbers of faculty available to teach in the area and imposes significant demands on those resources. The work of the graduate programs is discussed in section 3 of this chapter. Thus while the list of faculty affiliated with the area is large, the actual number of faculty regularly participating in the undergraduate curriculum varies between 25 and 30 per year. The disciplinary concentration of the area has shifted in the past decade, with a growth of six faculty in business and MPA, two in psychology, and two in MIT and the loss of six faculty in general social sciences. (Comparison of faculty lists in 1997-8 and 2006-7 catalogs)

The area offers thee major undergraduate foci. Political Economy, which focuses on the intersection of politics and economics and emphasizes global political economy and its impact on issues of gender, race, and class within the United States. In past years an introductory Political Economy program with faculty trained in economics, political science and a variety of other disciplines has been offered along with a variety of more advanced offerings. More recently finding staffing for the introductory program has been difficult. Approximately eight faculty members are associated with this group.

A second focus is the undergraduate level curriculum in administration and business. Business is an area where the college has made new hires in recent years and currently an introductory business program is offered and a second year program is anticipated. Six faculty members have some affiliation with management and business at the undergraduate level.

The third focus is on psychology with a particular emphasis on issues of counseling. Five faculty members currently have some connection in psychology. There is a pathway in psychology beginning with some variant of Human Health and Development. An alternative introduction though the one quarter “So You want to be a Psychologist program is taught regularly. The pathway culminates with a unique Multi-cultural Counseling Program that incorporates both academic and experiential work in counseling. There are also opportunities for psychological research and social psychology with the area’s faculty. Other individual contracts and internships support work in counseling.

Planning in the area tends to occur within sub-groups. The lines between groups are not hard and fast and there are a number of faculty members in the area who work in more than one group as well as a number of faculty members each year who rotate either into or out of graduate programs.

Although pathways exist in parts of SPBC (Political Economy, Psychology, and Business and Management), creating a more general pathway into the social sciences has proved to be a difficult, because of the range of disciplines in the area, because there is no broadly shared paradigm, and because the area is understaffed. Nevertheless there is a substantial consensus that skills in reading, library use, critical thinking, and writing are essential. In addition in the past several years significant efforts have been made to incorporate more quantitative reasoning, primarily in statistics and research methods, into the offerings of the planning unit.

There is a strong consensus that students should develop skills in general liberal arts, understandings of disciplinary perspectives, and be effective personally and in groups to engage in efforts to bring about change. They should have the opportunity to develop necessary disciplinary skills for graduate work. The area emphasizes resisting inequality and a striving for equity, re-conceptualizing the self in the face of a critical analysis of power and privilege, and moving towards creating and generating change at different levels of social systems. There is a consistent and serious concern with issue of diversity throughout the area’s curriculum.

The Planning unit is the site of some excellent teaching about a wide range of subjects, including, global political economy, counseling psychology, anti-oppression work at a variety of levels, organization, business, and management. The area has made a series of attempts to strengthen its internal organization and participation including time to share work, time to work on planning and attention to issues of teaching.

Student Response to the Area

The SPBC Planning Unit is the most popular on campus according to the 2006 Evergreen Student Experience survey. Some 26.7% of students who identified a single area of focus found a home in SPBC. Another 16.6% of students interested in more than one area identify SPBC as a choice. Students in the area are roughly evenly split among those who identify business and management, education, psychology, and social sciences, as their primary choices with a smattering of law and public service professions rounding out the list.

SPBC contributed an average of 425 FTE to the undergraduate curriculum per year over the 1997-8 to 2005-6 school years. The area’s contribution increased significantly in the last 4 years of the period to nearly 500 FTE. (Inst. Research, Curricular Visions Packet, Olympia Undergraduate Distribution of FTE by Planning Unit, Update 2007) The area overall has contributed am annual average of 15.3% of its teaching effort to Core programs over the same period. The area has made a consistent and significant contribution of just over 30% of its teaching effort to the teaching of Inter-Area programs. (Inst. Research, Curricular Visions Packet, Proportion of FTE by Program Type, Update 2007)

Alumni Survey Data

A critical mode of assessing the work of the area is satisfaction of area graduates with their experience. The 2006 Alumni survey of the class of 2004-5 is the latest set of data on Alumni Satisfaction. All data in this discussion is drawn from this data set of Olympia alumni who identified that Education, Business, or other SPBC fields were a primary area of study while at Evergreen. (Alumni Survey 2006: Society, Politics, Behavior and Change)

Overall, alumni report very high rates of satisfaction with Evergreen’s contribution to their academic and personal growth. SPBC alumni were most satisfied with learning independently, participating in class discussions , synthesizing information and ideas, and critically analyzing information. Indeed for 18 of 24 categories mean satisfaction was between mostly and very satisfied (4) or better on a five-point scale. All of the mean ratings were above “somewhat satisfied” (3) on the rating scale. Alumni gave lower marks to their perceived readiness for a career, depth in a particular field, and understanding and applying quantitative and scientific principles.

When alumni were directly asked their satisfaction with Evergreen experiences over 90% reported being somewhat or very satisfied with Interdisciplinary education, quality of instruction, the education they were able to construct, faculty narrative evaluation, and study abroad. Alumni were most dissatisfied tolerance for different or opposing views and culminating senior experiences.

In terms of ten work related skills, a plurality of SPBC alumni rated themselves as excellent on eight skills and good on the other two skills on a four-point scale. Evergreen was seen as contributing to some extent or a great deal in all skill areas with particular help in the development of skills in creative thinking, communication, independence and initiative, research skills, and willingness and aptitude to learn new skills. SPBC graduates saw themselves as strong thinkers and communicators who are able to work effectively in culturally diverse environments, take initiative, learn new skills.

In terms of employment, 85.6% of the Society, Politics, Behavior, and Change concentration alumni were employed one year after graduation compared with 84% of all Alumni. Of those employed, 71.7% were employed in an area that was at least somewhat related to their area of primary study at Evergreen. 79.8% of employed SPBC alumni felt that their Evergreen experience had prepared the adequately or very well for their current positions.

In terms of graduate or professional school, 30.4% of SPBC alumni applied to graduate/professional school within one year of graduation. Of 35 alumni who applied 27 had been offered admission (77.1%), 6 applications were pending, and two had been denied. Of 122 SPBC alumni, 22 attended or are currently attending graduate or professional school within one year of graduation. The 22 alumni were continuing their work in Washington (15), other states (3), and internationally (4). Six had enrolled in graduate studies at Evergreen in this time frame. The rate of 19.1% of alumni going directly to graduate school was slightly lower than the 21% of all Evergreen alumni respondents who entered graduate school in this period.

Issues

The primary issues facing the planning unit are its function and staffing. While most other planning units have a quite well defined sense of their central work and effort, SPBC is drawn in several quite different directions. The appearance of these Master’s level faculty and several emeritus faculty on the roles of the Planning unit make it appear that there is an appropriate number of faculty to staff the area’s diverse offerings. In actuality the area has around twenty-five faculty members at the undergraduate level. Yet within even this limited range of faculty whose efforts are directed at undergraduates, a significant number individual faculty members operate somewhat autonomously, and the three major sub-areas have little substantial necessity to interact in order to plan curriculum. The Faculty of the Planning Unit has decided not to pursue an area wide introductory program, but to allow the three major tracks to operate somewhat independently.

It can be argued that there is a need for serious reflection on the teaching and place of the social sciences at Evergreen and the relationship of professional training to the undergraduate curriculum. The different missions of the groups in this area and the significant work done by social scientists in other areas need to be discussed and rethought, not necessarily to create more and better training in social sciences, but most importantly to find ways to integrate rigorous work in social sciences with a social, political and engaged policy dimension in the work of all areas of the college.

The area is arguably understaffed, yet until there is some case made for what the area is attempting to accomplish, it is difficult for area representatives to make convincing cases for additional hires. It is notable that the hiring that has been done in the area has developed in some large measure from administrative need to grow and solidify curriculum in graduate programs and business rather from a broad area wide consensus.

Evening and Weekend Studies

Themes and Mission

Whereas other planning units have typically been organized around a collection of various fields of study, the Evening and Weekend Studies (EWS) planning unit is centered on providing specific schedules and modes of study to students while covering all fields of study. The students served by EWS fall mostly into two categories. There is one set of students who are taking all of their coursework for that quarter in EWS, and there is another set of students who are taking two or four credits in EWS on top of the program or contract work they are doing in other planning units. These two sets of students provide the two primary functions for the EWS curriculum. For the former set of students, EWS offers a comprehensive liberal arts curriculum that covers the range of subject matter found in other planning units. This subject matter is presented in a combination of part-time interdisciplinary programs (8 or 12 credits per quarter) and more focused courses (2 or 4 credits per quarter). For the latter set of students, EWS offers focused courses (2 or 4 credits per quarter) which allow the students to explore new fields of study, deepen their understanding of a particular academic field, or pursue prerequisites for specific undergraduate and graduate programs. The evening and weekend curriculum provides a way for students to explore visual arts, music, and dance courses; to acquire prerequisites in mathematics, social and natural sciences, and other disciplines; and to take foreign language sequences. Part-time programs and courses in EWS support pathways for students in American studies; arts and culture; body, mind and health; computers and society; environmental studies; government, justice and citizenship; international studies; literature and writing; management, markets and entrepreneurship; work, workers and social change; and math and science. Each year, the area also supports a part-time program in conjunction with Grays Harbor College in Aberdeen.

There has been major growth in EWS since the last accreditation report, and the role of EWS in the college has changed as its contribution to the undergraduate curriculum has grown. Originally, EWS was designed to support continuing study towards a degree by part-time students at the college. The evening and weekend schedule was seen as a way to support place-bound and schedule-bound students who were working or supporting a family and were unable to commit to the full-time programs offered during the day. The evening and weekend schedule continues to support these students, but they have not turned out to be part-time students. Today EWS enrollments comprise sixteen percent of the total student FTE at the college and most of the students enrolled in EWS programs and course work are full time students at the college. Thus the mission has moved to incorporate both part-time students and full time students undertaking either supplementary work or taking full time work within the EWS offerings.

One of the major factors contributing to the growth of EWS and the change in its role in the undergraduate curriculum was the decision in the 2001-02 school year to allow students to attempt as many as 20 hours per quarter. Students had previously been restricted to a maximum of 16 quarter hours per quarter. This change was undertaken to allow students access to broader array of courses that might supplement their general education. This development helped spur the growth of the use of EWS by full time students particularly in languages. At the same time, the number of faculty lines dedicated to staffing the evening and weekend curriculum was increased. The growth in EWS has been an important component in the college’s overall growth in the past 10 years. Growth in the part-time programs has been modest, up merely 4% over the period. But enrollment in courses work has risen 30% from 320.9 to 416.8 FTE in this period. (Institutional Research, Enrollment Trends Annual Average FTE by modes of Study 1997-8 -2006-7 2007)

Faculty and Programs

Since 1996, the college has had a dean whose primary responsibility has been organizing and staffing the evening and weekend curriculum. Currently, the EWS planning unit is staffed by 12 half-time, continuing faculty, a pool of about 15 adjunct faculty who frequently teach in part-time programs, and an additional pool of about 80 adjunct faculty, some of whom are regular Evergreen staff, who teach 2 and 4 unit courses. Continuing faculty members have expertise in American studies, art history, literature, theater, labor studies, political and international studies, community studies, management, psychology, organizational development, environmental studies, environmental science, biology, mathematics, computer studies, and physics. Currently, two half-time-continuing faculty are serving as deans.

The program offerings of the area are consistently interdisciplinary and often inter-divisional in their focus. They are designed explicitly to incorporate elements of the five foci within them and to help students move toward fulfilling the six expectations. Courses offered typically include several offerings each quarter in each of the following areas: foreign language, writing, mathematics, sciences, business, psychology, and the visual arts. In addition, there are usually offerings in history, literature, dance, music, education, and sociology.

End of Program Review (EPR) data demonstrates that the program component of the Planning Unit has focused most of its subject matter work on Social Sciences, Humanities, and to a lesser degree arts. [Data for this and the following paragraphs is take from the EPR 2000-2005 Summaries of EPR Data] Data for Evening and Weekend Studies deals only with the half-time programs offered by the planning unit. The EPR data does not cover the significant growth in course offerings in this period. As pointed out above, the number of such programs and the number of seats in such programs has remained quite steady over the period. In the 2000-01 to 2005-06 period area programs reported between 67 and 93 % of programs taught humanities And over half of those programs made extensive use of Humanities in their subject matter. In 2006-07, 94% reported some use of humanities and 61% reported extensive humanities work. Similarly in social science 2006-07 data 89% of programs reported using social sciences compared to 77% of all programs and 55% of all programs made extensive use of social sciences. The role of arts in programs has varied of 56% in the 2006-07 data to as high as 75% for several years previous. However, intensive use of arts was present in only 22% of programs. 2000-01 TO 2005-6 EPR data combine science and mathematics while the number of programs reporting the use of science and math fluctuated from a high of 64% to a low of 19% for the most part programs reported a minor emphasis on mathematics and science. The 2006-07 data show only 28% of programs had mathematics and 44% had science components and only 6% of programs reported a extensive use of math and 16% reported extensive use of sciences.

In terms of skills in writing, Information Technology Literacy (ITL), and Critical Thinking the planning unit has like most other areas active in supporting general education goals. Both in writing and critical thinking 100% of programs report working on these areas in significant ways. Writing was not simply expected but actively taught in most EWS programs. A particular emphasis was placed on response writing and critical essay writing. Work on critical thinking focused on the recognition of diverse perspectives (including analysis of one’s own perspective) on materials covered and analysis of the content of texts, images and data. ITL 2006-07 data show that ITL was a component in over 80% of programs. Like most program areas the primary uses of ITL were for information acquisition, presentation, and online communication and social software. 83.% of EWS programs as opposed to 70% of all programs reported work on ITL.

Data on Students experience with and their satisfaction with EWS programs and courses requires the difficult task of disaggregating these students from the student body in general. (See Excerpts from the 2002 Alumni Survey of the Class of 2000-01 for all data in this section) While students use EWS at al levels of their college experience, it is notable that transfer students entering as Juniors constitute nearly half of those reporting using EWS offerings. EWS Alumni are indistinguishable from alumni in other Planning Units when asked about Evergreen’s contribution to their education. Learning independently, understanding other philosophies and cultures, working cooperatively, and critical analysis of written information cluster at the top in terms of satisfaction and readiness for a career, quantitative principle and understanding scientific principles cluster at the lower (although the mean is still 3.25 or better on a five point scale). Similarly students were satisfied with the interdisciplinary approach, contracts and individual work with faculty, internships, and narrative evaluations. Dissatisfactions were a bit different with faculty advice, culminating senior experience, intellectual discussions with other students and opportunities for advanced work as areas where students could see room for improvement. In some measure this may reflect the smaller amount of contact with faculty in half time courses and programs, the difficulty of providing a full range of advanced work within the confines of a limited faculty pool, and the dispersion of students in classes and half-time programs.

One year out of college, 87% of student reported employment with 79% of those employed reporting that their work was somewhat or directly related to their primary studies at Evergreen. These numbers are directly comparable to other Planning Units. 72% their education had prepared them adequately or very well for their current job. 13 of 87 EWS alumni reported attending or acceptance to graduate school in fields a wide variety of fields: Library science, art, clinical psychology, Medical History and ethics, teaching, Public Administration. Students reported that Evergreen had prepared the adequately (54%) or very well (46%) for graduate school. While the rate of students attending graduate school was slightly lower than the college average, 80% of those not yet attending graduate school intended to apply to graduate school in the future.

Once again the most compelling data in terms of EWS students is their similarity in terms of their experience, satisfactions and results with students who identified themselves as full time students in the college.

Issues

The evening and weekend curriculum is planned on a one-year cycle rather than the two-year cycle followed by the daytime curriculum. This structure allows the curriculum to adapt more quickly to shifts in the student body and other demands on the curriculum. This flexibility is enhanced by the fact that so much of the evening and weekend curriculum is staffed by adjunct faculty. However, both of these characteristics have associated problems. The planning cycle makes it difficulty to collaborate with rather than just react to the curriculum offerings in the daytime. And the high number of adjunct faculty raises issues of faculty status just as it does in other institutions. The result is a sense of separation between the EWS faculty and the rest of the faculty. In addition, there are specific issues of separation in terms of service to students. Over the past ten years, many improvements have been made in the services provided to evening and weekend students and faculty, but there are still areas where further improvements are needed. Many of these issues were identified and discussed in the 2005 self study.

(Note: The following is an excerpt from the 2005 self study.)

Student Issues

1) Statements about Course Content and Objectives One data point that stands out from the EWS survey – A noticeable if still quite small number of students would like to know more about course objectives and purposes ahead of time, and they would like to know as much as possible as early as possible. While limited in the amount we can print in the mailed publication Evergreen Class Listings, we could add more to the web page – Academic Fair handouts, for example, could be added as soon as they were complete. Since many first time TESC students probably see our curriculum through the lens of more traditional content-focused courses, they may overlook how much our process-focused descriptions actually specify key learning outcomes. Also, it remains true that faculty vary in their commitment to settled program objectives and syllabi. One solution may be to advertise clearly which programs are fixed and which are more flexible. Resolution of this problem is possible within the EWS program.

2) Food Services We have discovered we have to be vigilant about keeping College services accessible during night and weekend hours. EWS faculty, Deans and students have had to struggle repeatedly for adequate night and weekend food, and once again no café service is available on Sundays during the teaching day. The resolution of this problem depends on cooperation from other areas and Divisions of the campus.

3) Program and Course Schedules Students experience schedule conflicts more than is ideal. We must remain attentive to ensuring a good distribution of teaching times and to prevent needless overlaps. Some students have suggested ending night programs at 9.45 to synchronize with the bus service. Careful attention to avoid this problem is possible within the EWS program.

4) Gender Balance in Programs It is no surprise to report that fewer women, proportionately, enroll in EWS science programs, although this may be challenged by “True but Not Obvious” a Spring 2005 Program. More surprising are the dearth of men in programs oriented towards becoming school teachers. Our survey also suggests that women are underrepresented in political studies programs. We need to ensure that we are not perpetuating traditional imbalances through inattention. Mitigation of this problem is possible within the EWS program.

5) Advanced Study Many students turn to EWS in search of advanced courses in specific disciplinary subject matter, for example in Languages and Sciences. Given the current 16% constraint on the budget allocated to EWS, it is impossible to meet all the needs for advanced courses. Resolution of this problem depends on cooperation within the Academic Division.

Faculty Issues

1) Pay Equity There is no pay equity for Adjuncts who have offered many years of unbroken and devoted service to TESC. Among Program faculty members with identical years of experience, those who are Adjunct earn only 80% of the salary paid to those with Regular appointments. Angry Faculty Meeting debates on a proposed new Emergency Reductions in Force (RIF) policy suggest that many daytime faculty are adamantly opposed to considering Adjuncts as equal partners in teaching. All EWS faculty take a very different view, managing to ameliorate these fundamental inequities with care and with generosity on the part of the Adjuncts.

An additional Pay Equity problem arises from the fact that faculty, both full time and part time, who are hired on temporary appointments and assigned to daytime programs are employed as Visiting Faculty. These Visiting positions receive the same salary as Regular Faculty. An identical teaching appointment in a Program scheduled nights or weekends is defined as Adjunct and receives only 80% of the salary offered to the Visitor.

We in EWS believe the College needs to achieve pay equity in both these areas. Resolution of these problems depends on the cooperation of the rest of the Academic Division.

2) Governance Even Regular EWS faculty rarely teach more than 3/4 time and yet a number of key governance assignments are “full time.” EWS may need to consider exemptions from governance, perhaps one year in three, since so many governance duties entail 2 year terms. Resolution of this problem is possible within EWS.

3) “Last Minute” Visiting appointments given and taken away The EWS curriculum is planned every year for the following year, which means we work on a tight time-table. Planners responsible for the daytime curriculum recruit away EWS faculty, often late in the planning process, leaving unforeseen holes in EWS. At the other end of the cycle, EWS visitors are liable to discover after 1-3 years that they are suddenly no longer needed in the daytime curriculum. While their “lines” may officially have been filled, in EWS we feel the College has an obligation to these Faculty, so the curriculum adjusts to use their services. EWS was once used to balance student enrollments. Now we balance faculty hiring. Resolution of this problem depends on cooperation within the Academic Division.

4) Connections with Community Colleges Transfer student admissions could be increased and facilitated by making faculty-to-faculty and TESC Admissions office contacts with those Community College faculty in Washington who are teaching using learning communities. Resolution of this problem is possible largely within EWS and the Washington Center for the Improvement of Undergraduate Education.

Native American and World Indigenous Peoples Planning Unit

This unit is described in Section 2.G. as a part of the larger discussion of the College's engagement with Native Communities in Washington State.

Evergreen Experience and Evergreen Graduate

Feedback from students and alumni about their experiences provides evidence of how well Evergreen is achieving its goals of providing engaging and relevant liberal arts education. One important source of such evidence is the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), in which Evergreen first-years and senior-class students participate annually. Evergreen students’ 2007 Level of Academic Challenge benchmark score was significantly higher (p<.001) than those for each of our three comparison populations: Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC), other Masters-Smaller Program schools who share our Carnegie classification, and all participating institutions. First-years and seniors score so highly in this area because they spend more time preparing for class and their coursework has a greater emphasis on high level mental activities such as synthesis and organization, making judgments about the value of information, and analysis than other seniors. The NSSE also reveals that Evergreen students spend significantly more time on assignments that require integration of information from different sources and that they more frequently put together ideas from different courses in their work. These elements combined characterize Evergreen’s educational practices as those which regularly engage students in activities which contribute to deep learning. Evergreen’s performance on NSSE’s Active and Collaborative Learning benchmark distinguishes us even further from our peer context. Again, both first-year and senior scores are significantly higher (p<.001) than all three comparison groups, and as with Academic Challenge our students are as engaged as students in the top 10% (high-performing) NSSE institutions. In 2007, none of the survey items which make up this benchmark score had significantly lower scores than any of the peer groups. The intellectual activities captured by this benchmark score illustrate common experiences for students at Evergreen. Students at Evergreen regularly work with other students in class and outside of class to complete their work. They are expected to be active participants in class discussions, and they are encouraged to pose their own questions. They more frequently teach each other and participate in community-based projects than students at most other institutions. Finally, they regularly carry ideas from class with them into discussions with others outside of class. The evidence of Active and Collaborative Learning gleaned from the NSSE supports the college’s efforts to provide educational programs that encourage students to be personally engaged in their learning and active participants in community.

