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                "title": "Responses to 2003 Regular Interim Report Recommendations",
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                        "*": "====Recommendation 1:====\n''The college must continue to address general education and most particularly the final assessment of student competencies in writing, critical thinking, and quantitative reasoning. A sound basis is now in place upon which a more uniform assessment system can be built. Some gains can come from minor additions to the student evaluations and the end of program evaluation especially for those programs of independent studies that constitute a culminating experience for a graduate in the mind of the faculty evaluator. Independent measures such as the GRE may be helpful data to validate the information coming from excellent surveys of students and their employers.''\n\n'''Response:'''\n\nProviding a broad general education has always been a crucial underlying part of the college\u2019s emphasis on interdisciplinary work, its commitment to inquiry, and its emphasis on public life. Thus, the college has taken the issue of general education very seriously in the years since the last full-scale report, and in particular, since the last interim report in 2003. The reviewers expressed concern that the lack of evidence showing students had acquired the \u201ccompetencies appropriate to general education, especially, but not exclusively in mathematics\u201d might be undermining Evergreen's liberal arts aspirations. This concern has prompted a wide range of responses ranging from better data gathering, faculty development, and advising to more attention to mathematics in our teaching.\n\nIn the conclusion of the 2003 report, the reviewer commended Evergreen's administration and faculty for \u201cthe highly intelligent approach they have taken to this difficult challenge and for crafting a response that is in consonance with the nature of the institution.\u201d He noted \u201c\u2026 the tension between being able to assure uniformly the achievement by all students of general education goals particularly in writing, critical thinking and quantitative reasoning even as all students are being required to take responsibility for their own education is a healthy tension which should be a continuing hallmark of the institution and its evaluations. It is at the heart of defining the institution and contributes to its health and strength.\u201d This section provides an update on this continuing tension.\n\nThe issue of general education typically understood as distribution requirements is a particularly vexing one at Evergreen, where a central tenet of the college is student autonomy. The college\u2019s complex response to