The NSSE also asks a series of questions which collect students’ perceptions of how their institution has contributed to their growth and development in a series of knowledge and skill areas. These data provide a sense of the relative strength of various learning domains present in Evergreen’s undergraduate program. In 2007, Evergreen first-year students perceived higher growth than students at all three comparison groups in five of the sixteen learning domains: thinking critically and analytically, learning effectively on your own, understanding yourself, understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, and solving complex real-world problems. Additionally, they reported higher growth than other students in at least one of the comparison groups in another six areas: speaking clearly and effectively, working effectively with others, voting in elections, developing a personal code of values and ethics, contributing to the welfare of your community, and developing a deepened sense of spirituality. Seniors attribute significantly more growth to their Evergreen experiences than all three comparison groups in eight of the sixteen learning domains. As with first-years, thinking critically and analytically, learning effectively on your own, understanding yourself, understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, and solving complex real-world problems are again among the areas which differentiate Evergreen students’ experiences. In addition, seniors reported higher growth than all three comparison groups in acquiring a broad general education, working effectively with others, and contributing to the welfare of your community. Beyond those eight areas, in another five domains, Evergreen seniors perceive significantly higher growth than seniors in at least one of the comparison groups: writing clearly and effectively, speaking clearly and effectively, voting in elections, developing a personal code of values and ethics, and developing a deepened sense of spirituality. They are neither higher nor lower than any comparison group in analyzing quantitative problems. (NSSE 2007 Benchmarks Report)

A similar set of strengths rise to the top of the list of learning growth areas which Alumni rate in biannually administered surveys of baccalaureate degree recipients. Alumni from the class of 2005 were surveyed in summer and fall 2006. Participants are asked to rate their satisfaction with Evergreen’s contribution to their growth in 24 areas. It is notable that 17 of the 24 learning areas received an average rating above 4.0 on a 5-point scale, which placed the average satisfaction in these areas between “mostly” and “very” satisfied. Further none of the items had an average satisfaction rating below the midpoint “somewhat satisfied” on the scale. The highest rated learning areas provide additional evidence of Evergreen’s concurrent emphases on personal autonomy and responsibility for your own work, collaborative and responsible participation, and complex thinking. The top five highest average rating were attributed to growth in learning independently, participation in discussions, working cooperatively in a group, critically analyzing information, and synthesizing information and ideas from many sources. (Alumni Survey 2006).

Every four years, Institutional Research and Assessment administers the “Greeners at Work” survey which first collects information from alumni three years after graduation, and then asks the alum’s current supervisor to provide information about the abilities and expectations of the graduate in the workplace. Two Greeners at Work surveys have been completed during this 10-year accreditation cycle in 1999 and 2003, and data collection just wrapped up from the 2007 administration. The survey affirms the ability of Evergreen graduates to self-assess their relative strengths in terms of work-related skill areas, since in most skills areas there is strong correspondence between alumni and employer ratings. Of the 17 work-related skills rated, alumni and employers assigned the highest average skill levels to the same five areas, (although in a slightly different order.) Employers rated Evergreen alumni highest in their willingness and aptitude to learn new skills and their ability to work in a culturally diverse environment; alumni average ratings of their own skills simply switched the order of these top two skill areas. The next three highest areas in order of employer average ratings were ability to work cooperatively on team efforts, creative thinking skills, and independence and initiative. Again the areas of collaborative participation, independence and willingness to engage in personal challenge, and thinking skills rise to the top from another view of the outcomes of an Evergreen education. (Greeners at Work 2003 - Alumni and Employers Three Years After Graduation)

2.B.2 - Learning Assessment

The institution identifies and publishes the expected learning outcomes for each of its degree and certificate programs. Through regular and systematic assessment, it demostrates that students who complete their programs, no matter where or how they are offered, have achieved these outcomes.

Assessment of Undergraduate Learning

In response to a recommendation from the NWCCU to address issues of general education, the Evergreen faculty adopted six Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate in spring 2001. By approving expectations of graduates, rather than requirements to graduate, the faculty acted on a central principle of education at Evergreen – that students are responsible for their own work. The Expectations tell the students what they are generally expected to learn, but the choices of exactly what and how to learn are the responsibility of each student.

In addition to the adoption of the Expectations, the faculty also approved an expanded advising plan and other support structures to support implementation of the new general education initiatives. New curriculum models were developed to promote access to breadth and depth opportunities for students. The Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center, the Writing Center, faculty development funds, and faculty hiring priorities were also enhanced. At the end of their senior year, students are encouraged to create a new summative student self-evaluation that addresses the Expectations and is submitted to their official transcript. An Assessment Study Group of faculty, staff, and students was charged in 2002 to develop an assessment plan for the new general education initiatives. Collaboration in the development of the assessment plan (and its subsequent revisions) were essential in promoting ownership and responsibility for the both the process and use of the results. Two new assessment tools, the End-of-program Review and the Transcript Review to assess learning in terms of the Expectations were developed by the Assessment Study Group.

The assessment of the general educational program at Evergreen is framed as two related parts: Teaching and Learning. Teaching assessment focuses on how the curriculum provides students with “a substantial, coherent, and articulated exposure to the broad domains of knowledge” (as set out in Standard 2.C NWCCU and detailed in 2.C.3). Learning assessment focuses on evidence that students are meeting the Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate; this is the part of our institutional assessment plan that is detailed here. Evergreen’s approach to learning assessment is guided by the standards of regional accreditation, including, but not limited to the following:

• “The Northwest Commission of Colleges and Universities expects each institution and program to adopt an assessment plan responsive to its mission and its needs.” (Policy 2.2 Educational Assessment)
• “The institution identifies and publishes the expected learning outcomes for its degree programs. Through regular and systematic assessment, it demonstrates that students who complete their programs, no matter where or how they are offered, have achieved these outcomes.” (Standard 2.B.2)
• “While key constituents are involved in the [assessment] process, the faculty have a central role in planning and evaluating the educational programs.” (Standard 2.B.1)
• “The institution provides evidence that its assessment activities lead to the improvement of teaching and learning.” (Standard 2.B.3)

Evergreen has a rich method of assessing student achievements at the level of particular study: narrative evaluations, comprising both the faculty evaluation of student achievement (the faculty evaluation) and the student's own evaluation of achievement (the self-evaluation). The student transcript, consisting of records of transfer credits, program descriptions, as well as both student self-evaluations and faculty evaluations of students, serve as the primary basis for assessing student learning. The Transcript Review is a meta-assessment of a collection of authentic evaluation data that was documented at the time of the students’ work by the individuals who knew that work the best – students and their immediate faculty.

In August 2002, a group of faculty from across planning units, several staff, and a student assessed a random sample of transcripts of recent graduates using a rubric they developed based on the Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate. The 2002 transcript review served as a baseline measure, since the students whose transcripts were studied left the college just as the general education initiatives (including the formal adoption of the Expectations) were implemented. A second transcript review of a new random sample of graduates was completed in summer 2005. Both assessments have provided valuable information about student learning and how well our transcripts evidence learning in terms of the Expectations. By repeating the assessment activity periodically, the college is able to assess evidence of change over time in how many of our graduates are fulfilling the Expectations. A second phase of the transcript assessment entailed coding all of the credits that students earned to complete their degree into six broad fields of study: humanities, social science, art, science, quantitative and symbolic reasoning, and other credits. This second step allows comparison of breadth and depth of education as assessed through credit accumulation to the results of the narrative assessment of student learning.

The undergraduate learning assessment strategies include all undergraduates at Evergreen, including those studying at off-site programs and students taking Extended Education courses for academic credit. While student Transcript Review is the primary tool for assessing learning at Evergreen, the assessment is costly and time-intensive, so it can only be repeated every three to four years – with other assessment activities that focus on other areas of interest during intervening years. A further consideration is to allow sufficient time between transcript reviews to allow new initiatives and program changes to be evidenced in graduating student records. Thus, the transcript assessment results are supplemented by selected indicators of student self-reported learning using the results of other more regularly occurring surveys. Survey items that correspond to each of the Evergreen Expectations have been selected from the annually-administered National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE); biannual Alumni Surveys of recent Evergreen graduates; and every four years the Greeners at Work Survey of alumni three years after completion and their current employers.

Evidence of Learning in Terms of the Expectations

(See Standard 2 Supporting Documentation: General Education Learning Indicators)

Additional Learning Assessment Activities

Evergreen is also engaged in a variety of other educational assessment activities and projects that focus on critical learning outcomes in accordance with our mission. Following are a few examples.

In 2006, the Tribal: Reservation-based/Community-determined programs launched an e-portfolio program. Students in the program build and maintain portfolios in which they select examples of their work that they feel best demonstrate their progress in meeting the Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate (and their program-specific goal of indigenous knowledge). The students provide a reflective narrative to explain how their selection addresses the goals of the program. Their portfolio websites are open to review and comment by their faculty and fellow students. The portfolio is primarily a learning approach, but also provides a rich resource for developmental assessment.

A group of library faculty, staff, library interns, and students conducted two process assessments to explore student learning in information technology literacy. These assessments involved student participants as co-researchers who helped the college understand how students frame research questions, determine and implement research strategies, and make decisions about the value and meaning of information while conducting genuine research projects. The students attended a two-day workshop in the library while working on authentic research projects from their academic programs. They worked individually and in peer-review teams; all research activities were documented and debriefed, and all keystrokes were collected from Camtasia software loaded onto their laptops. The project was first conducted in 2003 with graduating seniors, and it was found to be very valuable for identifying strengths and weaknesses in our approaches to teaching information technology literacy. The assessment was then repeated with first-year participants in 2004 to gain a clearer picture of the skills which first-year students bring with them to college. (The Activity of Information Literacy - A Process Assessment of Student Research Skills)

The college supports a mini-grant award program for faculty members who are willing to document evidence of the relationship of teaching practices and student learning. The faculty must describe how their research proposals connect to the mission and goals of the college. A growing collection of evidence-based learning assessment projects is now available to other faculty at Evergreen and the public (Faculty Assessment webpage). Institutional Research and Assessment is sponsoring two faculty assessment projects this year. One faculty has developed an innovative, multi-faceted assessment of student diversity learning, and another faculty is working to develop a model of student flow into and out of Evergreen to assist with future curriculum planning. A team of Evergreen faculty is also working with the Washington Center for Undergraduate Education in a national multi-institution evidence-based interdisciplinary learning assessment project.

Several staff and faculty are engaged in an ethnographic research project to better understand the nature and conditions of interdisciplinary teaching and learning. During the 2006-07 academic year, faculty members from several full-time, team-taught academic programs were interviewed regularly about their teaching and learning experiences and insights throughout the school year. As the multi-term programs came to a close, students from the programs participated in focus groups in which they articulated their learning and help us better understand how students perceive interdisciplinarity. The ethnographic faculty interview data, observation of student work, and students’ focus group reflections are supporting the college’s ongoing dialogue about how well we are achieving our mission as a public, interdisciplinary liberal arts college. The faculty and student anecdotal information evidences the shared teaching and learning experiences that occur in interdisciplinary learning community programs. A subsequent exploration of evidence of integrative learning and transformative educational experiences from NSSE data demonstrates that the experiences of the individual participants in the project are characteristic of many students at Evergreen (NSSE Transformative Education Excerpts 2008).

The Directors of the Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center and the Writing Center each developed and piloted skills assessments for incoming first-year students who enrolled in the latest iteration of the Beginning the Journey program in Fall 2007. The assessments were designed to help new students understand their own abilities in writing and quantitative reasoning and to facilitate conversations about student learning with tutors and faculty members.

In the recent past, Evergreen participated with our Washington public baccalaureate peers in the statewide learning assessment projects related to writing, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and information technology literacy. All of these projects brought together faculty from across institutions and disciplines to study student work, reflect on their own practices and values, learn about effective practices that lead to student learning, explore strengths and challenges, and improve their own teaching strategies. We continue to participate in strategy conversations about how to reinstitute this valuable work with our statewide colleagues, including pursuit of external funding to support developmental portfolio-based writing assessment, and other methods of sustaining the statewide collaborative conversation about common learning outcomes for students.

Assessment of Graduate Learning

Each graduate program has its own set of expected learning outcomes for its students. The programs provide information about their ongoing assessment practices in Standard 2.D.

2.B.3 - Engagement and Reflection

The institution provides evidence that its assessment activities lead to the improvement of teaching and learning.

The participatory assessment approach at Evergreen draws upon some of same pedagogies of engagement found in our educational programs. At its heart, assessment at Evergreen is about bringing people together to collaboratively engage with collected data to make meaning. Assessment is collaborative work which necessarily involves faculty, staff, and students. Members of the college often work in small groups to dig into questions, explore their own values and practices, share ideas, and report back to the broader community with recommendations based on their research. Individuals who engage directly in constructing meaning from various kinds of data are more likely to own the implications gleaned from that work.

Multiple modes of inquiry are employed in initial research methodology and subsequent assessment activities. Research methodologies include surveys, administrative data analysis, focus groups, experiential data, ethnography, participatory research, qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry. Reporting methods include publishing materials on the website and conducting staff development workshops to raise awareness of the availability and contents of this resource. Email announcements of new research, printed reports, appearances at regular committee meetings, planning retreats, activities for new faculty and staff, other presentations, intensive assessment workshops, and posters are also used.

Questions for research are framed both by internal questions and external reporting needs. At times the assessment agenda is needed to address external requirements, but just as often the agenda is influenced by authentic, immediate questions generated by faculty, staff, and students. The impact of assessment activities is heightened when the topics are aligned with current questions under consideration by members of the community. Institutional Research and Assessment staff often mine existing data resources that inform the work of ongoing task forces, academic deans, student affairs staff, senior staff, and planning units. By listening for the topics that have caught the attention of the community, the data is more likely to be used to make positive change. In addition, Institutional Research staff members also initiate dialogue when interesting trends or results emerge from our data collection and analysis, especially when multiple sources of information begin to point at particular issues worthy of deeper consideration. Staff members invite dialogue and group reflection encourage engagement by the stakeholders who have the greatest power to make a difference.

Regularly collected data is often a good starting place to develop further questions and explore implications for practice. As one example, the Diversity DTF received several presentations from research staff who shared data with stakeholders who were currently engaged in studying issues of diversity. The DTF engaged in consideration of data excerpts and analyses from multiple sources of existing information, including various quantitative and narrative survey results, demographics, and other administrative data analyses. This dialogue pointed to new and deeper questions that were then analyzed for the task force. Ultimately the taskforce made specific recommendations to the College for areas of improvement and attention that were based in part of their engagement with research data and their own experiences. This cycle of gathering data resources and sharing them with ongoing workgroups and planning efforts is regular practice at Evergreen. It is also common for a study group to initiate their own research to fill in gaps in knowledge and explore problems in new ways. The Assessment Study Group, Transcript Review Assessment Workshops, Enrollment Growth DTF, Curricular Visions, First-year Experience DTF, and the Extended Education Advisory Committee are other recent examples of groups which received existing and special data analyses from Institutional Research and Assessment to inform their inquiry. Many of the reports and analysis processes developed for these efforts have now been adopted into ongoing practice.

Standard 2.C - Undergraduate Curriculum

Description

The undergraduate program is designed to provide students with a substantial, coherent, and articulated exposure to the broad domains of knowledge.

The Commission encourages a tripartite structure for baccalaureate and academic or transfer associate degree programs: (1) general education requires students to master competencies for independent learning and to develop an awareness of the fundamental areas of knowledge; (2) the major requires students to achieve a knowledge base in a specific area of concentration; and (3) electives provide the opportunity for students to pursue other intellectual interests. The instructional program, as a whole, is based on a clear rationale with the component parts designed to reflect that rationale. Degree and certificate programs are characterized by clarity and order which are discernible in model curricula shown in official publications and are recorded in official student records of actual programs pursued.

Baccalaureate degree programs include a substantial core of general education instruction with identifiable outcomes and require competence in (a) written and oral communication, (b) quantitative reasoning, (c) critical analysis and logical thinking, and (d) literacy in the discourse or technology appropriate to the program of study.

In a college without departments, majors, and requirements the issue of how to organize the faculty to deliver a curriculum that has an appropriate distribution of beginning, intermediate, and advanced work, that provides disciplinary and interdisciplinary work, and supports general education while allowing both students and faculty broad autonomy is clearly central. Historically the answers have included no formal organization in the early years and multiple small groups interest groups (Specialty Areas) in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. The current the structure first developed in 1995 is organized around six planning units, first year (Core) programs, inter-area programs, and individual contract and internship work.

Planning Units and the Curriculum

Planning in the undergraduate curriculum is organized around six major Planning Units: Scientific Inquiry (SI); Culture, Text and Language (CTL); Expressive Arts (EA); Environmental Studies (ES); Society, Politics, Behavior, and Change (SPBC); and Evening and Weekend Studies (EWS). As seen in 2.B.1, the planning units correspond roughly to traditional divisions, but retain one explicitly inter-divisional planning unit ES and one based on a different schedule EWS. (In this section we will discuss the nature and functions of Planning Units in the curriculum. A more detailed discussion of the current planning units’ work is reserved for section 2.B.1.). The Native American, World Indigenous peoples center also offers programs each year and houses the Reservation Based/Community Determined Program that offers programs in Native communities in the western half of the state. In addition the Tacoma Program serves upper division students in Tacoma and is discussed separately. Each planning unit is responsible for developing an entry point(s) into the program of study in the area and for providing a variety of more or less formally organized advanced work. In addition each area is expected to contribute twenty percent of its teaching to Core (First year) programs and an additional twenty percent inter-area programs each year.

Faculty Membership in Planning Units

Each faculty member is affiliated with one planning unit. This affiliation usually, but not always, reflects their professional training. Faculty members can and occasionally do change their affiliation as their interests and capacities change. Planning units themselves occasionally change their focus or reorganize. Planning Units select a Coordinator (PUC) from among their ranks to organize and conduct meetings and coordinate with other units and with the Curriculum Dean. Planning units can be distinguished from departments by their lack of budget, lack of permanent assigned faculty lines, and their lack of control over the hiring of new faculty. They are based on a strange amalgam of faculty autonomy and collective suasion.

Variation among Planning Units

While the formal structure of the areas is similar, the areas vary considerably in the extent to which they organize around repeated offerings, the degree of demand they put on their members to teach within the area’s offerings, and the degree to which advanced work is formally identified. Within each planning unit striking a balance between stability and coverage in the curriculum on the one hand and freedom to investigate and to explore issues that engage the faculty’s attention and concern on the other has been continuing tension. Each unit strikes a different and distinctive balance between disciplinary coverage and open-ended inquiry. In the past few years concerns about the role of Planning Units motivated considerable discussion and debate on the campus. Questions have arisen not only about the curricular role of Planning Units, but their influence over hiring and their responsibility for providing seats to Core and Inter-area programs. (Rita’s Self Eval 2007, Also Curricular Visions Summary)

Planning Units, Coverage, and Pathways

The tension about what planning units should do and mean for the college exists not only within and between planning units, but as planning units are seen to serve the needs of faculty, students, advising staff recruitment and admissions. Planning units typically, though not always, serve as a vehicle for organizing faculty concern for disciplinary or divisional concerns about coverage, skill, and mastery. They help ensure that introductory, intermediate, and advanced work is present in areas of the curriculum where such distinctions are seen to be critical. There is considerable variability between planning units both in their concern for coverage and in their aspirations for student mastery of the discipline(s) involved. In some Planning units open-ended inquiry in the area’s offerings comes after considerable disciplinary work, in others such inquiry is the predominant structure of their work. Despite faculty's sense of delineated paths through the curriculum, data from student transcripts and conversations with students indicate that few students are actively aware of pathways or even the planning unit structure. This is less true in Environmental Studies and Scientific Inquiry where the Bachelor of Science Degree requirements help guide student choices.Similarly, some student aid recipients must take care to remain on track for BS in order to maintain eligibility for scholarships or grants they have received(including federal SMART grants). In some areas SPBC and CTL students would be hard pressed to name the area. To the extent students do use pathways their diversion from them often represents the development and focus on a particular skill or project. Thus while student work typically does result in what students (but not the college) represent as a majors these are often either somewhat narrower than area defined pathways. Advising sees the planning units as the source of stability in the curriculum. They value the idea of repeating programs, regular offerings. Advising uses planning units as the locus for disciplinary work in the curriculum. As major translators of the work of programs advising urges faculty to define areas and programs in easily accessible disciplinary language. Pathways are seen by advising as important suggestions for students about potential ways to work their way through the curriculum. As advising is concerned with clarity and stability in the curriculum, Admissions is concerned with the question of how can we sell this curriculum to incoming students and their parents. This creates a pressure on planning units not simply to produce curriculum that is stable and transparent, but also to hire in such a way that the likelihood of salable programs is increased. Thus pressure for hires in health, in business have emerged in part from external pressures. Despite these differences Planning Units have served since 1995 as the primary intermediate structure between the individual faculty member and the college curriculum as a whole. They are central to the process of planning both the 60% of the curriculum they directly organize and the 40% of the curriculum taught in Core and Inter-Area programs.

Modes of Study (An Overview)

The single most important structure for offering the curriculum is the coordinated studies program described above. In addition to coordinated studies within Planning Units, there are Inter-area Programs where faculty members from across two or more planning units come together to pursue an issue. These programs are generally substantial two and three quarter-long investigations whose audience is often open to students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Core Programs are inter-area programs designed for first-year students. They typically are broad two to three quarter offerings centered on a theme or inquiry with specific support for the development of college level skills in reading, writing, and seminar work. Several other modes of study are used to deliver the curriculum. The single faculty member program offers a specific piece of full-time study for one to three quarters. This format is usually offered for advanced disciplinary work. Half-time coordinated studies programs are the foundation of the evening and weekend program. Like full time programs they can be offered for one to three quarters. The evening and weekend program also offers a range of courses designed to stand on their own or to be supplementary to other offerings. Courses in such areas as languages, mathematics, art and writing both offer alternative vehicles for meeting program prerequisites and are used to support teaching in both arts and language programs. In addition course in other areas support graduate programs and part-time studies students. Individual contracts and internships are offered. Such contracts are most frequently for advanced work. Internship Learning contracts are agreements between the student, an internship field supervisor, the school, and a faculty member. They are most frequently undertaken as an individual study, but may be required as a part of the work within a coordinated study or group contract. Both internship learning contracts and Individual Contracts are reviewed and signed off on by the Academic Deans.

First Year Programs and Options

Freshman students at Evergreen may enter a diverse array of programs. The three most important choices available to them are Core programs designed explicitly for freshmen and All-Level programs in which a percentage, usually twenty-five percent of the seats, are reserved for freshmen, and introductory/lower division programs where as many as 50 percent of the seats are reserved for first year students. All-level programs that cater to the largest numbers are often, though not always inter-area programs that involve faculty form two or more planning units.

Core programs are designed explicitly for freshman students. They are almost always interdisciplinary and frequently interdivisional offerings involving two to four faculty members and often are taught for two quarters or a full year. They are distinguished by slightly smaller faculty student ratio (1/23), a strong collaborative relationship with Academic Advising, and extensive support from the Writing and Quantitative Reasoning center as appropriate. The primary virtue of the broadly interdivisional core programs is the provision of a broad base from which a student may develop her college education. These programs are usually thematically organized and provide a wide ranging often quite sophisticated inter-disciplinary perspective on contemporary and historical questions of human experience. All Core programs do work explicitly on materials that support general education and the development of skills in writing, reading, seminar participation, collaborative work more generally, and critical thinking. In many programs quantitative reasoning, library research, field research skills of various sorts are supported as well.

Changes in Core and All-Level Programs

In recent years there has been a tendency for narrower two person programs, the difficulty that arises when the number of faculty members in a program shrinks to as few as two is that the breadth of the offerings may suffer. In the first years of this review period 1997-98 and 1998-99 many and often most Core programs lasted through three full quarters. Today most programs are one or two quarters long. (Catalog 1997-98,1998-99, 2005-6, 2006-7) For many years Core programs were the preponderant first year experience, today, fewer than half of all first year students get this sort of support. Indeed there has been a marked shift in terms of where first-year slots are located in the full-time curriculum. Over this period, a growing proportion of first-years enrolled in All-level program seats (programs which enroll freshmen through seniors) compared to Core programs (targeted at freshmen and new first-time, first-year students). In AY 1997-98, 71% of first-year program FTE was generated in Core programs, but by AY 2006-07, only 40% was generated in Core. Lower-division programs (which enroll freshmen and sophomores) began to appear in AY 2004-05. By AY 2006-07, lower-division programs represented 14% of all first-year program FTE.

All-level programs have become increasingly important in the first year curriculum. Many if not most of the inter-area programs have opened their work to first year students and some areas (notably CTL) have a long history of offering all level work. Because such programs are supposed to be attractive and available to students with quite different educational backgrounds most even when they included art or science do not have prerequisites. Inter-area programs usually provide less systematic support for freshmen students, but offer a challenge to some of the better prepared freshman students who want to work in what is sometimes a more demanding environment. All level programs, especially inter-area ones, can be an excellent beginning point for student's' work at the college.

Lower Division Programs

Finally, some areas have opened up lower division programs or introductory programs to allow some (often as many as half) of the students to be freshmen. The argument for this kind of work in the first year is centered on the desire that many students have to get into the subject matter that draws them to college in the first place. Again this had significant advantages for some students in as much as they are directly challenged and engaged in material that they find important. Yet such a program may not provide the range of support for more general skills, nor does it provide the kind of inter-divisional breadth we prefer for first year students.

Complexity and Evolution of Core Planning

Historically, Core programs have been among the broadest and most thoroughgoing interdisciplinary programs on campus. In theory, but not always in practice, they are supposed to occupy a priority position in the planning process. A major tension exists in the planning process between the process of planning Core programs that tend to be ad hoc in any given year and the systematic planning of many Planning Units that attempt to stabilize and to identify curricular paths some years into the future. This tension has led to two major developments over the past ten years. First, as areas have attempted to both provide twenty percent of the seats taught by their faculty as freshman seats, Planning Units have attempted to serve both Planning Unit needs and freshman seat needs by moving introductory Planning Unit offerings into lower division work, thus opening introductory lower division offerings to large numbers of freshman students. Alternatively areas and individual faculty members have attempted to meet their collective/personal obligation to provide freshman seats by declaring their program all level and allocating 25% or more of their seats to freshmen without significant modification of their content. Both of these tendencies are supported by the switch some years ago from planning units being responsible for providing faculty to teach in Core to being responsible to provide twenty percent of the seats taught by their faculty as available to freshmen. To the extent that these programs are intra-area programs, the pool of faculty available for inter-divisional team teaching is diminished.

In recent years both recruiting faculty to teach in Core programs and creating effective social and intellectual opportunities for inter-divisional teams and plans to emerge has been a serious issue for the college. These difficulties rest in some measure on the ambiguity of whether the obligation to teach in core rests on individual faculty or on the Planning Unit. Prior to 1995 curriculum revision, the obligation rested ambiguously, but decidedly with the faculty. Faculty members were expected to teach Core one out of four years. Today the burden is often presumed to lie with the area and teaching in Core is seen in some areas a scheduled assignment.

Planning a good program team is a matter of intellectual, pedagogical and personal fit. Effective teams depend upon each other in innumerable ways. The continuous turnover in faculty over the past ten years has made developing planning and social time that underlies the possibility of making effective matches a high priority especially for newer faculty. Recruiting engaged and committed faculty teams, finding enough time to develop effective teaching themes and plans, providing opportunities to reflect on those experiences, and developing both intellectual and pedagogical skills are crucial to making teaching first year students worthwhile and intellectually rewarding for faculty as well as for students is a critical issue for the college. This almost of necessity requires a new recruitment and planning structure that can sustain faculty engagement with interdisciplinary issues and concerns about pedagogy for freshman students over time. The provision of paid faculty planning time in the summer has helped, but as the audience is primarily established teams, it has not made a great difference in terms of locating potential future teaching partners. See Standard 4 for more discussion of issues around incorporating new faculty).

Finally, the movement over the past ten to fifteen years towards shorter, smaller programs and pieces of work for first year students has allowed more exploration and often exposure to a wider array of choices. Clearly this move has made it possible for more students to find program offerings, as opposed to dropping out, taking contracts or internships in the spring quarter. But by the same token smaller, shorter programs may have cut down on the opportunity to get to the kind of depth and familiarity with issues that allows for the complexity of reflexive thinking on the part of younger students. Certainly, the ability to plan long range complex programs is made difficult by the growing tendency to reduce teaching assignments to smaller and smaller bits thus increasing the need for immediate short term planning time and increasing the experienced workload of faculty. The tension between exposure to a number of faculty, disciplines, and issues on the one hand and the experience of doing a deep often transformative piece of work on the other is a tension that has long plagued the college.

The perception of Core programs by incoming students is mixed. Core programs and often are demanding and academically rigorous programs. Yet they are sometimes seen by incoming freshmen as less demanding than lower division or all level programs. The attempts in Core to develop skills and to introduce the college while appreciated and useful to some, are seen as hand holding and dumbing down by others. To the extent that Core programs are not rigorous and demanding or to the extent that they are not matching a particular student’s interest, they are often described as boring.

Finally, fall-to-fall retention is a serious issue for the college in its first year offerings. The matching of students to their choices within first year programs is surely a contributor to this problem. Ironically, as we open more choices to students the number of students getting their first choice has dropped as many of the openings in all-level, specialized, single faculty programs and small inter-area programs may be very broadly attractive, but represent very few freshman seats.

Inter-Area Programs

Inter-area programs are some of the most exciting and innovative programs at the college. They draw together unique faculty teams to teach complex theme based programs that stimulate multi-dimensional, creative, and reflexive work. They are the direct lineal decedents of the programs in the first years of the college. Inter-area involve faculty from two or more planning units offering programs which deal with a theme or question, and are designed for students at upper division, sophomore and above, or all level. By design students typically bring a distinctly mixed background to these programs, not only in terms of years of college experience but also in terms of specialization and interests. Inter-area programs are a primary location for the teaching of general education skills. Inter-area programs often involve faculty with quite different skills and backgrounds. Faculty often teach some aspect of these distinct capacities in the program. Thus inter-area programs along with Core were a primary location where faculty with particular skills in quantitative reasoning, mathematics and art were able to share this information with students who typically avoided such learning. Thus between 65% and 85% of inter-area programs in the 2001-02 to 2005-6 end of program reviews reported some emphasis on mathematics. While 60-80% of the programs in the same period reported an emphasis on art. (Institutional Research, End of Program Review 2001-02 -2005-6 Art in Programs and Mathematics and Science in Programs. 2006) Inter-area programs are also place where a great deal of theme based, inquiry based teaching occurs, as such, Inter-area programs often invite students to think complexly and reflectively about issue. In recent years inter-area programs have frequently been all-level and have through this mechanism contributed a very significant number of freshman seats. According to the 1995-6 Long Range curriculum plan planning units were expected to contribute 20% of their teaching effort to both Core and Inter-area programs. That goal was seldom reached in between 1997-98 AY and 2000-01AY but has been the norm since that time, with the proportion of Core Programs shrinking consistently. (Institutional Research, Updated Curricular visions Table 2 Olympia Full time Program FTE Distribution, 2007) An on going issue for Inter-area programs is the creation of new faculty teams. There are no regularized formal mechanisms for generating Inter-area teams and new faculty often feel a strong pressure to participate in the on-going curriculum of the planning units.

Individual Study Options: Contracts and Internships

Individual Contracts and internships allow students to follow their passions, define their own work, and expand their opportunities beyond the walls of the college in very important ways. Developing and negotiating a contract with faculty and with internship field supervisors, forces a kind of reflective thinking about their work and compels students to take responsibility for their own education as they move into doing advanced work. Work with faculty though often limited is very different and more personal from working in the confines of a program. These modes of learning are the ultimate mode for students taking responsibility for their own education.

Internships

Internships provide opportunities for students to gain exposure to work experience, applications of lessons learned in class to real world applications, and chances to learn about the complexities, skills, and culture of a potential work place. Internships involve a complex three-way negotiation between a student, a field supervisor at a job site and a member of the faculty. Students work with Academic Advising and increasingly with the Center for Community Based Learning and Action to identify internships that extend their studies. The work of this Center serves students by locating activities and by providing a more systematic conduit for student volunteers into community work. The Center has helped facilitate volunteer and internship activity for work within programs. In the past two years the Center has helped 20 programs set up service learning projects within their programs and has supported over 140 individual students set up community based learning opportunities. (Annual Report for CCBLA) Negotiations between the student, faculty, and the field supervisor are supported by Academic Advising to identify the goals of the internship experience, the amount of credit earned, the academic work that accompanies the internship, the work undertaken, the reporting lines, and codifies the role of the field supervisor, faculty member and student in evaluation of the student’s work. Students undertake internships at different points in their education. The longer more substantial internships such as legislative internships or work within a social service agency are usually undertaken in the junior or senior year. Shorter internships are often directed toward community service work. Students undertook 506 internships in the 2006-7 school year with 26% in fall, 36% in winter, and 38% in spring. In most instances Internship work constituted a portion of the student’s work as the 401 FTE generated by these internships attests. Internships have proven to be valuable as a way of linking the college into the broader community, helpful in locating work experience that supports student transition into the workplace after graduation, and opportunities for students to prepare and to design important components of their education.

Individual Contracts

Individual contracts are critical elements in the education of many students at the college. They allow for advanced work, they accommodate idiosyncratic life situations, and they provide opportunities for student initiative. Consultation with the Academic Deans who read and approve all contracts and internships reveals that contracts serve two very different functions. The first and most important function is as a location for students to undertake significant, usually advanced, independent research or inquiry. The second is as a stopgap measure that accommodates a student’s schedule, life circumstance, or inability to get into programs that they want or need. Typically, but not always the former are more effective, more carefully thought through, and provide more demonstration of learning than the latter. Students can write individual contracts for 2 to 16 quarter hours credit. Usually smaller contracts supplement work in a part-time program, support language learning, or are useful in providing a small piece of prerequisite learning for admission to a future program or graduate school.

In 2006-7 Students and faculty wrote a total of 1279 Individual Learning Contracts 300 in fall, 454 in winter, and 525 in spring. These contracts generated approximately 922 FTE. Contracts and internships together generated some 1322.8 FTE during the year.

In good contracts, students need to define what they want to learn, they need to demonstrate a background that allows them to deal with the project, they need to define the activities that will help them learn, and they need to be able to demonstrate that learning. Coherence between the learning objectives of the contract and the activities they undertake is the central issue. The deans report that a significant majority of contracts are reasonably well developed and define substantial individual work that coherently defines learning objectives and the work undertaken.

These three important modes of study, first-year, inter-area and individual work when combined with the divisional offerings from the planning units (see 2.B.1) constitute the central structures of the college. As such the embody the five foci and the central tensions of disciplinary work and interdisciplinary inquiry, of individual autonomy and collaborative work, and provide a wide array of opportunities for or students to engage in written and oral communication, quantitative reasoning, critical analysis and logical thinking, and literacy in the appropriate discourse or technology.

2.C.1 - General Education Philosophy and Practices

The institution requires of all its degree and pre-baccalaureate programs a component of general education and/or related instruction that is published in its general catalog in clear and complete terms.

The practices, structures, and expectations create a series of contexts within which the connection of disciplinary understandings to other disciplines, experiences, and understandings is seen as a necessary part of a general education. Students are to an important degree encouraged at the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels to undertake studies that contribute to breadth as well as depth in their education. Practices such as the assumption of full-time study as the preferred structure of student work or problem centered thematic programs, interdisciplinary work, seminars as central learning spaces, workshops and small group practice as regular elements of the curriculum are the mechanisms that link the theory of the foci to student experience. The most critical practice, the one that has the most powerful impact on student experience writ large is student autonomy.

At the center of the foci and expectations, as two articulations of the college’s ambitions for its curriculum and its students, is the individual student. The first of the expectations is to articulate and assume responsibility for your own work. Central among the foci is personal engagement with their educational experience. The student is understood in both these articulations as the central actor in their own education. The primacy of the student is most clearly and powerfully exemplified in the lack of degree requirement. 180 quarter credit hours of anything earns you a BA at TESC. On the one hand this is a terrifying recognition for faculty and administrators. Here in one simple action the whole apparatus of curriculum /requirements/majors/established disciplinary boundaries is relinquished into the hands of students. On the other hand this student autonomy is the foundation of those most prized qualities of student engagement, creative independent thinking, interdisciplinary work, work across difference, for the autonomy that students face forces them to ask their own questions. As they ask these questions and work with others to understand them, they are pushed toward deeper and more complex engagement and come to see the necessity for more complex interdisciplinary critical and creative thinking.

The End-of-program Review data provide an extensive overview of the extraordinary array of teaching practices at the college. Four critical qualities emerge from this data. (A caveat not all programs possess all qualities, but all qualities can be found in all areas of the college.) First, teaching practices at the college are distinctly and exceptionally collaborative. At the root of this is the central notion that individual evaluation not competitive grading is the fundamental form of assessment. This root practice makes (reference to McCann No Grades, No Departments, ….) a huge difference in the classroom. Students are not penalized for sharing information and understandings and indeed the sharing of ideas and understandings is the central focus of that most Evergreen of institutions, the seminar. Collaboration is built into the structured workshops that are used to teach everything from writing and philosophy, to botany and mathematics. Small group research projects whose audience is the program as a whole are common. The idea that each person is responsible to the group to participate, to help build understandings, and to share what they know is fundamental to the life of programs as learning communities.

Second, teaching practices at TESC ask students to find ways to use the understandings they have developed in class to deepen their study and to engage issues in the world outside the classroom. Applications are built into field trips, into field study, into art making, into internships, into community service, into fiction writing, into laboratory research in the sciences, into the composition of music, into the creation of computer applications, qualitative and quantitative field research, into ethnographic research, into life history research, into film-making, into travel and cultural studies. The list goes on, but the point is that learning is not just talk about doing; it is an interaction of doing and talking, about learning, doing, and reflecting.

Inquiry based teaching practices are fundamental to much of what happens at Evergreen. At the level of the program nearly all programs have a set of central questions that the central animate the program. Here are a few from the 2007-8 Catalog.

“What is the structure, composition, and function of a temperate rain forest? How does this relate to the ecology of other systems, land management and the physical environment?

What do Chemists do? What is life exactly? What are the physical and chemical processes of life that distinguish it from ordinary matter? Are there mathematical rules that govern the formation and growth of life?

This program is an inquiry into the numinous, which Rudolph Otto, amidst the turmoil of WWI, explained as a “non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self.”

Have you wondered about the ways languages work? Do you think about how thoughts get translated into language?”

Within programs students are encouraged to chose questions to answer about the texts, often time they are urged to develop major questions as independent inquiry/research papers about issues developing around the program’s themes. Students are actively taught how to use library, computer resources, media production, writing resources and experimentation among other skills as vehicles for answering questions that they pose, to find answers (or further questions) that they have a stake in.

Finally, students exercise choice. Most importantly and obviously over the whole structure and content of their education, but at the level of the program and the work undertaken in any given quarter students exercise a wide range of choice. Internships, individual contracts, research projects, supplementary classes are all major opportunities for students to fashion components of their work around their choices. Even when students only select a program their capacity to see that program as a part of a larger choice driven project makes the act of taking it somewhat different from choosing to take another course towards a major in a conventional school.

These four elements then, collaboration, application, inquiry, and choice characterize the vast array of teaching practices that translate the language of the five foci into the experiences that produces students whose educations can be characterized by the expectations and the data we have reviewed. They provide the matrix of choices and opportunities that frame the dilemma of how to put together his/her work that each student must confront. And typically they require students to develop reasonably broad array of skills and capacities.

2.C.2 - General Education Rationale

The general education component of the institution’s degree programs is based on a rationale that is clearly articulated and is published in clear and complete terms in the catalog. It provides the criteria by which the relevance of each course to the general education component is evaluated.

The basic understanding of General Education at Evergreen is embedded within the expectations of the Evergreen Graduate published in the catalog. Each specific program provides a descriptive overview of the issues and contents of the program including a statement of the areas where students can expect to receive credit. The rationale for the taking any particular program rests on the relationship between that program’s content and the particular student’s plans and aspirations.

2.C.3 - General Education Offerings

The general education program offerings include the humanities and fine arts, the natural sciences, mathematics, and the social sciences. The program may also include courses that focus on the interrelationships between these major fields of study.

The End-of-program Review Survey is the baseline measure of the different sorts of work that are contained within programs. This survey administered in its original form between AY2001-02 and 2005-06 and in a somewhat modified form in 2006-07 allows the college to see within programs to the various components and elements that make up the program work. The revision of the instrument in the summer of 2006 was the result of a major assessment of the EPR data carried out by faculty and staff during a weeklong assessment workshop hosted by Institutional Research and Assessment. The new survey clarified categories and was designed to facilitate both ease of response and comparability of data. (EPR 2001-2005 - Summary of Response Rates) The response rate to the survey has grown over the years and showed a marked increase to 82% with the new survey in 2006-07. The data presented here provides an overview of how Evergreen Programs incorporate various general education elements. The detailed survey results provide considerable insight into the extraordinary array of activities in each of these areas. For this information see especially charts labeled EPR 2006-07 – Name of Planning Unit Overview.

Comments on the distribution of the General Education across the curriculum will focus on the most recent data (2006-07) and note significant trends from the 2001-2005 data. In general the data shows how General Education is distributed across all sectors of the college and that exposure to General Education is available in all areas and inescapable in many. Data from EPR refers to activities in programs; in addition significant amounts of student work occurs in individual contracts, internships, and courses. A major opportunity for advanced work occurred in research projects with faculty or in Student Originated Studies clusters.

Note: The Percentages reported in this document reflect a recognition that given the original modes of computing the percentage in the 2003 report (number of programs reporting activity X/ number of programs in the curriculum) apparent trends in the data could simply reflect growth in the response rate. Thus the current data is computed as follows (Number of Programs Reporting Activity X/ Number of Programs Reporting) in order to keep sample size from distorting results.

Art

66% of all reporting programs indicated an emphasis on art. Art was especially well represented in Expressive Arts, Culture Text and Language, Inter-Area, Tribal, and Environmental Studies. (EPR 2001-2005 – Art; EPR 2006-07 - Art Overview; EPR 2006-07 - Art by Planning Unit, Art Across the Curriculum; and Art, A Supplement) Approximately 35% of these programs indicated a extensive or moderate teaching of art. Art was taught at all levels with a preponderance of introductory teaching. In addition, there were 64 different 2-4 credit art courses taught during 2006-07, which compares to 40 art courses in 2000-01 before the implementation of the new general education initiatives (Courses by General Education Divisions). Faculty in Expressive Arts taught 204 individual contracts and 59 internships (2006-07 Enrollment Detail). Expressive arts organizes students into Student Originated Studies (SOS) groups in Media, Music, Performance, and Visual Arts; an average of 50.1 student FTE are generated each quarter through Student Originated Studies in the arts (2006-07 Enrollment Detail).

Science and Mathematics

In the 2001-2005 data, mathematics and science were surveyed together. Over this period proportion of programs indicating an emphasis on mathematic or science grew from 55% in 2001-02 to 70% in 2005-06. Both Scientific Inquiry and Environmental Studies reported 100% of their programs included Science or Mathematics. Core programs over the period reported a low of 67% of programs to a high of 100% of programs indicated an emphasis on Mathematics and/or Sciences. Similarly Inter-Area programs reported a low of 64% and a high of 86% with some emphasis on mathematics and/or science. (EPR 2001-2005 - Science and Math)

In this same period, 2001-2005, programs were asked to report on the use of quantitative reasoning in programs. A high 74% of all programs reporting indicated an emphasis on quantitative reasoning in 2001-02, and a low of 59% of programs reported an emphasis on quantitative reasoning in 2004-05. Scientific Inquiry, Environmental Studies, and Society, Politics, Behavior and Change Areas reported relatively strong emphasis on quantitative reasoning. (EPR 2001-2005 - Quantitative Reasoning) For a discussion of the variety of ways in which quantitative reasoning was used in programs and the confusion that arose in the survey between mathematics and quantitative reasoning see Quantitative Reasoning Across the Curriculum and Quantitative Reasoning, A Supplement. (Quantitative Reasoning Across the Curriculum; Quantitative Reasoning, A Supplement)

The 2006-07 EPR survey disaggregated Science and Mathematics. Under this structure 53% of programs reported an emphasis on science. Science was particularly strong in Environmental Studies where 100% of programs reported teaching science extensively and in Scientific Inquiry where 88% reported some science. 56% of Core and 52% of Inter-area programs reported an emphasis on science. (EPR 2006-07 - Natural and Physical Sciences Overview; EPR 2006-07 - Natural and Physical Sciences by Planning Unit) In addition there were 35 different courses in natural, physical and computer sciences taught during the 2006-07; this compares to only 20 different science courses in 2000-01 when the general education initiatives were adopted by faculty (Courses by General Education Divisions).

58% of all programs reporting indicated an emphasis on mathematics in 2006-07. Both Scientific Inquiry and Environmental Studies reported 100% of programs with an emphasis on mathematics although math was much more extensively used as apart of SI teaching. Core and Inter-area programs both reported 67% of their programs had an emphasis on mathematics. And in this year SPBC reported 63% of programs reported an emphasis on mathematics (EPR 2006-07 - Math Overview; EPR 2006-07 - Math by Planning Unit). In addition, there were 10 different Math courses taught in 2006-07, which is an increase compared to only 6 Math courses taught in 2000-01 (Courses by General Education Divisions).

Faculty in Scientific Inquiry and Environmental Studies taught 211 contracts and 100 internships over the course of 2006-07. Additional undergraduate research opportunities with faculty are provided through Advanced Research in Environmental Studies, which generated an average of 6.3 student FTE each quarter of 2006-07. Scientific Inquiry offer close faculty-student applied research opportunities through Undergraduate Research in SI which generated 13.1 FTE per quarter in 2006-07. (2006-07 Enrollment Detail)

Humanities

89% of all programs reporting indicated an emphasis on Humanities. Of those programs over 70% indicated that they taught humanities moderately or extensively. In Core, Culture, Text, and Language, and Expressive Arts 100% programs indicated an emphasis on humanities. The lowest score was 73% for Environmental Studies. Clearly the use of humanities as basic vehicle for engaging students and linking program elements is widespread. (EPR 2006-07 - Humanities Overview: EPR 2006-07 - Humanities by Planning Unit) Data from 2001-2 to 2005-06 demonstrate the ubiquity of humanities at Evergreen. (EPR 2001-2005 – Humanities; Humanities Across the Curriculum) In addition faculty inn Culture, Text, and Language sponsored some 266 individual learning contracts, and 92 internships (2006-07 Enrollment Detail). There were 61 different courses in the Humanities taught during 2006-07. This divisional area has seen the greatest growth in the number of courses since the implementation of new general education initiatives. Only 29 different Humanities courses offered in 2000-01 the year before the credit limit was increased, the Expectations were adopted, and the Writing Center was enhanced. (Courses by General Education Divisions).

Social Science

77% of all programs reporting indicated an emphasis on Social Sciences in 2006-07. Data for the 2001-2005 period range between 74% and 88% of programs reporting and emphasis. (EPR 2001-2005 - Social Sciences) Social Sciences were particularly significant in Core programs, Inter-Area Programs, Evening and Weekend Studies programs, and, of course in Society, Politics, Behavior and Change Offerings. Significant amounts of social sciences were included in Culture, Text and Language programs and in Environmental Studies. Social sciences were taught at all levels with preponderance at the beginning and intermediate level. 36.4% of all programs, 44.4% of Core programs, and 47.6% of Inter-Area programs reported using social science extensively within their program. Clearly like humanities social sciences are wide spread in the curriculum. And again like humanities, social sciences served an important role in pulling together inter-divisional work (EPR 2006-07 - Social Sciences Overview; EPR 2006-07 - Social Sciences by Planning Unit; Social Science Across the Curriculum). The Society, Politics, Behavior and Change Planning Unit sponsored some 212 contracts and 91 internship opportunities over the course of the year (2006-07 Enrollment Detail). In addition there were 60 different courses in Social Sciences taught during academic year 2006-07, which is a strong increase from the 35 different courses taught in 2000-01. (Courses by General Education Divisions).

Information Technology Literacy (ITL)

This section provides an overview of the use of Information Technology Literacy,for more information and an analysis of ITL as it is taught and affects the Library, Media Services, and the Computer Center please consult Standard 5 on Libraries and Information Services. Nearly 70% of programs included "activities to improve the information technology literacy" of their students in the 2006-7 End of Program Review data. This number is lower than the 90% of programs reporting use of information technology literacy in the 2001-2006 school years. The drop reflects a shift in the question ("Did your students use technology to present work, conduct research,(including Library research), or solve problems?") from use to active teaching and the loss of the prompt for library research. In terms of active teaching the 70% figure is more accurate, in terms of use the 90%. For 2007 the level of use varied from a low of 28.6% reported by Culture, Text and Language (CTL) programs to highs of 100% in the Reservation Based Program, and over 80% in Environmental Studies(ES), Scientific Inquiry(SI) and Evening and Weekend Studies (EWS). Among programs reporting teaching ITL the most common use of ITL was in information acquisition (Library/Internet Searching)71.3%, Presentation Technology 60%, Media Production 45%, followed by Data Analysis 41.3, and Data Acquisition 37.5%. The significantly high numbers for ITL use by the Reservation Based programs reflects the important use of information technology to bring library, data and presentation resources to these sites and the important grant support for this work obtained by the college. Overall, ITL is being taught broadly across campus. See library standard description for uses of information technology by planning unit. While library use generally has remained somewhat stable, the use pf presentation technology has grown by 70% and on-line communication technology has increased substantially by 19%. What is specifically is taught varies considerably by the nature and demands of the disciplines and issues being investigated by a particular program or area. [EPR 2006-07-Information Technology Literacy Overview; EPR 2006-07- Information Technology Literacy by Planning Unit; EPR 2001-2005-Information Technology]

Writing

100% of programs in the 2006-07 Survey and nearly 100% of programs in the surveys from 2001=2005 reported writing as a emphasis in their work. 51.7% reported extensive use of writing and an additional 41.5 % reported moderately. Only 5.9% reported a small amount of writing. Culture, Text and Language was the one area where all programs reported using writing extensively. Yet the fact that 50% or more of Core Programs, Environmental Studies Programs, Inter-Area Programs, Evening and Weekend Studies Programs reported using extensive writing in their programs is an indication of the ubiquity of the effort (EPR 2006-07 - Writing Overview). Programs were asked to specifically about writing instruction as opposed to simply requiring writing. 63.5 reported extensive or moderate amounts of instruction and only 5.9% provided no instruction. The writing report provides a complex over view of writing effort. (EPR 2006-07 - Writing by Planning Unit) 2001-05 data illustrates the ubiquity of writing in the curriculum over the years, but has less detail. (Writing Across the Curriculum - by Jeanne Hahn; Writing Across the Curriculum - by Sandy Yannone; EPR 2001-2005 – Writing)

Critical Thinking

100% of programs reporting indicated an emphasis on Critical Thinking in the 2006-07 Report. This number continues a trend that has persisted from 2001. However, as a result of the work in the summer of 2006 reviewing the claims and understandings of critical thinking by different planning units a much more complex understanding of the meaning of critical thinking and its relationship to learning in different areas of the curriculum emerges from the much more detailed data in the 2006-07 survey. (Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum, EPR; 2001-2005 - Critical Thinking; EPR 2006-07 - Critical Thinking Overview; EPR 2006-07 - Critical Thinking by Planning Unit ) The new data based on identifying specific intellectual activities: Analysis, Synthesis, Judgment, Argument, Problem solving, and Diverse Perspectives. Illustrate both differences in emphasis among the planning units and the extent to which Core and Inter-area programs stress teaching about various modes of critical thinking within the programs. (EPR 2006-07 - Critical Thinking by Planning Unit).

Oppression, Privilege, and Difference

The colleges concern for issues of oppression, privilege and difference is reflected in its concern for diversity and equity in the Strategic Plan. End of Program Review data are helpful as the college moves to increase diversity experiences and improve climate around diversity. The college started measuring this is the 2004-05 school year and the 2004-05 and 2005-06 data reveal that 74 and 75 percent of programs reporting indicated some emphasis on addressing oppression.[EPR 2001-05 Addressing Diversity and Oppression] All programmatic areas with the exception of Environmental Studies(ES) and Scientific Inquiry(SI) reported over 70 percent of their programs had some emphasis on this set of issues. The 2006-07 survey which has more compete data reports 83% of all programs reporting some emphasis. With the exception of SI all areas reported more than 70% of reported offering included some work in this area. Core Programs. In Expressive Arts(EA), Society, Politics, Behavior and Change(SPBC), and Tribal: Reservation based program 100% of programs reporting showed some work in this area. Interestingly the areas which showed the most extensive used material in this area were Core Programs, CTL, Inter-area. SPBC, and the Tribal Program showed over 65% of reported extensive or moderate teaching of these materials. Significantly both Core and Inter area programs found this a fertile area for developing program themes and activities. Work in all areas dealt with a wide variety of subjects and spoke to not simply issues of gender, race, culture, ethnicity, but ability, class and status as well. [EPR 2006-07 Diversity, Difference, Privileged and Oppression Overview, EPR 2006-07 EPR Diversity, Difference, Privileged and Oppression by Planning Unit]

Opportunities for Advanced Work

to be added

2.C.4 - Credit Policy

The institution’s policies for the transfer and acceptance of credit are clearly articulated. In accepting transfer credits to fulfill degree requirements, the institution ensures that the credits accepted are comparable to its own courses. Where patterns of transfer from other institutions are established, efforts to formulate articulation agreements are demonstrated.

Transfer policies, acceptance of credit policies, articulation agreements are described in full in section 3.C.4.

2.C.5 - Academic Advising

The institution designs and maintains effective academic advising programs to meet student needs for information and advice, and adequately informs and prepares faculty and other personnel responsible for the advising function.

Academic Advising Support for Students

Academic advising at Evergreen is complex and multi-leveled. Evergreen students are left free to fashion their own education from the wide variety of pieces we make available, programs of all durations, part-time programs, courses, individual contracts and internships of all sizes. Their choices are formally guided only by the entrance requirements that faculty create for their programs and by the procedural and intellectual agreements necessary to create contracts and internships. Similarly the Evergreen Faculty in its various planning units, inter-area, and core programs annually recreates the curriculum, devising new program ideas, reorganizing the content and coverage offered under repeating titles, and offering work at a variety of levels of sophistication. While curricular pathways and repeating programs provide significant structure in some areas of the curriculum, other programs, especially core and interarea programs, are unique creations of a given groups of faculty members. It is within this complex context that advising at Evergreen occurs. Advising then, if it is to work well, functions on at least two important levels. The first has to do with figuring out what questions, issues, ideas, the student takes to be his or her work. The second is to create a strategy that will allow the student to accomplish this work. This process should be iterative allowing the basic questions and strategy to be revisited regularly.

The view that students can and often do know what they want to do, what they want to be, and how they want to accomplish their goals is central to Evergreen’s idea that its students should understand the primary function of college as finding their own work, and pursuing it through their own initiative and collaboration with faculty and other students. 76.6% of new transfer and 53% of new first-year students expressed a desire to focus on a particular field or discipline, another 39.8% and 18.5% didn’t know. (Evergreen New Student Survey 2005-Do You Plan to Focus) Students gradually come to a more sophisticated understanding of their work and its place. ADD STUFF FROM STUDENT FOCUS HERE It is this freedom, this chance to make their own way that attracts students to TESC. Two things stand out. First, for many students figuring out what their work is, how to focus their effort and energy into an increasingly intellectual judgment, is the first goal. Second, devising a strategy for accomplishing the goal, identifying resources, programs, internships, and the like is a second step.

As was discussed in Section 2.A.9 under Narrative Evaluations the whole narrative evaluation process has a major component of reflection and assessment built into it. The evaluation conference with its review of faculty and student evaluations and assessment of students’ growth and learning is the primary location where faculty members interact with students around their intellectual development and, often times, their plans. Faculty members can draw upon their own familiarity with the curriculum, the pathways identified in the catalogue, the planning unit structure, their work with and knowledge of their colleagues, and, of course, their knowledge of the student’s work and capacities to help shape general ideas about possible future plans. The catalogue in particular is carefully reconsidered annually at the catalogue summit, and is indexed in a variety of ways to allow students to see how many programs can contribute to their education. Planning units put significant effort over the past few years into identifying pathways. (see 2.C.3) The Olympia undergraduate catalog has recently been fully supported as a database that allows for complex searches. While these steps are important, work needs to continue on familiarizing faculty, staff advisors, and students with these resources.

Changing Structures

Historically the college supported the process of student choice-making through two crucial features of the curriculum. First, most programs were offered full time for a year. These programs have provided significant blocks of study around coherent subject and/or project/thematic work that have in yearlong versions structured students’ work in ways similar to a major. Student autonomy then arose in the context of large scale, long term choices among full time offerings. Thus each year’s work provided substantive structure for student choices. The second device derives from the first, working with students full time closely over the course of a year can create a substantive intellectual bond between students and faculty, can create real knowledge about the student and his/her capacity, interests and plans and can then in the evaluation process lead to real opportunity to help students think about their work and their future educational choices on the basis of this shared knowledge.

Today while faculty members still have considerably closer ties to their students than students at most colleges, this isn’t the college we inhabit any more (NSSE Trends, Highlights, and Accountability Performance Indicators 2001-2007). Class size is not 1-17 as it was in the first years of the college. (Matt, do you mean student/faculty ratio? In the first years, classes were even bigger than they are now.) Most programs are two quarters or often one quarter long. The average team size is two. Many students enroll in part-time evening studies rather than full-time day programs. Many students in full time programs opt to take an additional two to four credits. And year-long programs are certainly no longer the norm. There are, simply put, many more choices and pieces of curriculum to know and choose. We have, it seems, lost some of the structure that supported our capacity to know students well and provide strong advice.

Kinds of Faculty Advice

Yet the quarter-by-quarter process of evaluation and assessment of student work by faculty and students can provide a natural groundwork for advising. The End of Program Review data found that advising happened in all sorts of ways within programs. Much of the advice had to do work within programs, the development of skills. And less frequently but significantly advice had to do with program choice or graduate or career goals. However, advising of a deeper sort – for example, the students’ educational choices and academic learning in the context of a life/career plan – was not frequent. (Advising Across the Curriculum) Faculty expressed a willingness to advise to their students, but put the onus of making the choice to seek advice on the student. One other important location of faculty advising is the Academic Fair held a few weeks prior to the beginning of the next quarter. These sessions allow a student to meet faculty and check out the syllabus, logistics, and personnel of a small range of program choices, but these informational sessions are to busy and too chaotic for long term advising work. Clearly some very good advice and some good planning happens, but the report concludes there are no systematic, robust, on-going conversations with the student population in general about their plans and goals and no physical written plan.

In summer institutes and planning workshops in thorough out the period faculty worked with their program teams to fold advising into the structure of programs with some important success. Practices such as early meetings with first year students, fifth week conferences, and the integration of advising faculty into Core and some All-level program activities were widely accepted. In the 2006 summer institutes advising that went toward student planning did occur. Faculty in these workshops seemed willing to accept major responsibility for advising work. As in the years immediately after the General Education DTF however, these often successful experiments with intensifying awareness and the practice of advising did not automatically carried over into succeeding years. They were too sporadic and unsystematic to consistently help students map their course.

Student Satisfaction

Overall, students are happy with faculty advice. In surveys of both current students and alumni 85% indicate that they were satisfied with academic advice from faculty. (Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 – Satisfaction of Olympia Campus Students and Alumni Survey 2006) The issue however is whether they are satisfied with immediate ad hoc advice regarding in program activities, e.g. comments on papers, suggestions regarding projects, and the like, intermediate term advice on what program should I take next, or longer term, big-picture, planning regarding careers, broad expectations of an Evergreen graduate, or broad scale reflection on their work. The End of Program Review data tends to support the view that advice from faculty in general tends to be short to intermediate term advice. Finally when students in the 2002 and 2004 Alumni surveys were asked what one or two things they would change about Evergreen. 16% in 2002 and 12% in 2004 identified something they would change about advising and guidance issues making this issue among the top five issues most identified.

Students commented on the need for more advising and guidance early on at Evergreen. They were interested in more career and graduate school advice. Several freshman, transfers and older returning students commented on feeling lost and felt that required meetings with advisors on a regular basis would have helped. Some of course had the honesty to say that they might well have resisted advice when it was offered. Some in both years really wanted to be pushed by their faculty to pursue specific academic territory as a part of their work (Alumni Survey 2002 and Alumni Survey 2004).

Student Services: Academic Advising

Student and Academic Support Services provides a substantial professional academic advising service. This service is described in section 3.D.10 of this report. The Academic Advising office is just one of the student service offices where advising occurs, academic advising is also prominent piece of the services provided by KEY Student Services for first generation and low income students and those with disabilities, First Peoples’ Advising Services, the Career Development Center (3.D11), and Access Services for students with disabilities. All of these offices help students think broadly about their education and to identify opportunities for study through program offerings, courses, internships, and individual contracts. As a fundamental resource for students and faculty the college publishes an annual catalog of courses offers and maintains a constantly updated on-line catalog. As of the 2008-09 school year, the on-line catalog will be fully searchable. Within Academic Advising counselors participate in a variety of professional and institution specific training, develop contacts and connections to faculty throughout the curriculum, and work alongside faculty members who work in the Academic Advising Office on an annual basis.

According to surveys of alumni, students use Academic Advising services at least at some point in their education. Both the proportion of students reporting satisfaction and the proportion of students using academic advising appears to have slipped in recent years.

Survey Year	2002	2004	2006
% Used Academic Advising Office	86%	71%	74%
% of Users Dissatisfied	24%	20%	34%
% of Users Satisified	76%	80%	66%

(Alumni Surveys 2002-2006 - Campus Resource Utilization)

More Structured Advising

In the 2001 response to the Commission’s concerns about general education the college undertook to establish an advising system that would require a long term advising plan for each student and a required an annual meeting with faculty or advising staff to update the plan. (McCann, General Education at Evergreen). While faculty voted in favor of this plan, due to changing personnel and a failure of follow through, the required plan never was put into effect. It is clearly time to revisit this issue and re-think how best to provide long range planning support that maintains student autonomy and choice. Implementing this initiative, of course, will significantly impact faculty workload and Student Affairs staffing needs. Student Affairs staff will not able to provide these services on their own. Active faculty advising will be required.

2.C.6 - Developmental Work Admission Policy

Whenever developmental or remedial work is required for admission to the institution or any of its programs, clear policies govern the procedures that are followed, including such matters as ability to benefit, permissible student load, and granting of credit. When such courses are granted credit, students are informed of the institution’s policy of whether or not the credits apply toward a degree.

The college does not offer admission contingent on the completion of remedial work.

2.C.7 - Adequacy of Faculty

The institution’s faculty is adequate for the educational levels offered, including full-time faculty representing each field in which it offers major work.

The institution’s faculty is adequate in number and highly skilled as teachers. A description of the faculty its capacities and qualifications is provided in Section 4 of this report. For a overview of faculty qualifications and their assignment to Planning Units, please consult the College’s catalog.

2.C.8 - No Pre-baccalaureate Programs

In an effort to further establish an institution’s success with respect to student achievement, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities shall require those institutions that offer pre-baccalaureate vocational programs to track State licensing examination pass rates, as applicable, and job placement rates.

Evergreen does not offer such programs.

Standard 2.D - Graduate Programs

Evergreen currently offers three graduate programs: a Master of Environmental Studies (MES), a Master in Teaching (MIT), and a Master of Public Administration (MPA). In addition the college offers a joint MES/MPA degree. Within the MPA program the college supports a Public Policy, a Non-Profit and Public Administration, and Tribal Governance track. The MIT program supports certification at the elementary, middle and high school levels in a wide variety of disciplines. The MES program offers a year long core sequence that includes work in both natural and social sciences, a variety of elective courses and a thesis. The college currently has permission and is in the process of establishing a Master of Education (M.Ed.) program for currently certificated teachers. Evergreen is not authorized to offer a Ph.D. program.

All of these programs actively support Evergreen’s Mission as a public, interdisciplinary, liberal arts college. In the approaches to the professional areas the programs cover, faculty in these areas have created an interdisciplinary pedagogy that stresses theoretical and applied work, teaching across significant differences, and individual and collaborative effort. Each of the programs has found creative ways to include both coverage of important disciplinary and professional subject matter while incorporating important innovations in pedagogy. The Graduate programs have been developed to respond to the clear need for public school teachers, environmental specialists, and professional administrators in Washington generally and in the Olympia area in particular.

The three programs are described in their annual reports, self-studies, or certification documents. The mission statement and/or catalog of each describes the programs educational objectives and the expectations of students. All of the graduate programs report to the Provost.

Evergreen does not have a separate graduate faculty. Although some faculty are hired specifically for masters-level teaching, all faculty rotate into the undergraduate curriculum as well, and faculty who teach in the undergraduate curriculum have an opportunity to teach in appropriate graduate programs. In addition to their teaching, faculty members in the graduate programs are expected to undertake significant research or community service work. This work is designed to provide a way for faculty to keep pace with developing issues and methods in their fields. Each masters program provides appropriate support for faculty and students.

All three graduate programs are located on campus. Each programs has published its admissions polices and guidelines, and admissions are based on formal applications. Graduate faculty have designed admissions policies, applications procedure and separate graduate catalogs.

We need: Catalogues,

Self Studies

Admissions Standards/form

Masters in Public Administration

Overview. The Master of Public Administration program was founded in 1980 to meet the needs of the many government workers residing and working in Olympia, Washington. The mission of the MPA, adopted in 2003, is:

Our students, faculty and staff create learning communities to explore and implement socially just, democratic public service. We:

• think critically and creatively;
• communicate effectively;
• work collaboratively;
• embrace diversity;
• value fairness and equity;
• advocate powerfully on behalf of the public; and,
• imagine new possibilities and accomplish positive change in our workplaces and in our communities.

The MPA program serves as a vehicle for the college’s mission and commitment to a meaningful public liberal arts education. Educating and training future public leaders embodies Evergreen’s commitment to responsible social change. The MPA program also strengthens the college’s town/gown relationships and represents the college in regional communities and in local, regional and state governmental entities. Our Tribal Governance MPA is the only MPA of this kind in the country and serves a significant need to prepare indigenous peoples to govern and sustain their tribal communities.

The work of the program is actively linked to many of the core initiatives or values of the college including promoting democracy, social justice and sustainability.

The MPA program reflects and practices TESC’s Six Goals, and the Five Foci of an Evergreen Education. Critical thinking and collaboration are encouraged at all levels of the program; students are both personally and professionally engaged in their learning and in the learning community; theory to practice (and vice versa) is at the heart the program and many classroom assignments are focused on applied action in communities, agencies and organizations. Students and faculty in the MPA program teach and learn across significant differences, both in terms of classroom diversity and in terms of diverse responses to public problems and issues. In 2003, the program adopted Mahatma Gandhi’s statement as its tagline: “you must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Faculty and students (as measured by classroom performance and through assessment) agree that the educational environment encourages students to work, with passion, toward positive public and social change.

There are over 700 TESC MPA graduates, hundreds of whom are living and working in the region, serving communities through their pursuit of better governance processes and procedures.

Change in the Past Five Years and Overview of the Curriculum: In 2002, the program implemented a major redesign, the first since the program was founded. The program needed to meet the increasingly diversified needs of a student population that had expanded significantly to include state, local/regional and tribal governments as well as non-profit organizations.

The re-visioning suggested students needed more choice and flexibility in their studies. The redesign included significant curriculum changes that make it easier for students to pursue the program at their own pace and established three concentrations: public and nonprofit administration, public policy; and tribal governance (a separate cohort of students). In 2006, the MPA program partnered with the Master of Environmental Study (MES) program to matriculate the first joint MES/MPA degree students.

The course of study in all MPA concentrations requires 60 quarter hours of academic work (more detail can be found in the MPA Catalog: Link to MPA Catalog.revised). All students participate in a 26 quarter-hour Core, taught over two years, covering what the faculty consider are the essential foundational knowledge of an Evergreen MPA. Core programs are team-taught in inter-disciplinary or inter-field teams, in learning communities. Students complete the program by participating in a 4 credit hour Capstone experience which, in addition to reflection and integration, also includes developing a demonstration project that puts theory and experience to work in an applied setting, working on an applied problem or situation.

There are three concentrations through which the students can study beyond the Core classes:

Public and Non-Profit Administration students select 30 credits of elective coursework that covers the critical elements of administration—budgeting, strategic planning, human resources and information systems, public law, leadership and ethics, multicultural competencies, and more—as well as the unique nature and needs of nonprofit and government organizations.

Public Policy concentration students prepare for work as policy analysts, budget analysts, or evaluators. Students in this concentration complete two Public Policy Concentration courses (Foundations of Public Policy and Advanced Research Methods), plus 22 credit hours of elective work in specific policy areas.

The Tribal Governance concentration develops administrators who work in both tribal governments and the public agencies to further the development of tribes in the Pacific Northwest. Students in the tribal concentration move through the program as a cohort over a two year period and complete 20 credit hours of required Tribal Concentration courses and 10 credit hours of electives.

In the late 1990s, Northwest tribal leaders approached Evergreen’s MPA program with a vision to combine broad principles of public administration with the specialized knowledge necessary to work with in tribal governance and in public and non-profit agencies that work closely with tribes. In 2002, the MPA program admitted its first tribal cohort. The program accepts up to 30 students every other year to study in this unique program, specializing in contemporary tribal governance subject areas. Concentration courses include sovereignty, intergovernmental relations, tribal organization and structure, reservation economies and policy for tribal governments.

The three cohorts of students (2002; 2004; 2006) have included people from all around the Puget Sound, as well as students from as far away as Gila River/Maricopa, Aleut, Apache, Tlingit, Lakota, Taos Pueblo, Wichita, Turtle Mountain, Hawaii and the Philippines. The range of tribal backgrounds adds to the quality and depth of the class discussions. Graduates of the Tribal Governance concentration are working in tribal governments, and in liaison roles in other agencies, throughout the region.

Recently, a renowned attorney working in national tribal law sat in on an MPA Tribal Governance class and had this to say after his visit:

“Providing an academic setting for Tribal Administrators and Elected Officials to have an opportunity to think about the complex matters that face Tribal governments and communities outside of the day to day pressures of work or Tribal Council demands and have them share insights on how to approach these challenges allows the students to acquire some critical tools needed for success in today's world. This type of educational opportunity is a necessary step in building strong Tribal governments and communities that can meet the challenges of the 21st century. I was impressed with the program, the faculty and the students.”

MPA Assessment

The MPA program is serving more students than ever before in the history of the program. In AY2000-2001, the program served, on average, 56.7 FTEs (target = 55); in AY2006-2007, the program served, on average, 95.5 FTEs (target = 80) (For more detail, see the MPA enrollment data at: link to MPA Enrollment Demos Fall 98-06). In addition, the MPA program has been successively serving more students (matriculated MPA students, Graduate Special Students, other graduate students and undergraduates) since Fall, 2002. In Fall, 2006, the program served 133 students, compared to 66 students in Fall of 2002. More information can be found in our annual reports (Link to annual reports)

The redesigned MPA program meets the needs of students by giving them greater choice not only in the concentration areas, but also in the length of time to complete the program. Some students choose to complete the program within two years, while others may choose three to five years. To meet the needs of working students, classes meet in the evening, on Saturdays and in intensive weekend formats.

Students are satisfied with their educational experiences. 94% of student respondents in a Spring, 2007 survey indicated they were either very satisfied (42%) or satisfied (52%) with their overall experiences in the MPA program (Link to MPA 2007 student data). Most students indicated that their capabilities in mission-related areas have been enhanced to a great or moderate extent. Consistent with past patterns, program strengths seem to be in delivering in the following mission areas (as measured by 85% or more responding either “great” or “moderate”): thinking critically; communicating effectively; working collaboratively; thinking creatively; and, advocating for the public (Link to MPA Mission Data).

Students, in 2007, indicated there is some room for improvement in the following mission areas (81% or below “great” or “moderate”): Imagining new possibilities; accomplishing positive change; valuing fairness and equity; and embracing diversity.

Alumni data are consistent with student evaluation data indicating that the program is teaching teamwork/collaboration, critical thinking, communication and analytical skills (Link to Final Report Core 2 research team V5. doc & Kathy Corey Stephen Presentation final.ppt)

Alumni are also satisfied with their experiences, with a statistically significant difference in satisfaction between those who graduated before the redesign and those who graduated after. Those who graduated after the redesign are slightly more satisfied and are more likely to recommend the program to others.

Anecdotal data indicate that employers like TESC MPA graduates because they know how to think and communicate, they have strong analytical skills that can transfer to a variety of situations and they put their critical faculties to work toward positive change in their work and in their communities. TESC MPA graduates do not shrink from hard work, have the capacities to take positive risks and are not afraid of change.

MPA Faculty and Staff and Related Resources (Standard 2.E)

The MPA program is staffed by a half-time Director (who also teaches 1⁄2 time) and two full-time Assistant Directors (MPA Assistant Director and TMPA Assistant Director). The director position is a rotational position, typically held by a faculty member who regularly teaches in the MPA program. The Director is typically contracted for a 3-4 year term.

The MPA program receives a sufficient budget each year to pay staff salaries, employ student assistants (graduate assistant to support staff/Director and writing assistant to support students), and fund administrative, classroom and program activities (annual appropriation = Link to our budget?).

The MPA program has access to, and use of, all necessary classrooms as well as library, media and computing facilities (including statistical software licensed throughout the college and in one easy to access computer lab). Our library capacities have significantly improved with electronic search databases and regional inter-library loan systems; our students and faculty can get most, if not all, of their graduate-level research needs met through our library (this was not the case in the past when had to travel to other universities schools to access appropriate library resources). A resource room for graduate students, including computers for their exclusive use, is located in the Graduate Studies Area (3^rd floor of Lab 1). Many faculty members also have their offices in this area, along with staff, which promotes programmatic collegiality and ease of administration. These facilities, save the graduate student resource room, are in common with the rest of the college and are more than adequate to run the program.

To date, six continuing faculty members who hold terminal degrees in public administration or related fields regularly teach in the MPA program (Bruce Davies, Larry Geri, Amy Gould, Alan Parker, Cheryl Simrell King, Linda Moon Stumpff – Link here to faculty cvs). In addition, for the past few years the program has been consistently staffed with longer-term visiting faculty who are also trained in the field (Nita Rinehart and Russ Lehman, among others) and many qualified practitioner-adjuncts. The college does not hire faculty to specific programs; all faculty members are hired to the college.

Faculty who regularly teach in the MPA program usually teach in MPA for 2-3 years and then rotate out into other curricular or administrative areas of the college for 1-2 years, returning to MPA at the end of their rotation. MPA faculty also often serve in administrative posts at the college (our Provost regularly taught in the MPA program before be became Dean and then Provost). Rotations, illness, sabbaticals and leaves without pay all challenge our ability to ensure that most courses in MPA are taught by continuing faculty who hold terminal degrees in an administrative or policy discipline/field. In addition, every year since the redesign, the program has consistently relied upon at least 1.5 visitors to offer the curriculum, and numerous adjunct faculty. The MPA program is in significant need of additional continuing faculty members; college administration is aware of this and, yet, is hard to help MPA boost their faculty based, given all other college-wide demands for resources. Nonetheless, the continued success of the program depends on a solid base of continuing faculty member and several continuing faculty hires must be made in the next two years.

MPA Graduate Records and Academic Credit (Standard 2.F)

The MPA program is governed and administered by the MPA faculty/staff team, who meet regularly to address issues of strategy and policy. The faculty and staff of the MPA program, with record-keeping assistance from Admissions, do their own admissions. The admissions policies and procedures are completely spelled out in the catalog and in the student handbook (Link to catalog and to student handbook). Admissions processes are managed by the staff and MPA faculty teams (not staff), in concert with the Director, make admissions decisions. Yearly, faculty re-evaluate mission criteria and processes and revise as needed, based upon experiences in previous years.

The Student Handbook, which is also revised and reviewed annually, clearly states all graduation criteria, transfer credit policies (the Director makes transfer credit decisions), internship and individual studies policies and procedures.

Students receive academic advisement from faculty members and the Assistant Directors work very closely with students on non-academic student issues (financial aid, credits, prerequisites, etc.).

Every new cohort attends a day-long orientation session to help ground them in their program. The orientation is organized and implemented by the staff and first year Core faculty team.

Strategic Goals: Now that a structure exists that seems to work for students, the MPA faculty believe it time to ensure the curriculum meets the program mission and that what gets taught, with room for variance, is a curriculum that reflects national and regional expectations of an MPA degree. To this end, much of AY2007-2008 MPA faculty governance has been focused on this. The program also needs to address the variability in curricular consistencies that can result from a program staffed by a faculty that rotates in and out of the program.

As the program continues to grow, the limits to growth must be determined – at what point does the program become too large to sustain a cohort-based, interdisciplinary, team-taught MPA? Finally, the program needs to continue to work on the question of overall quality and costs of a quality delivery, responding to the following question: “What does it take, irrespective of FTEs, to deliver a quality MPA program?”

Master in Teaching

Program Description

MIT is a two-year cohort-based program that enters 45 candidates each fall. Year one of each cohort is devoted to coursework on the essential knowledge and skills for teaching including foundations of education, learning theories, educational research, assessment, curriculum development, strategies for working with diverse learners, classroom management, school law, and content area pedagogies. Candidates spend one day a week observing and participating in curriculum development and guided teaching in regional schools. During Year two students complete two full time student teaching quarters in fall and again in spring, with generally one of the placements in a diverse, urban setting. Winter quarter is devoted to reflection on teaching and learning, the development of a Professional Growth Plan, and professional development related to job searches. The program has been graduating about 36-38 students annually. Candidates are well prepared to positively affect the students who enter their classrooms. MIT's high placement rate, first or second in the state for the last five years, suggests that principals and hiring committees agree! The University of Washington’s retention and mobility study, which indicated that nearly 80% of alumni who graduated in 2001 are still teaching, reflects MIT’s own data which suggests that the great majority of graduates tend to remain in teaching. Data from alumni, principal, and mentor teacher surveys all attest to the excellent preparation and effectiveness of MIT graduates.

The Master in Teaching (MIT) Program at Evergreen is a nationally recognized, state accredited teacher preparation program. In 2003, the MIT Program received the Richard Wisniewski Award from the Society of Professors of Education in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of teacher education. The program is proud of this recognition of the quality of the program, of its faculty, and of its candidates. Admission to the program is competitive and the content and processes are quite rigorous. Participants earn a master’s degree of 96 credits and certification while obtaining the critical understanding and skills needed to teach in today’s diverse public schools. Its structure, content, expectations, and outcomes are clearly outlined in the program catalog and website, and have been approved regularly by the State of Washington’s Board of Education since the program’s inception. MIT also completed a successful state accreditation visit in late October 2007, having met all five standards for an advisory board, accountability, unit governance and resources, program design and knowledge and skills.

Teacher education began at Evergreen in 1986, when, a faculty team crafted the Teacher Education Program (TEP) program to embody the same values and visions as those that permeated the Evergreen undergraduate curriculum. At the heart of TEP were the Five Foci and at its center was the belief in learning and the power of the learner working in collaboration with other learners. Evergreen's approach to teacher preparation emphasized building a community of learners, developing a strong theoretical foundation, and learning to apply theory through extensive opportunities for practice in public school classrooms. The Master in Teaching (MIT) Program replaced the TEP in 1992 but retained its core values.

As documented in the MIT Institutional Report and accreditation website, a variety of individual components contribute to the wholeness of the program, including the commitments embedded in Evergreen’s vision of education and in the MIT Conceptual Framework (Democracy and Schooling, Developmentally Appropriate Teaching and Learning, Multicultural/Anti-Bias Perspective); the unique experiences and talents represented by the faculty and candidates in each cohort; research about learning and effective teaching practices; on-going program and individual assessment; and attention to the State of Washington's Learning Goals and Essential Academic Learning Requirements. The creative integration of these components is what makes Evergreen's MIT program unique, responsive to individual and cultural diversity, and able to support the development of skilled and compassionate teachers who care to create just and educative learning experiences for their students.

Our candidates and graduates are supported by faculty who are skilled and dedicated educators. MIT faculty members create significant learning opportunities that incorporate emerging local, state, and national initiatives and they also make time for scholarly work and service to Evergreen and to the larger community. For example, in two recent cohorts, faculty skillfully responded to Washington State HB 1495 by including studies of tribal histories through reservation-based work and through curriculum development projects that may be included in the Chehalis culturally appropriate social studies curriculum. The two most recent cohorts have benefited from statewide math research in which one of our math faculty has participated. Two recent cohorts experimented successfully with innovative ways of incorporating arts across the curriculum. In all cohorts, candidates review and critique educational research that can help them become more effective teachers.

Responses to Community Needs Beyond Initial Residency Certification Since Last Accreditation

In response to the Washington Learns report, state data about under-staffed curricular areas in public schools, and requests from public school personnel, Evergreen, through the MIT program, has provided a number of learning opportunities for practicing teachers. We offer a strand of classes that prepare teachers to endorse in Special Education, one of the top shortage areas in the state. In addition, we offer a Professional Certificate Program that leads to the required second certification stage for teachers in Washington, Professional Certification. Finally, MIT’s certification officer meets individually with teachers seeking endorsements in a wide range of areas, helps assess their coursework, and supports them in creating plans of study that lead to their ability to add endorsements to their teaching certificates.

The college’s most recent response to identified shortage areas in public education was the development of a proposal for a Master in Education program, a collaborative effort among the Master in Teacher Program, the Evergreen Center for Educational Excellence, and Evergreen’s Grants Office, that has recently been submitted to the state Higher Education Coordinating Board for approval. This program will allow certified teachers to earn a masters degree while improving their knowledge and skills in two other state-identified shortage areas, math and ESL. In keeping with Evergreen’s mission and the mission of the Master in Teaching Program, the new masters program will also have at its center the development of teachers who can provide just and equitable learning opportunities for all children and youth.

Issues to be Addressed

• Currently, the Master in Teaching Program is the only teacher preparation entity on Evergreen’s campus that leads to state certification. The director for the Master in Teaching Program has primary responsibility for administering this program but has also, by default, assumed responsibility for the Special Education Endorsement sequence, the Professional Certificate program, and the addition of endorsements for certified teachers, none of which are included in the MIT program. For greater efficiency and consistency in supervision, hiring, and accreditation activities, the college might want to consider how to officially bring all of these education components under the supervision of a Director of Education.
• The accreditation process for teacher preparation programs has become considerably more rigorous and data-driven in the last two to three years. The college administration may need to review the needs and relationship of graduate teacher preparation to the undergraduate college. Specifically, what resources and intentions need to be available for hiring appropriate faculty and completing data analysis related to successful accreditation reviews?
• Evidence and Sources

MIT - 2.E.1

The institution provides evidence that it makes available for graduate programs the required resources for faculty, facilities, equipment, laboratories, library and information resources wherever the graduate programs are offered and delivered.

Facilities available at Evergreen, and through the library, computer center, and media center provide excellent support for graduate students’ learning and well-being, as well as for faculty support and support of the assessment system. The Master in Teaching (MIT) administrative offices, and most of the classroom space for MIT classes, are located in the new, ecologically friendly complex called Seminar 2. MIT shares two conference rooms with the Evergreen Center and the Washington Center, one of which is now used for advisory board meetings and meeting with public school personnel. A joint Evergreen Center/MIT resource room provides candidates with access to a range of research and

MIT - 2.E.2

The institution demonstrates a continuing commitment of resources to initiate graduate programs and to ensure that the graduate programs maintain pace with the expansion of knowledge and technology.

Teacher preparation at Evergreen was extended in January, 2008, to include a Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Curriculum and Instruction for those seeking a master’s degree but not teacher certification. The M.Ed. focuses specifically on the needs of diverse learners and the state-identified need to prepare highly qualified ESL and math teachers.

The institution has been responsive in providing adequate funds to cover the costs of day-to-day operations of the program, including faculty and staff salaries, mileage reimbursement for travel to supervise student teachers, money to pay work-study students and a graduate assistant, honoraria for mentor teachers and guest speakers within the program, printing of catalogs and recruiting materials, and office supplies, etc., as well as unusual costs such as those incurred as part of preparing for and hosting the MIT accreditation visit. Computer upgrades for faculty and staff are regularly available and some funds are available to support the directors and associate directors to attend state meetings. The MIT program receives 18 one-quarter tuition waivers to award to AmeriCorps volunteers and applicants with demonstrated financial need. In addition, the MIT program requested and received $30,000 in 2005 and 2006 to help recruit and retain out-of-state candidates. In the last year, the MIT Director and Associate Director have regularly requested more systematic support for out-of-state students and more tuition waivers for AmeriCorps candidates and candidates with financial need. The MIT Director has also requested increased budget support for faculty and staff development and for an increase in honoraria for mentor teachers. For particulars about MIT’s current budget and a comparison to the budgets for the Master in Public Administration and Master in Environmental Education programs, see 'http://www.evergreen.edu/mit/accred2007/unit/mitbudget.xls' and

http://www.evergreen.edu/mit/accred2007/unit/gradbudgetcomp.xls

MIT - 2.E.3

Institutions offering graduate degrees have appropriate full-time faculty in areas appropriate to the degree offered and whose main activity lies within the institution. Such faculty are related by training and research to the disciplines in which they teach and supervise research.

MIT faculty, like the liberal arts faculty, are dedicated to creating learning experiences that reflect what Evergreen’s first president, Charles McCann, envisioned - education for the development of self-reflective, life-long learners. The MIT faculty are skilled at creating learning experiences that support candidates in aspiring to McCann’s vision. An essential aspect of those learning experiences is the process of self-evaluation – all faculty and candidates regularly review, assess, and critique their work.

Though Evergreen does not require faculty to publish in order to gain tenure, all of the six core MIT faculty have presented at national, state, or local conferences and have published books, software, and/or articles in scholarly journals. Three of the core faculty (Coleman, Lenges, Vavrus) are currently involved in significant research projects in their areas of interest.

Core and visiting faculty have served public schools and the community include, but are not limited to, participating in WEA and the ACLU; mentoring a high school teacher; collaborating to provide support to middle school students who did not pass the math WASL; acting as the project evaluator for a project that assessed the effectiveness of a district-wide science project; meeting with school board members and offering study sessions; teaching math in UpWard Bound; helping to organize and support a group of teachers interested in teaching for social justice; assessing the reading abilities of middle school students and providing extensive written assessments and suggestions for interventions; offering math workshops in various districts; and participating as the college partner with a local elementary school in the League of Small Democratic Schools.

Evidence:

[../teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_B%283%29 http://www2.evergreen.edu/wikis/teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_B%283%29]

MIT - 2.E.4

Faculty are adequate in number and sufficiently diversified within disciplines so as to provide effective teaching, advising, scholarly and/or creative activity, as well as to participate appropriately in curriculum development, policy development, evaluation, institutional planning, and development. Small graduate programs ordinarily require the participation of several full-time faculty whose responsibilities include a major commitment to graduate education.

Faculty in MIT like all faculty at the college participate actively in the creation and development of curriculum at both the graduate level while teaching in MIT and the undergraduate level when working in the undergraduate curriculum. MIT faculty are hired, evaluated and retained in the same manner as all other faculty. (See Standard 4 detailed description, of hiring, faculty planning, assignment, retention and participation in research, teaching and evaluation.) MIT faculty members typically teach in a two year cycle and often participate in the undergraduate program in the third year. Like all other faculty members. MIT faculty members participate in quarterly and annual reviews of their teaching work through the process of student faculty evaluation conferences and documents, band also through team faculty team reviews. Like all other regular Evergreen Faculty MIT faculty move through a series of annual evaluation by the deans and when moved to continuing contract participate in a five year review cycle. (Again see evaluation processes in Standard 4).

Student Evaluations of Faculty -[../teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_C%283%29 http://www2.evergreen.edu/wikis/teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_C%283%29]

Scholarship - [../teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_D%283%29 http://www2.evergreen.edu/wikis/teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_D%283%29]

Service -

[../teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_E%283%29 http://www2.evergreen.edu/wikis/teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_E%283%29]

[../teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_I%285%29 http://www2.evergreen.edu/wikis/teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_III_Criteria_I%285%29]

MIT - 2.E.5

In the delivery of off-campus programs, full-time faculty whose responsibilities include a major commitment to graduate education provide physical presence and participation in the planning, delivery, and assessment of programs.

Not Applicable

MIT 2.F.1

Graduate program admission policies and regulations are consistent with and supportive of the character of the graduate programs offered by the institution. These policies are published and made available to prospective and enrolled students.

As indicated in state accreditation requirements for teacher preparation program accreditation, “Candidates who demonstrate potential for acquiring the content and pedagogical knowledge and skills for success as educators in schools are recruited, admitted, and retained (see WAC 181-78A-200 Candidates Admission Policies). These candidates include members from under represented groups.” Evergreen’s recruitment, admission, and retention policies are published in hard-copy catalogues and on the MIT program website.

As documented at '[../teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_II_Criteria_A%281a%29 http://www2.evergreen.edu/wikis/teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_II_Criteria_A%281a%29]',

The Master in Teaching program clearly states its expectations for program participants on its website, in its catalog, in the Master in Teaching Program Guidebook to Policies, Procedures, and Resources, in the Student Teaching Handbook, and on cohort websites. From criteria for admission to the program, to criteria for benchmark portfolios and projects, to expectations for the master’s project, to clear explanations about the program’s Conceptual Framework and the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in a performance-based teacher education program, candidates have ready access to expectations. In addition, these expectations reflect the Conceptual Framework and state standards (please see Tables 2A-2C). Candidates are regularly asked to demonstrate that they have developed the knowledge, skills, and dispositions articulated in the expectations. For ways in which candidate performance is assessed, please see '[../teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_II_Criteria_B%281b%29 http://www2.evergreen.edu/wikis/teacheraccred/index.php?title=Standard_II_Criteria_B%281b%29]

MIT 2.F.2

Admission to all graduate programs is based on information submitted with the formal application such as undergraduate and graduate transcripts, official reports on nationally recognized tests, and evaluations by professionals in the field or other faculty-controlled evaluation procedures.

The prime requirements for admission are academic excellence and the potential to succeed as a teacher in a broad range of classroom settings. The admissions committee considers both qualitative and quantitative written evidence and, possibly, a personal interview.

Each applicant's admission information, which includes essays, a résumé, transcripts, letters of recommendation, content area preparation worksheets, and test results, is evaluated in these areas:

• general graduate-level academic ability, including liberal arts breadth, completion of general education prerequisites, and strong writing and reading comprehension

• quality of endorsement area content preparation

• experience within the past two years in a public school classroom, observing or working with students at the grade level the candidate wishes to teach

• experience with individuals from diverse cultural (racial/ethnic) backgrounds

• study or work indicating an interest in the intellectual and social development of young people and a commitment to a teaching career in a K-12 setting

• interpersonal communication skills and professionalism in public settings

• completeness of application materials and the care with which the content has been prepared - http://www.evergreen.edu/mit/application/admissionsCriteria.htm

MIT 2.F.3

Faculty teaching in graduate programs are involved establishing both general admission criteria for graduate study as well as admission criteria to specific graduate programs.

Graduate faculty collaborate to specify admissions and retention criteria. In the Master in Teaching program, faculty teams are also members of the Admissions Committee that evaluates applications and recommends or denies admission to the program.

MIT 2.F.4

Graduation requirements for advanced degrees offered by the institution are determined by the faculty teaching in the applicable graduate programs. At minimum, the policies governing these graduation requirements include: the specified time period in which the degree must be completed .

http://www.evergreen.edu/mit/publications/Guidebook2007.htm#StandardIVa

MIT 2.F.5

Transfer credit – The MIT Program does not Accept Transfer Credit

2.F.6

Graduate credit may be granted for internships, field experiences, and clinical practices that are an integral part of the graduate degree program.

Master in Teaching Program (MIT): The State of Washington accreditation standards for teacher preparation programs requires that teacher candidates have field and clinical teaching experiences. (Standard IV(G a-c): Field Experiences and Clinical Practices: The unit and its school partners design, implement, and evaluate field experiences and clinical practices so that candidates demonstrate the knowledge and skills necessary to help all students learn.) MIT requires candidates to spend time in diverse public school classrooms each quarter of the first year and awards credit for these experiences. All candidates spend time in rural, urban, and suburban schools and in elementary, middle school, and high school classrooms during the first quarter of the program. In the second and third quarters of the program, candidates work in one classroom under the guidance of a certified teacher. Each quarter of the first year, candidates spend approximately 40 – 50 guided hours a quarter working in a public school classroom. In the second year of the program, candidates complete two, ten-week student teaching (intern) experiences. One of these is usually in an urban setting to provide significant experiences with diverse populations of students. The Student Teaching Handbook 'http://www.evergreen.edu/mit/publications/ST_hb07_sec1.pdf' outlines the responsibilities of the student teacher, the mentor teacher, and the college supervisor. Successful completion results in 16 graduate credits each of the two quarters.

Master of Environmental Studies

Overview

The Evergreen State College began its Graduate Program on the Environment in 1984. The program integrates the study of the biological, physical and social sciences with public policy and leads to the Master of Environmental Study (MES) degree. The program aims to produce graduates who combine an interdisciplinary understanding of the social and natural sciences with the skills and wisdom to intelligently address environmental problems. The program is centered on highly participatory evening classes that accommodate full- or part-time students. Many alumni are employed in the public, private, and non-profit sectors, while others continue their graduate study in related Ph.D. programs. The perspectives of the MES program are national and international, but extensive use is made of the environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest.

Faculty members come from biological, physical, and social sciences and a balance of these disciplinary fields is maintained in the teams of 2-3 faculty members who teach each of the 4 required, “core” courses. These faculty members rotate into the graduate program for, typically, 2 years before returning to teach full-time in the undergraduate programs of the college. At Evergreen, it is not possible for faculty members to teach both graduate and undergraduate courses at the same time because of time commitments of teaching a full-time undergraduate program. Service of 2 years at any one time in the MES program allows faculty members and students to get to know each other and to form close working relationships for purposes of research and thesis writing.

The MES program admits up to 40 students each year. Each entering class takes the core sequence as a group during their first 4 quarters. (These core courses are described below and at http://www.evergreen.edu/mes/coresequence.htm.) Students develop a cohesive and cooperative approach to learning that cannot be matched by taking a scattering of individual courses. Continuing students work to integrate their first-year colleagues into a strong, supportive learning community of about 80 – 100 students overall, dedicated to increasing their knowledge and understanding of the many facets of professional environmental work. About two-thirds of Evergreen's MES students have undergraduate degrees in the natural sciences, primarily biology or environmental studies. The remainder has degrees in the social sciences and humanities. Some come directly from undergraduate work. Many bring to the program work or volunteer experience in diverse areas. MES students have ranged in age from 22 to well over 60. We are also privileged to have 2 – 3 international students enroll each year. The students and faculty report that this diversity of backgrounds, experience and ages contributes significantly to their overall learning. Each year, approximately 25 students graduate with their master’s degrees.

The MES curriculum consists of three closely integrated components, which are (1) the 4 required core programs; (2) electives, offered to provide more specialized training in subjects related to environmental studies; and (3) thesis work, which often takes the form of applied research. Students are also encouraged to undertake internship and independent learning activities in their second year. An MES degree requires 72 quarter-hours of credit, including 32 credits of core work and 8 or 16 credits of thesis, along with 24 or 32 credits of electives. The exact mix of elective credits and thesis credits will vary according to which of two thesis options a student selects. Students enrolled full time (12 hours per quarter) can complete all degree requirements in six quarters. A new joint MES/MPA degree has been offered since 2006, which requires 96 quarter-hours of work in both graduate programs.

MES Curriculum

The MES program is designed so working students can attend part time. Core and elective programs meet in the evening and late afternoon. Students who enroll for 8 hours per quarter require a minimum of 9 quarters to complete the MES degree. These students usually take the core sequence before enrolling in electives or beginning the thesis project. Electives and thesis work are also available in the summer.

The MES core sequence starts with a general view of environmental study, in the course “Political Economic and Ecological Processes.” This program provides a framework for understanding current environmental issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students begin to develop the skills to become producers of new knowledge, rather than being strictly learners of information already available. Multiple methods of data acquisition and analysis are introduced through examples drawn from many fields of study. The philosophy of science and the problematic relationship between science and policy are also introduced.

The second core course is “Ecological and Social Sustainability.” This course addresses central issues in contemporary sustainability studies on theoretical and practical levels. Emphasis is on ways to promote both environmental and social sustainability. Areas covered may include environmental quality at regional, national and global scales; energy use and alternative energies; resource availability and access to resources; social and cultural issues of sustainability; and indicators to guide policy. As part of this program, students write and present a research paper to provide evidence of their readiness to advance to candidacy.

The third core course is “Quantitative and Qualitative Data Analysis for Environmental Studies.” In this course, students learn how to integrate the use of inferential statistics and qualitative data analysis to conduct rigorous examinations of the social, biological, and physical aspects of environmental issues. This knowledge prepares students for their own research and for understanding and critiquing research articles and reports in fields of their choosing.

The final core course is “Case Studies and Thesis Research Design,” in which students apply and strengthen the skills they gained in their first year of MES core studies, by carrying out individual or small group projects. Students and faculty also work together to apply what has been learned throughout the core sequence about interdisciplinary environmental research to design individual thesis research plans that will be ready to carry out by the end of the fall quarter of the student’s second year.

Four-credit electives offer students the opportunity to study a specific subject in more depth than is possible in core programs. Electives are listed in the attachment, “MES CURRICULUM, FALL 2007 – SPRING 2009.” MES students may also enroll in MPA electives and apply the credits earned toward their MES elective requirements. Additionally, students can take up to 8 elective credits of course work in the form of internships and individual contracts.

The MES program offers two ways to fulfill the thesis requirement, namely the 8-credit “Thesis: Essay of Distinction” and the 16-credit “Thesis.” Both require the student to engage in research on a significant topic and consider its political, economic and scientific aspects. It can be an individual or a team effort. The project preferably should be of value to an external client or organization as well as meeting high academic and theoretical standards. Primary differences between the two thesis options lie in the scope of the problem examined and the manner in which the research is conducted. The Thesis: Essay of Distinction reviews and analyzes an existing body of information and does not involve substantial original field or survey research. This thesis option is written in a workshop setting during winter and spring quarters of the student's final year. Students selecting this option take 8 hours of thesis credits and 32 hours of elective credits. The 16-credit thesis option represents a substantial research project conducted independently by the student with the support and guidance of a three-person thesis committee. It offers the opportunity for extended fieldwork, data collection and analysis. The thesis committee includes 2 Evergreen faculty members plus an outside reader appropriate to the topic. Students selecting this option take 16 hours of thesis credits and 24 hours of elective credits. As the culminating act of the thesis project, students share results with faculty and students in a public, oral presentation. Detailed information may be found in the attached MES Thesis Handbook.

MES Assessment

MES assessment is a continuing process that includes assessment of student work, of faculty performance, and of program effectiveness. Student work is assessed in detail during and at the culmination of each course through feedback on assignments and through the narrative evaluation process. Student/faculty evaluation conferences and narrative evaluations are carried out in the same manner as in Evergreen’s undergraduate program. Since the maximum student/faculty ratio is smaller in the MES program (15/1) than in the undergraduate program (25/1), we have close working relationships and excellent opportunities for assessment. Students also provide assessment of faculty and program performance through this process. The MES Director and Assistant Director regularly seek and receive informal assessments of program performance from students at all points in their academic trajectories. This is done mostly through personal meetings but also through correspondence. Faculty performance is assessed by the MES Director through regular communications with faculty and students and through formal evaluation conferences between the Director and adjunct faculty.

A detailed program assessment was carried out in a self-study completed in November, 2004 (see attached self-study). A year later, an intensive, two-day program assessment was conducted in September of 2005 in a “summer institute” called, “The Future of Graduate Environmental Studies at Evergreen.” The purpose of the summer institute was to assess where the MES program had been, where it should be going, and how to get there. Readings, presentations and working groups were organized to foster creative thinking about strengthening the MES program. MES was assessed within the broader context of the evolving field of graduate environmental studies programs and, for that reason, Dr. Will Focht was invited to assess our program (see his report to the Provost, attached) and to participate in the summer institute as a resource person and facilitator. Dr. Focht, who is Director of the Environmental Institute and Director of the Environmental Science Graduate Program at Oklahoma State University, has many years of experience leading a comprehensive survey of environmental studies and science programs offered in U.S. universities. Participants in the summer institute included every previous MES Director except one; many current, former and future MES faculty members; current students, alumni, and MES support staff. These participants formed working groups to developing recommendations for the MES program from a variety of perspectives.

These assessments found that the ways in which we taught research methods were overdue for reform and a number of improvements were needed in the content and consistency of our other offerings as well. Instruction in research methods needed to be integrated into the entire sequence of required courses, which has now been done. Instead of teaching only quantitative data analysis, as was the practice in the recent past, introductions to both qualitative and quantitative methods has now been instituted in the core sequence. The old case studies core course was assessed as not serving an essential, generic function and the thesis writing process needed to be strengthened as well, by starting the process earlier and by providing greater instruction in research methods. To solve this problem, the old case studies course was replaced with a new “Case Studies/Thesis Research Design” course, which was highly successful in its first iteration in the fall of 2007. Finally, it was found that there should be more fieldwork throughout the curriculum and this is being addressed with more field-based electives and some field\work has even been introduced into the core classes this year.

MES Standard 2.E

The MES Program regularly uses classroom facilities, the Computer Applications Lab, the Computer Center, the Library and, for some courses, support for field classes, including Motor Pool vans and equipment from Lab Stores. Students also make use of a Graduate Student Lounge, furnished with student mailboxes, three computer terminals, a telephone, food storage and preparation facilities, and areas for working and meeting. There are 5 faculty members serving exclusively in the MES program at any one time and they all have doctoral degrees and practical experience in their fields, representing a range of natural and social sciences (see CVs). MES faculty members rotate in and out of the graduate program from the undergraduate program, typically remaining in MES for two to three years at a time.

MES Standard 2.F

The MES Director’s position is described in the document, “Master of Environmental Studies Director Position Description.” The MES Director is a faculty member who typically teaches an 8-credit, core MES course in the fall quarter, teaches a 4-credit MES elective in the winter quarter, serves as a thesis reader throughout the year, and works as a half-time administrator in the summer. An MES faculty member reviews applications and makes detailed admissions recommendations to the Director, who then makes final admissions decisions. The Director also makes decisions about the acceptability of transfer credits.

There is one, full-time MES Assistant Director, who is responsible for providing services to alumni, prospective students and current students in the Graduate Program on the Environment (see supporting document, “Assistant Director Position Description”). The AD is also responsible for recruitment, marketing and community outreach. The key focus of the position's work is to (1) support outreach efforts to prospective students, which will result in recruitment to the Program; and (2) provide student-service assistance (advising, internships, financial aid, employment and careers, personal) to existing students, in order to increase retention to graduation. The position also supports efforts to cultivate the involvement of alumni, an Advisory Board, and members of the community in the Program's affairs.

There is also a work-study student who serves as Program Assistant. This position provides administrative and clerical support to the Assistant Director and Director.

The MES Program budget is adequate and is currently as follows:

1. 25101, MES Support: $88,827.00 total

Account 6100 - Salaries and Wages: $58,152.00

Account 6200 - Benefits: $15,515.00

Account 7230 - Goods and Services: $10,360.00

Account 7250 - Travel: $ 4,800.00

1. 25102, MES Academic: $ 9,800.00 total

Account 7230 - Goods and Services: $ 9,800.00

All MES faculty are involved in revising admissions or graduation requirements. Program policies and regulations are distributed at orientation and are always available on the program web site (see MES Student Policy Handbook and also http://www.evergreen.edu/mes/messupport.htm). All admissions and graduation requirements are clearly posted on the program web site (http://www.evergreen.edu/mes/) as well as being spelled out in the Student Policy Handbook and the Thesis Handbook. These handbooks are revised and updated annually by the MES Director and Assistant Director.

MES/MPA Dual Degree

Starting in the Fall of 2006, the Master in Environmental Study and Master in Public Administration Programs at The Evergreen State College began offering a combined MES/MPA Degree. This joint program is designed both for environmental professionals who wish to improve their administrative skills and for public administrators and public policy professionals who want to gain expertise in the analysis of environmental issues. Three students applied and were accepted in Fall 2007. The first two students to earn this joint degree will graduate in 2008. The third joint-degree student is on track to graduate in either 2009 or 2010. The program has four serious prospective students who plan to apply to enter the program in the Fall of 2008. All of these students have started out as MES students, before applying to become joint MES/MPA students.

Students must complete a total of 96 credits in both programs to obtain the degree, including core coursework and electives in both programs. Electives should be approximately equally divided between MES and MPA. If a student is in the MPA-Tribal program, s/he must take five MPA-tribal concentration courses. The MPA and MES Directors must approve students' educational plans for elective work. All joint-degree students are required to complete an 8- or 16-credit MES thesis instead of the MPA capstone or thesis. The MES/MPA thesis prospectus requires approval by both the MPA and MES Directors. Students may choose either the MES or MPA research methods/design programs in the MES or MPA core.

Tacoma Program

Location and Mission of the Tacoma Program (Campus)

The Tacoma Campus is located in the Hilltop area of Tacoma, an inner city, mixed-use zone of businesses, private homes, multi-unit dwellings and three hospitals. The area is in the process of change, evolving from one of primarily low-income residents to that of new and expanding businesses and multi-unit dwellings for urban professionals.

The mission of the Tacoma Program is to prepare students to serve their local communities, the state, the nation and the world through interdisciplinary, team-taught, community-based academic programs. This mission is accomplished through instructional, inter-institutional and community partnerships that place value and emphasis on educating students while meeting the needs of our communities.

The guiding philosophy of the Program is “enter to learn, depart to serve.” Its values are hospitality, inclusivity, civility and reciprocity. There is intentionality in the Program’s approach to its mission of serving communities. The Campus maintains an environment that is open, welcoming and inclusive. In keeping with its mission of service, the Campus gives back to local and state communities by opening its doors to seminars and training sessions offered by community, municipal and state agencies. Through these collaborations, students gain access to participation in democratic governance that sometimes offers pathways to internships and employment. Moreover, these public gatherings are part of the Campus’s strategic recruitment plan.

The academic process encourages a spirit of open inquiry with the expectation that students become equipped with cutting-edge knowledge, literacies and skills relevant to recognized fields of study and to the changing demographics of today’s world.

The Tacoma Campus is considered to be an academic program, however, it is much more. The practical realities are that the program operates in many ways like a campus. Unlike the Olympia Campus, the Tacoma Campus operates with an on-site director who manages the operations, public relations, student services issues including disability access concerns and serves as the academic leader. The Campus has one student services professional who performs multiple duties including, but not limited to, recruitment, advising, help with registration, orientation of new students and tracking of student data. The director is also actively involved in supporting student services.

At its inception, the Campus responded to the need for a public college in Tacoma that would serve the broad interests of citizens in the area. The Campus sought to meet the needs of local residents; however, as the student body grew and the planning directions of the City of Tacoma developed, students from five counties began to matriculate in the Tacoma Program. Over the years, in response to those from the five counties and the growing enrollment, the faculty and curriculum expanded.

Curricular Structure and Student Population

The Tacoma Program is an upper division, full-time learning community offering a yearlong liberal arts and sciences curriculum. Throughout the academic year, individual courses address the overall theme of the Program. Enrollment in the Program is capped at 225 students.

Classes are offered during the day and replicated in the evening in order to facilitate accessibility and flexibility for place-bound working adults. Thirty-four percent of Tacoma students are between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four years of age. Thirty percent are between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four years of age. Sixteen percent are between the ages of forty-five and fifty-five years of age. Eleven percent are over fifty-five years of age, and nine percent are eighteen to twenty-four years of age.

Diversity of the student body is also reflected in its ethnic make-up. Forty-nine percent of Tacoma students are African-American; forty-three percent are European American; four percent are Latino, two percent are Native American, and two percent are Asian/Pacific Islander.

Most of the Tacoma Campus students are either employed or seeking employment. In a 2005 survey of new students, 31 percent of the student sample indicated they were employed or planning to work thirty-five hours or more per week. Another 20.7 percent noted that they were employed or planning to work twenty to thirty-four hours per week and 17.2 percent indicated that they were employed or planning or planning to work nineteen hours or less. A total of those responding, 17.2 percent, said that they did not know whether they would work during fall quarter and 13.8 percent indicated that they would not work in the fall.

Nearly half of all Tacoma Campus students have children in their care. In the same survey cited above, 44.8 percent of Tacoma respondents stated that they have a dependent child living with them. Of the 26 respondents who indicated that they have dependent children living with them, 9 respondents, or 34.6 percent noted that they will need childcare.

Most Tacoma Campus students are the first generation in their families to attend college. In the 2005 survey, Tacoma respondents reported at least one parent’s educational background, and of those reporting, 81.9 percent stated that they had no parent with a 4-year degree or more. 49.1 percent reported that no parent had attended college.

In response to a question about financial support for college, 50 percent of students reporting indicated that they received aid (loans) that must be repaid. 73.2 percent received aid that does not need to be repaid (grants, work study, scholarships, military funding, DVR, worker retraining funds).

Faculty and Programs

Several of the faculty have dual terminal degrees, for example, M.D., Ph.D. or Ph.D., J.D. This interdisciplinarity affords faculty and students opportunity to come face-to-face with how distinctively different disciplines generate a variety of phenomena and meaning. Moreover, students see reflected in the faculty the complexity of the world and their places in it. Interdisciplinary, team-taught courses cover the following areas: law, political science, public policy, foreign policy, psychology, sociology, ecology, environmental policy, basic and advanced biology, life sciences, such as biochemistry, physiology and neurosciences, environmental science, public health, bioethics, mathematics, 3D modeling, statistics, research methods, literature, Chinese cultural studies, poetry, memoir, film, media literacy, romance languages, West African languages, multimedia art and design, web design, graphic design, video production and sound editing.

The Program currently has four continuing faculty members, five visiting faculty members and two adjunct professors.

Interdisciplinary Programs

Each academic year, the faculty offers a theme-based interdisciplinary program. The themes of the programs are empirically grounded in community needs expressed by our community partners and collaborators. Programs have focused on disparities and injustices in the criminal justice system, education, public policy, health and economics. Issues of class, race, gender and religion have surfaced in the courses offered in the programs. Writing across the curriculum is one of the hallmarks of the Program. Recently, laboratory time was added to classes in the liberal arts, social sciences, science and mathematics. In order to assist students in moving from theory to practice, the faculty sought to provide a learning laboratory to extend both the depth and breadth of students’ cognitive and experiential learning. Faculty conduct and lead the laboratory activities in writing, research, science, mathematics, computer graphics, politics, iMovie editing and curriculum design.

The Program includes an all-campus Lyceum in which all students in the Tacoma Program are enrolled. Lyceum is the centerpiece of the curriculum through which students are exposed to knowledge that may be outside of the faculty team and contributes to the intellectual life of the Campus. Lyceum forms the nexus for inclusion of the program theme, guest speakers, books and academic work in the individual classes. Students in Lyceum are together for one and 90 minutes and then break into seminar groups for an additional hour and a half. These seminar groups are led by individual faculty to whom are students are assigned for the entire academic year. Through this process, students engage in reflexive thinking and practice.

Individual faculty members also serve as academic advisors to their respective students during their tenure in the Program. These seminar advisors, as they are called, are responsible for writing the year-end evaluation of their advisees. Each quarter, faculty complete an evaluation of all students in their classes. These are distributed to the individual student and his/her advisor. At the end of the academic year, the advisor synthesizes the evaluations gathered from the faculty into one evaluation for each student advisee. In writing the evaluation, the faculty primarily focus on the following outcomes or skills: course content mastery, writing skills, critical and analytical thinking skills, oral communication skills, collaboration/working across significant differences, quantitative skills and attendance.

The program has no requirements beyond that of achieving 180 credits but recommends that students enroll in a memoir writing class, research methods and statistics. Opportunities for reflexive thinking abound in the curriculum. Work in the memoir writing class allows for work that is both illuminating and emancipating. Students come to understand the process of moving from victim, and in many instances, to victor. This appears to be a recurring theme in working with adult learners.

In the senior year, students may elect to enroll in an independent learning contract or an internship. Here, students are presented with application of theory to real-world situations where they explore more deeply issues and ideas related to their academic areas of concentration and/or professional pathways. It is also during this year that students are expected to write and orally present a synthesis of their learning and academic journey. Through the process, students gain reflexive praxis and synthesis of ideas and experiences.

Student Survey Data

In a 2006 survey of students on the Evergreen experience, 48.7 percent of students indicated that the academic workload was “just right.” Another 48.7 percent reported that the academic workload was “a little too heavy” or “too heavy.” 2.6 percent noted that their academic workload was “too light.”

Students indicated high levels of satisfaction with the learning environment. 66.7 percent of students noted that they were very satisfied with the overall quality of instruction. 65.8 percent noted that they were very satisfied with lectures and other presentations by the faculty. 60.5 percent were very satisfied with the interdisciplinary approach to course content. 2.6 percent of students said that they were dissatisfied with both the lectures and other presentations by faculty and with the interdisciplinary approach to course content. No student indicated dissatisfaction with the learning environment or the overall quality of instruction.

The ability of students to enroll in their first choice of academic programs varied to a small extent. In the fall, 89.7 percent stated that they enrolled in their first choice; in winter quarter, 93.5 enrolled in their first choice; and, in spring 92.1 percent were able to enroll in their first choice. The common barrier to enrollment in their first choice was conflicts in the schedule. Students indicated that on the Tacoma Campus they do not have a lot of flexibility in the choices available.

Students expressed their views on the importance of campus diversity to their learning. The most common response was that diversity was “very” important as noted by 48.7 percent of the sample. 35. 9 percent indicated “quite a bit;” 7.7 percent indicated “somewhat important,” while 5 percent indicated that diversity is “not at all” important.

Alumni Survey Data

In a 2006 survey of alumni, 74.1 percent of Tacoma program alumni reported that they were currently employed one year after graduation. 95 percent were working in an area that was at least somewhat related to their area of primary study. 84.2 percent felt that their Evergreen experiences prepared them adequately or very well for their current employment. 35 percent of Tacoma alumni were employed in the area of community and social service. 25 percent were employed in education. 10 percent were in business management and another 10 percent were in health care. 55.6 percent were involved in volunteer activities one year after graduation.

Tacoma Program graduates were asked to rate their satisfaction with Evergreen’s contribution to their academic and personal growth. In 24 areas, Tacoma alumni reported being mostly or very satisfied with Evergreen’s contribution. 96. 3 percent gave the highest rating on four of the 24 areas. These included: their abilities to do “critical analysis of written information”; “recognizing [their] rights and responsibilities and privileges as a citizen”; “functioning as a responsible member of a diverse community”; and “reading for academic purposes.” Learning independently, writing effectively, defining and understanding problems, working cooperatively in a group, giving effective presentations, synthesizing information and ideas from many sources and managing time effectively also ranked very highly among the students surveyed.

Among their Evergreen experiences, 81.5 percent of alumni were very satisfied with the interdisciplinary approach to education and the narrative evaluations. 74.1 percent were satisfied with the quality of instruction. (Alumni Survey 2006: Tacoma)

Issues

Functioning as a campus and a program places enormous responsibilities and time commitments on the director, faculty and staff. In order to serve the needs of the students and to collaborate effectively with the community (Sixth Avenue Business Association, Chamber of Commerce and community partners (see above), faculty and staff are faced with multiple responsibilities. This situation combined with the faculty desires and commitments to provide intellectually stimulating curricula presents a weighty challenge. While the number of continuing faculty is small nonetheless visiting faculty and adjuncts complement the ability of the faculty to provide engaging and essential liberal arts curricula. They also perform much needed functions on the Campus, for example academic advising. Visiting faculty contribute to the intellectual vibrancy of the learning environment and bring new energy and interdisciplinary perspectives to the curriculum.

Similar to the Olympia campus, the Tacoma program faces imminent attrition of one-half its continuing faculty. The latest continuing hire, the mathematics professor, did not move the Program towards addressing this issue of succession planning. The faculty and the director have not had a serious conversation about how to plan for faculty replacements. However, there have been informal conversations about planning for the future, but nothing concrete has surfaced from those discussions.

Given that the Program states in its mission that it is preparing students to serve the world, there is a concern of increasing focus and curriculum planning with intentionality toward sustaining the foreign language we currently offer. Our curriculum has and continues to include courses that address global issues; however, there has neither been a concrete nor a coherent effort to include foreign languages in the curriculum. The Program currently offers conversational French with the expectation of providing opportunities for students to learn the more widely spoken African languages. We also have the capacity and the faculty to offer Mandarin Chinese.

Access services has increasingly become an important component of students’ needs. The most difficult situation is presented when students have not been diagnosed with a cognizable condition such as dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, or other statutorily covered conditions that may not be visually apparent. The cost of such a diagnosis is expensive and becomes a problem because most of our students do not have health insurance. At this juncture, the Program has nothing in place to address the financial barriers essential to providing students with access to disabilities services.

Finally, there is a need for the College to face the paradox that is presented by this Program/Campus. At once, it is a campus, without adequate campus resources and also a Program that serves a population of adult learners, many of whom are first generation college, and most of whom have incomes below the poverty index for Washington state. The needs presented are great. While the College has supplied curricular support and some student services in the past few years, especially during the current academic year, there still exists a dire need to increase the time of a psychotherapist on the Campus from one day per week to minimally three days each week.

Future Plans

• All statistical information contained in this report is excerpted from data gathered by The Evergreen State College Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Tribal: Reservation-based/Community-determined Programs

Coming Soon

2.G.12 - Study Abroad

Evergreen is committed to an increased Internationalization. Internationalization is broader than Study Abroad, it encompasses language, area and cultural studies, all the curricular and extracurricular opportunities that our students have to learn about unfamiliar social and natural systems. The term internationalization is defined by Knight (1994) as “the process of integrating an international/intercultural dimension into the teaching, research, and service functions of the institution.” Programs that allow our students to study abroad is a large part of this effort. Currently, on average 8% of Evergreen students study abroad each year: approximately 48% studying through academic programs, 43% through contracts and internships, 8% through consortium partners, and 1% on student exchange. This proportion is significantly higher than any of the other four-year state universities.

Study Abroad Opportunities	2005-06	2006-07	Average	Percent of Total Enrollment	Percent of Study Abroad
Academic Programs with Travel Abroad component	124	223	174	4%	48%
Individual Learning Contract	104	153	129	3%	36%
Internship Contract	28	25	27	1%	7%
Consortium Agreements	31	27	29	1%	8%
Student Exchanges	4	4	4	0%	1%
Total	291	432	362	8%	100%

These study abroad opportunities are consistent with Evergreen’s Five Foci, in particular, linking theory with practice, teaching and learning across significant differences, and personal engagement in learning. In addition, these study abroad opportunities help fulfill the Six Expectations for all Evergreen graduates.

Based on these fundamental principals, the institution’s Strategic Plan (2007) specifically states, “Seniors attribute growth in their ability to address real-world problems to their experiences at Evergreen. Increasingly, these real-world issues involve a global context. Evergreen is committed to internationalizing its curriculum and will review and strengthen its support for international studies and study abroad opportunities for students.”

Academic Programs Most students study abroad with academic programs that have a foreign travel component. These programs have an international focus and demonstrate Evergreen’s integrated approach to global learning. On average 10 academic programs travel abroad each year but this number varies depending on their cost. The process used to select and fund these programs are described in the attached document, Study Abroad Procedures. A list of programs that have traveled abroad over the past five years is also attached. The cost of these programs, for both the College and the students, is significant; approximately 20% of the budget for academic programs is allocated to these study abroad programs in order to cover the faculty travel expenses. Students must also pay a fee that covers their travel expenses. This fee varies depending on the location and duration, but the average fee is $3,000. Two examples of academic programs with travel abroad components are, Memory of Fire: Spain and Latin America and Tropical Rainforests.

Memory of Fire: Spain and Latin America offers students the opportunity for interdisciplinary study in Spanish language, history and literature of Spain and Latin America. The program culminates in independent research or internships abroad in Santó Tomás, Nicaragua, or Southern Spain, as well as internships with local Latino organizations for students who elect to stay on campus. In one program we find an interconnectedness of theoretical and practical approaches to learning in a global context. The result of such study produces students who not only speak Spanish, but understand the historical, political, and cultural implications of various real-world problems for Hispanic countries and people. They do this not just by theoretical study but by engaging in practical experiences with local and global communities.

Tropical Rainforests, is offered every other year, takes students to Costa Rica for the final three weeks of the winter quarter. The program focuses on field ecology, the physical environment, statistical analysis of field data, conservation biology as well as Latin American culture. While in Costa Rica, students visit several major field sites, including coastal habitats, tropical dry forests, cloud forests and lowland rainforests. Students have the option of staying in Costa Rica during spring quarter to do ecological research on an Independent Learning Contract.

Individual Learning Contracts and Internships Typically reserved for junior- and senior-level students, these are student-generated projects where the student works directly with a faculty sponsor to complete advanced academic work. Each year 100 to 200 students study abroad on a contract. A full third of all students, or approximately 1,200 students, will complete an internship, locally or globally during their Evergreen career.

EXAMPLES and PROCESS

Consortium Agreements and Exchanges As a small, liberal arts college, we recognize that our range of institution-sponsored study abroad programs will not meet every student’s needs. We currently offer 14 consortium programs with destinations worldwide. Approximately 30 students participate in consortiums each year. PROCESS

Our two year-long Japanese exchange programs are with the University of Hyogo and University of Miyazaki. PROCESS

LAURA: ADD NSSE COMPARATIVE DATA FOR SENIORS and ALUMNI % STUDYING ABROAD BY PRIMARY PLANNING UNIT

Extended Education

Extended Education is one of the College’s responses to declining State support for higher education. In 2003 a committee was charged with examining the feasibility of Extended Education as an additional source of revenue for Evergreen. The committee recommended moving ahead with Extended Education after an additional planning year (2003-04). After considerable discussion Extended Education was approved as a pilot project by a vote of the faculty on November 17, 2004. The faculty approved a $600,000.00 investment for this pilot stipulating that a review for quality of programs and financial viability would occur in years three and five of the program. (Exhibit 1 – Minutes of Faculty Meeting – November 17, 2004)

Extended Education officially began at The Evergreen State College on July 1, 2005 with the appointment of a Dean for Extended Education and Summer School. The mission of Extended Education is to excel in serving the professional development and life long learning needs of our community. This mission and Extended Education’s programs reflect the mission of the College in its offerings and community served. Extended Education’s goals and activities align with the College’s strategic plan and contribute to the achievement of the goals outlined therein.

Extended Education has completed its first two years as a pilot program. During this time the scope and number of course offerings and training have increased. Student and participant evaluation of courses, workshops and training indicate a consistently high degree of quality in EE’s offerings. Enrollment in EE courses went from 594 in 205-06 to1191 in 2006-07. As it begins its third year, Extended Education holds solid promise for financial viability, (Exhibit 2 – Annual Reports 2005-06 and 2006-07)

Extended Education’s course offerings and programs are compatible with the College’s mission in providing opportunities for students to excel in meeting their intellectual, creative, professional and/or community service goals. Extended Education serves students at Evergreen as well as members of the larger community in Thurston, Mason, Lewis, and Pierce counties. (Exhibit 3 – copy of catalogues winter -06 through spring 07)

Extended Education’s offerings are administered under established institutional procedures in that Extended Education is managed by an Academic Dean selected by the usual institutional procedures for the appointment of deans who rotate to academic administration from the faculty. The responsibility for the administration of Extended Education is clearly defined and its administration is an integral component of the institution’s organization as evidenced by the appointment of a Dean for Extended Education who reports directly to the Provost and through him to the President and Board of Trustees. (See organization chart).

Extended Education is guided in program development by the Provost, the Deans’ Group and the Extended Education Advisory Committee. Members on the Advisory Committee represent the faculty, the academic division and all other major divisions at The Evergreen State College. (Exhibit 4 – current membership on EE AC). Full-time faculty as well as part-time faculty are represented on the Extended Education Advisory Committee and as such are involved in the planning and evaluation of Extended Education offerings. Given that Extended Education is a pilot program voted in by the faculty at The Evergreen State College, provisions were made for periodic evaluation over a period of three and five years. Extended Education is scheduled for its first review in late spring 2008.

Extended Education offerings focus on three areas:

1. Courses offered for academic credit that are also open on a limited basis to community participants not seeking academic credit (blended courses) 2. Workshops and contracted on line courses not offered for academic credit 3. Custom training for professional skill development.

Academic Credit Courses

The granting of credit for Extended Education courses is based on institutional policy. Ten contact hours are required for each academic credit. Students are expected to meet the learning objectives and course requirements in order to earn academic credit. Students’ work is evaluated by the faculty and a narrative evaluation specifying number of credits awarded is submitted to the registrar upon completion of the course. Extended Education courses offered for academic credit are approved by the Dean of Extended Education in consultation with the EE Advisory Committee and the curriculum Deans. Faculty teaching academic credit bearing courses through Extended Education are reviewed and evaluated according to standard institutional procedures for adjunct faculty.

Academic credit bearing courses offered through Extended Education are subject to the same tuition, fees, registration procedures and refund policies established for the College as a whole. Extended Education does not offer academic credit bearing courses through electronically-mediated or other delivery systems.

The Evergreen State College is solely responsible for the academic and fiscal elements of all programs offered through Extended Education. Extended Education does not contract or partner with non-accredited organizations to offer courses for academic credit.

Issues

• Obtain faculty approval of a policy permitting continuing faculty to teach courses and/or workshops through Extended Education. • Examine current enrollment patterns in the Olympia day and Evening Weekend curriculum to determine potential for expansion of Extended Education’s revenue base by meeting additional needs of adult and part-time learners. • Expand custom training to meet the needs of local businesses, non profit organizations and government agencies. • Obtain dedicated administrative and classroom space. • Establish a market based compensation system for faculty and instructors in Extended Education.

Summer School

Evergreen has had a “self-supporting” summer school since 1981. Evergreen’s Summer School is critical to augmenting declining funding from the State and also provides opportunities for faculty to augment their income during the summer. Over the past ten years an average of 1577 students per year have enrolled in summer school. Enrollment has declined in the last two years but revenue’s have remained steady due to tuition increases and reductions in expenditures.

One thousand four hundred and twenty-four students enrolled in Summer School 2007. Of these students 86.5% were continuing degree seeking Evergreen students, 4.6% were new Summer School students who continued to Fall 2007 and 8.5% were students new to Evergreen who did not continue to Fall 2007. Total revenue for Summer School 2007 was $2,311,757.

Almost all summer offerings are free standing courses ranging from two to eight credits per session. Most of the courses are taught by a single faculty member and are more reflective of traditional disciplinary studies than are the interdisciplinary, team taught programs offered during the regular academic year.

The process for developing the Summer School Curriculum has remained fairly consistent over the past ten years. The first step is to analyze enrollment data from the previous summer and to review the academic calendar for the forthcoming year to help determine market demand and prerequisite requirements. This information is sent to the faculty along with a letter asking them to submit course proposals for Summer School. Proposals submitted are reviewed by the planning unit coordinators, curriculum deans, and graduate program directors who advise the Summer School dean regarding curricular needs.

In 2006 the College initiated a market study to assess interest in Extended Education and to identify new markets for Summer School. This study was useful in informing the summer curriculum and course scheduling for 2007 and together with previous summer school enrollment data provided a basis for the Summer School Dean to solicit proposals to meet market demand.

During 2006 considerable effort went into developing a new format for our summer school course listings for 2007. The course listing catalogue mirrored that of Extended Education. The new format made it easier to locate course descriptions by disciplinary area and the catalogue was more attractive and easier to navigate than the course listing used in prior years.

Issues:

• Survey students in the spring to determine their needs and interests in courses for summer school. • Create flexibility in the curriculum development process to permit addressing needs/interests identified by student survey. • Analyze regular academic year enrollment patterns to determine predictive value for summer enrollment. • Utilize analysis to “size” and “shape” the curriculum to market demand.

Standard 2.H - Non-Credit Programs and Courses

Extended Education non-credit programs and courses are subject to and administered under relevant institutional policies, regulations and procedures. Faculty is involved in planning and evaluating non-credit programs through their representation on the Extended Education Advisory Committee. The faculty as a whole will also be involved in a third and fifth year review of the financial viability and quality of Extended Education programs.

Extended Education maintains the following records for all non-credit courses:

1. Course/workshop enrollment records that include name, address, Social Security or Evergreen ID number and telephone and e-mail contact information. 2. Course descriptions, fees and faculty resumes. 3. Fee collection and deposit Records. 4. Workshop instructors’ files containing contact information, current resume, course/workshop proposals, and participant evaluations of courses offered by instructor. 5. Detailed and summary evaluations of all custom training.

Extended Education contracts with Education To Go (a division of Thompson Learning, Inc.) for all of its on-line non-academic bearing courses. Continuing Education Units (CEU’s) are currently offered in partnership with St. Peter Hospital for CME and CNE units and with the National Association of Social Workers, Washington Chapter for CEU’s. These limited offerings meet all administrative requirements and provide ten hours of instruction per CEU awarded. (Exhibit 5 copy of Contract with Thompson Learning)

Custom Training

Extended Education currently provides custom training for professional skill development in management and in human resources. It contracts with the Washington State Department of Personnel to provide training in these areas for state employees. (Exhibit 6 copy of Contracts with DOP)

Issues

• Obtain faculty approval of a policy permitting continuing faculty to teach courses and/or workshops through Extended Education. • Expand custom training to meet the needs of local businesses, non profit organizations and government agencies. • Develop an on-line registration system for not for academic credit offerings. • Obtain dedicated administrative and classroom space. • Establish a market based compensation system for faculty and instructors in Extended Education.

Contradictions, Issues, and Future Directions

Evergreen exists within a web of tensions that structure the opportunities, limit the possibilities, and create the challenges the College faces. Public accountability / educational autonomy, disciplinary study / interdisciplinary inquiry, liberal arts / professional training, internal language and practices / external understanding and expectations, community / autonomy, these tensions and more underlie Evergreen’s work. These tensions arise from the intersection of the college and the public world within which it exists, from the internal dynamics of its development and growth, and from the transformation of its personnel and culture as the college ages. Such tensions are the stuff of the college’s life. Many if not all of the tensions experienced have been with the college, in one form or another, for its entire history. They are not likely to go away. Without them the dynamism and vitality of the institution would not exist. The issue for institution is not to eliminate these tensions, but to reflect on how they are currently manifested. To ask if these manifestations have become destructive to the college's mission and to ask how the college should mange these tensions in the present environment. Thinking of these tensions as a web is useful in as much as many of the elements interact not simply between two broadly held values, e.g., community and autonomy, but carry implications for such issues as the conception of interdisciplinary work, the relations of staff and faculty, or the size of our programs. Changes in one aspect of the college ramify throughout the institution. This self study helped the college take a look at those changes, ask about the current state of the tensions, and to think about how to adapt and respond to the present circumstances.

Public Education: The Production of Degrees or the Education of Persons

The issues that Evergreen surrounded Evergreen's founding have not disappeared. Today as then world" study and engagement. Yet this work is not systematized or organized into the complex questions of diversity, war, class, gender, ecological sustainability, the privatization of knowledge, globalization, race and more raise questions about the role and place of public education in the lives of citizens. Not surprisingly these issues continue to shape the pressures on Evergreen and the questions we engage in the classroom.

At the heart of these tensions is Evergreen’s role as a public liberal arts college. Two dimensions of publicness stand out: publicness as civil engagement and participation in the determination of collective life on the one hand, and publicness as accountability on the other. Clearly both have real claims and substantive demands. As the preceding discussion of goals, collaboration, difference, reflection, engaged participation, the linking of theory and practice and academic programs as communities embedded in a world of experience has made clear the creation of persons with a active, engaged, general intelligence and participation in collective life has been at the center of the Evergreen experience. The role of graduates in state, and local governments and politics, in social, political, and artistic movements, and work for social justice, environmental integrity, and public education demonstrates the ways in which Evergreen has enhanced citizenship and public life.

Publicness as accountability implies that the college should be good stewards of the resources and privileges granted to it. At the most basic level of course this is simply honesty and fiscal responsibility. In a more complex sense accountability requires us to use the resources granted to the institution as a trust for the citizen. Our job is to do as well as we can with the resources to devise and deliver an education that prepares students to participate in, critique, imagine and create a more free, democratic, sustainable and prosperous society. The liberal arts tradition that Evergreen grew out of, the Experimental College of Alexander Meikeljohn at the University of Wisconsin, had at its core the idea of educating a general capacity or intelligence, a sense of personal power and responsibility, and a connection to the common good. Miekeljohn somewhat impoliticly opposed the integrated liberal arts education he provided with professional education for the trades of the professions and academic scholarship. So when the state asks the college to provide persons trained to exercise particular talents within a state economy accountability starts to come into tension with the educational choices, values and the cherished autonomy of the college.

Yet Evergreen, like every other public college or university in the country, is caught up in a long series of arguments about the relationship of education to economic productivity, about the efficiency of instruction, about the value of education in fundamentally economic terms. This is nothing new, since at least 1862 with the original founding of land grant colleges, education has been seen as an engine of economic growth worthy of public investment. What is new is the intensity, the pressure to justify, measure, and define the value of education in such terms coupled with more detailed legislative prescription for higher education over the past 10 years This economic view of education as an investment with measurable and distinctly specifiable, predictable outcomes is different from Evergreen’s emphasis on an education that produces qualities of mind, capacities for engagement, and independence of judgment. The college faces constant pressure to explain itself in a language that is quite foreign to its internal dialogue. Major efforts such as the work of the Masters in Teaching Program to account for its extraordinarily successful program during an accreditation visit in the fall of 2007 illustrates both the effort and rewards of making this translation between external metrics and internal values and practices. The tension between external and internal ways of understanding the college's function is non-trivial. It is simultaneously a matter of translation and a matter of the substantive direction of the college. This tension confronts the college as it devises its student recruitment plans, identifies faculty-hiring priorities, and plans for growth of the college. For example when the college attempts to communicate with potential students it must both convey what is substantively different about the college, but also needs to assure potential students that the possibility to do disciplinary work, to produce a marketable degree, or to get a job is also a product of a Evergreen education. While this is seen as primarily an act of translating from Evergreen parlance to more conventional language, it has the effect of making the issue of disciplines, of pathways, and career preparation important driver in the choices of what is taught and indeed of the faculty the college advertises for and hires.

It is the case that the college is overwhelmingly dependent on state funding. It is the case that the citizens of the state do have a right to know what sort of work we do here and what sort of graduates the college helps create. And it is the case that the college, like students, their parents, and employers, wants its graduates to take a role in the economy and communities. The role the college would like its students to play emerges from their inquiries into the world. Much of the liberal arts work of the undergraduate curriculum is focused on the intersection of theory and application. Programs do include a great deal of the subject matter of a repeatable, predictable, disciplinary professional curriculum, but they do this in the context of asking how this inquiry relates broadly to human experience and values, not simply to technical capacities. Evergreen’s attempts to identify emergent tendencies, to anticipate public issues, and to prepare people with self confidence and holistic vision to help identify and define public issues through public interdisciplinary inquiry based study sometimes leads the college to speak a quite different language and see quite different issues than those identified by professionalized disciplines and training. The freedom to shift focus, to innovate, to create new programs around new issues and drop older issues is part of a real tension between professional programs and many parts of the undergraduate curriculum at the college. Despite the fact that the college awards only a BA and a BS as undergraduate degrees, many Evergreen students find themselves working effectively in "high demand" career paths after graduation.

Indeed a fundamental tension at the college is the need for enrollment to meet state mandated levels. This pressure has lead to much useful innovation, It has moved the college toward more part-time and course work and toward professional programs. Graduate programs have helped bolster student numbers and have been very clearly helpful in expanding service to state agencies and school districts in the state. Similarly the expansion of Evening and Weekend studies has been very helpful in providing prerequisites, opportunities for broadening student’s experience, and is support of language study. But the proliferation of programs, courses and contracts has significantly modified the college a way from full time study and full time faculty membership.

The pressure of State defined goals for undergraduate education pushes the college toward patterns of growth that reflects public need as framed in state and national policy. The controversy over college growth hires in 2005-6 reflects among other things a continuing conflict between felt need to support state mandates and a set of proposals that emerged from faculty priorities. (Report of the Enrollment Growth DTF 2006) Or as in the 2006-7 cycle we attempted to develop hires in such a way as to define them as meeting state funding priorities.

Community and Autonomy

Community and autonomy pose a fundamental tension at the college that operates at the level of student experience, of faculty teaching experience, of educational program design, and of governance and control of the institution. The tension is a necessary one and will only disappear when the college has ceased to be relevant. The autonomy that has been granted students to chart their own educational course through the offerings of Evergreen and to create their own educational options through contracts and internships creates one of the fundamental educational experiences and fundamental lessons of the college. Students are in some large measure responsible for their choices and the learning those choices entail. At the same time the education we offer turns in its most powerful form on the experience of a community of learners (faculty included) who collaboratively explore an issue, discipline, or question over time. Student experience in a short-term highly mediated world is often at odds with the slower processes of community, academic reading, thinking and writing. This potential contradiction between the student’s individual desires and the direction of the program stand in tension. Students are always tempted to ask: Is this what I really want? If it is so hard, why must I persist? If I don’t like a subject, why should I take it? Acting on these questions, leaving a program, dropping out part way through a program has little overt consequence, for the student in the short run. But it does have consequence for the program, the community of inquiry who lose the participation of the community member. In the longer run switching allows the student to avoid the learning that comes when one persists through the hard work and confusion. Constant avoidance of difficult work can lead to a shallow widely scattered education. On the other hand, staying when there is no connection to the community or issues does not do any good for either the student or the community. Resolving this tension for the individual student demands, and can help create, a capacity for mature judgment about what he or she really wants and will work for. helping students develop a sense of their work and the persistence to overcome the what seems to be a chronic short attention span is the basic work of faculty advising. Finding a way to encourage persistence, to fight the metaphor of student as consumer and to reinforce the metaphor of student as builder/maker/creator is crucial for the college.

At the institutional level as faculty attempt to accommodate perceived student demand by increasing the number and decreasing the size and duration of choices offered to students, the nature of student commitments to programs change and the balance between community and autonomy shifts. The expectations of what students can learn in a program, the pace of the learning, the possibilities for reflection, and the kinds of assignments, advice, and support faculty can give to students within and beyond the duration of the program change.

At the social level, tensions within programs, the necessary experience of being public with one’s learning and growth, which is exciting for some students poses real challenges for many. Reading a paper out loud to a group of student respondents, speaking and questioning in seminar, or working on a collaborative project and presenting results to the class all are necessary experiences of presenting ones self as a public learner. The re-acculturation that Evergreen requires with its demand to take responsibility for your own work and at the same time to share, collaborate, and become colleagues with classmates makes for a new and often difficult balance for students.

Autonomy and community also pose a major tension for faculty members individually and for groups of faculty as they undertake their primary governance work at the college, the creation a coherent curriculum and experience for students. Individually faculty members at Evergreen experience a constant tension between the demands of the immediate work of teaching and learning and the processes of planning for the future work and participating in a demanding set of expectations for governance of the institution. Planning future work can easily involve faculty working to collaboratively plan work for the next quarter, work for the next academic year, work for the spring quarter of the next academic year, work and catalog copy for programs two years hence. The planning two years hence involves not merely deciding what one wants to teach, but locating a faculty team, agreeing on a theme, and coordinating with the planning unit the faculty member is a part of or potentially multiple areas when the design is for an inter-area program. Constant program planning puts a faculty member into wide array of obligations to different collectivities and elements of community: present colleagues, future colleagues, planning units and eventually to the college and its curriculum as a whole.

Beyond teaching faculty have artistic and scholarly work of their own that often draws them away from collaboration and stands in significant tension with the obligations and needs of the community. Yet, in the longer run faculty often need just such intense personal work: an opportunity to look deeply into issues and work extensively on their own endeavors is often necessary in order for faculty members to function as effective teachers and learners with their students.

At the level of defining and developing a more or less regularly structured curriculum for students, faculty autonomy is constantly at odds with the perceived need for system and regularity. Such demands vary widely from planning unit to planning unit, yet even in the most dispersed, CTL, the unit needs to be able to specify repeating work in languages, participation in Core and inter-area programs and be sure that there is interesting advanced work available to students. In SI such patterns of repeating programs are much more clearly specified and organized and faculty are expected, but cannot be required to participate in the teaching rotation. The autonomy of the faculty is the underlying condition that supports both the development of inter-area and core teaching. It supports faculty in their choice to risk teaching in new areas and helps faculty members take risks as learners. At the same time it offers faculty a chance to take leave to support their own work. Our individual autonomy underlies the ability of the college to imagine itself in a new and different configuration with different emphases.

The tension that exists about the individual faculty member’s participation in the primary governance work in teaching and learning is exacerbated when we look to the major secondary work of faculty in college wide governance. Active participation by the faculty in governance is a expected at Evergreen. The relatively flat organization structure, the ethos of participation in Evergreen as a community, the sense of empowerment that the faculty as a whole often feels all support a felt sense of obligation for many faculty to participate deeply and widely in the development of policies, the hiring and review of personnel, and the determination of the college’s academic agenda. The culture of evaluation and the creative restlessness that external reviewers note drives a constant sense of a need for faculty to take part. Yet the immediate pay off of such work is minimal and is often rewarded with further assignments, as one is perceived to be effective at such endeavors. Furthermore, there is little penalty for not participating. As the institution grows the capacity for faculty to know each other, to make policy that effectively accounts for the whole college and to know the whole array of issues, becomes more and more difficult. Scale is a crucial issue in all of this, as policies come to replace face to face consultation, and the sheer numbers of people potentially involved in decisions grows. Most of the governance institutions have been in place for 15 years or more while the institution has grown and will continue to grow both in size and complexity. Growth in scale makes the community based collaborative decision making of the Faculty Meeting as a whole much more difficult, especially as obligations of faculty to assist the college in other ways expand.

Finally, the college is structured in such a way that participation in a program with one or two colleagues is intense and extraordinarily engaging while one is teaching. But between the level of the program and the level of the college faculty as a whole there is very little structure. Planning Units can serve as meaningful intermediate structures especially in SI and ES, but their function as a source of social and collaborative work is much weaker in CTL, SPBC, and EA. This reality makes the absolutely necessary function of socialization of a new generation of faculty to the college difficult and imposes significant burden on the Academic dean in charge of faculty development.

Future Directions

As the discussion in section one of the report makes clear the college is in an important way in a period of transition. Most of the original faculty members have retired; all who remain are expected to retire within the next few years. All of the original administrators at the institution have gone and nearly all of their successors have gone. The college has moved from being an experiment in full-time interdisciplinary studies to being an innovative college within the mainstream of American higher education offering full time, part time, and graduate work in several locations. Yet as we have shown the founding ideals, many of the fundamental understandings of the college remain deeply embedded in the descriptions of the college, the working of its programs, and the aspirations of its administrators, faculty, and students. The issues the college faces today arise from this history of growth and change.

In the fall of 2005 The Agenda Committee and the Provost developed a joint charge to the faculty to form a committee of the whole to undertake an investigation “Long-Range Future of Evergreen’s Curriculum.” [Long-Range Future Charge December 13,2005) The impetus for this grew out of the projected growth of the college to 5000 FTE, the controversy surrounding the process for developing growth hires, and the recognition that no-major overall review of the curriculum had taken place since the Long Range Curriculum Report had been adopted in 1995. Unlike the previous two synoptic reports that had been carried out by a large committees, the 2005 process utilized Deans/Governance Groups (Groups that contained faculty from all planning units and parts of the curriculum) to undertake a series of conversations to articulate concerns about current structures, suggest new alternatives, and to suggest ideas for potential growth. This somewhat chaotic bottom up structure was designed to allow faculty at all levels of experience and from all parts of the college to contribute to developing a faculty agenda. Faculty participated strongly in a series of Faculty meetings that surfaced dozens of concerns from the trivial to the most momentous, speculative ideas of the college’s future, multiple ways to reorganize/reconfigure the processes and faculty constituencies that undertook planning. The central issues that emerged dealt with the role of planning units, reinvigorating interdisciplinary work in a public liberal arts college, and addressing issues workload and curricular structure. [Summary of Winter Quarter Deans/Governance Group Discussions updated 4/20/06]

After considerable effort by the Agenda committee to group these responses, work on some proposals over the summer, and conversation between the Agenda Committee and the Provost the Curricular Visions DTF was jointly charged. [Governance Group DTF: Curricular Visions update 11/9/06] It was asked to examine the whole range of proposals in the light of Evergreen’s mission statement as it was evolving and the practices that support such a mission. This group undertook a complex review of proposals and the processes of moving forward on these issues by narrowing the focus to some specific proposals and attempting to find ways to engage students, faculty and staff across the institution. In May of 2007 the DTF produced an interim report that narrowed the scope of the work, identified critical proposals, and developed next steps. [Governance Group Interim Report May 18,07] The report identified considerable consensus on the importance of developing Thematic Planning Groups, Areas of Study, and the development of a Cohort of Faculty for First-Year programs. Work on those areas proceeded in summer 2007 and into the school year 2007-08. The summer work groups presented a valuable report on fields of study, thematic planning. A strong discussion of these initiatives was a major topic of the fall retreat. Work on all three of these areas has been low key, but important, and promises to continue in the summer of 2008. [Recommendations Fields of Study/Thematic Planning Design Group September 2007]

Other issues identified in the Interim Report dealing with upper and lower division structure, a planning week, and the possibility of a flexible academic year, or a semester system were seen as potentially valuable, but had much less consensus and potential difficulties in implementation. The DTF wrote the following as the conclusion to their work in the 2006-07 school year.

To sum up the DTF’s conclusions: The faculty has made a promising start in the last two years at re-envisioning the curriculum. The question at the root of this effort is: What does it mean for Evergreen to be a public interdisciplinary liberal arts college? The Thematic Planning Groups, Fields of Study, and First-Year Cohort initiatives are significant experiments in envisioning that deserve the faculty’s strong support. This process of re-examining how to best fulfill our responsibilities as a public interdisciplinary liberal arts college, however, is far from finished. Fundamental issues about how students can gain a whole liberal arts education and how faculty can develop a shared academic life remain. The faculty must continue to work on these questions.

Future issues for the faculty must be seen against this backdrop. Clearly major synoptic changes at the college are unlikely despite the widespread concerns about the place of planning units and issues transparency and coherence of offerings. It is also clear from the experience of attempting to work with such complex questions that issues of workload and decision-making are significant parts of any move to a new structure. From the work on the Self Study which in important ways complements the work of the DTF and the groups that have carried on these efforts, four issues emerge, the engagement and inclusion of new faculty, strengthening the interdisciplinary curriculum, Advising and the structure of the curriculum, and first year work.

New Faculty for Old

Over 70 faculty with extensive teaching experience in coordinated studies have resigned or retired from the faculty within the past 10 years. We have brought in nearly 100 new faculty in the past 10 years. Thus the college has simultaneously lost a great deal of skill and expertise in the organization and teaching of complex interdisciplinary programs and gained new energy and enthusiasm for teaching such programs. The first generation of teachers who were broadly dedicated to the creating the college de novo and were broadly committed to the idea that taking a risk, being a co-learner with their students was critical. Many of the retired faculty recognized their expertise as partial, or significantly limited, and taught in order to learn and reshape their own and their students’ knowledge, not primarily to impart known understandings. New faculty coming to Evergreen bring real excitement and desire for change, but the reality is that they come to an institution that is established and in some ways a bit stuck in the past. Finding ways impart to new faculty the best and most exciting practices of the past while at the same time allowing the flexibility and and opportunity for new faculty to form their own plans commitments and structures is a central challenge for the college. This process must allow new faculty to explore the curriculum, meet other faculty members, to feel free to take risks in their teaching. Evergreen now brings people here because we know we want their expertise in the curriculum, but the college needs to encourage new faculty members to define and help direct the the expression of that expertise in programs and advanced work. Both new faculty and old share a need to learn from each other and to use this time to explore, take risks , and define the college as it goes forward. Creating a broad sense of possibility for new faculty in a world constructed in large measure by planning units is a challenge. More generally finding ways to provide support for exciting work within planning units and between them is crucial part of continuing the opportunity for students and faculty to experience transformative, reflexive learning. Finding time and locations for this work is a continuing challenge.

Reviving the Interdisciplinary Curriculum

The fundamental issue of developing and reinvigorating the interdisciplinary curriculum of the college has emerged out of the work of the faculty in the Curricular Visions process of governance groups and DTF begun in the 2005-06 school year. This work reflects the continuing and necessary tension between interdisciplinary and disciplinary work at the college. It raises questions about the central role of the Planning Units as the primary engines of curriculum and hiring and reflects uneasiness with broader issues of professionalizing and formalizing of the curriculum. While this is clearly one of the areas where there will always be tension, one major issue that appears to need attention is finding a structural mechanism to strengthen inter-divisional work seems important. The current movement in the Curricular visions process of creating thematic groups and fields of study pose important variations to the current organization of planning units. Indeed thinking about different structures that might support interdisciplinary and inter-area work raises once again the opportunity for a discussion of the meaning and usefulness of the concept of interdisciplinarity for the college. Understanding that interdisciplinarity as it has operated at Evergreen is not simply an instrumental technique to more fully impart disciplinary knowledge, but is based on inquiry that develops, challenges and reforms our understandings of self and critical issues is crucial.

Advising, Courses, and Curricular Options

The third issue closely related to the reinvigoration of interdisciplinarity has to do with the question of full time study, the role of shorter and smaller pieces in the curriculum that at the very least raise questions about the assumptions we make about faculty student connection.The change in policy that urged two quarter programs followed by a one quarter program in the Long Range Curriculum DTF Model from 1995 which went into place with the 1997-98 school year and was reinforced by the General Education DTF conversation has expanded the number of pieces taught. The growth of course work within Evening and Weekend studies to the point where now there are more enrollments (but nowhere near the fte) in evening weekend studies than in regular day time program registration. The policy decision to that allowed registration to 20 quarter hours has made the growth in course enrollments (not half-time time program enrollments) the largest location for growth on the Olympia Campus. (2006-07 Curriculum Overview-# of Enrollments) The increase in the number of single faculty, single quarter programs, the growing number of individual pieces that students register for all suggest a change from the original model of multi-faculty year long coordinated studies. The tension between the sustained inquiry in community that is the product of spending considerable time developing the skills to pursue a complex inquiry in a full-time year-long coordinated study and the flexibility ,intensive focus, and distributive depth offered by shorter and smaller pieces of study that has existed from the earliest years of the college has important implications for our assumptions about advising, coherence, breadth and depth in student experience. The proliferation of pieces, the increasing array of options, especially course options, raises important questions about the role of advising by both faculty members and Student and Academic Support Services. Developing breadth is in some ways simpler in such a curriculum as less than full time work is required to find opportunities for mathematic, languages, or arts. But finding a coherent path though this work is an even greater challenge than when the options were fewer. Helping students recognize the power and distinctive worth of year long studies as well as the virtues of shorter more directly focused work is a tension that has to be worked out at both the level of the individual student and the curriculum as a whole. Not only are questions raised about advising, but there are also significant questions raised about whether the current distribution of work especially the proliferation of course work and the length and size of programs provides the optimal opportunity for a distinctively inquiry based educational experience.

First Year Work

The nature and function of first year work is also a major issue of the college. In the beginning of the review period 1997-98 71% of all first year seats were in Core programs by 1998-99 that figure was 84% from that point forward the proportion of Core seats has fallen to the point were on 40% of first year seats are in core 47% are in all level and 14% are in Lower Division work in 2006-07. This shifting structure of first year offerings, coupled with the concerns raised in the First Year Experience DTF raises questions about how we can support first years, continue work on General Education, and work on retention.

Supporting Documentation

See Supporting Documentation for Standard Two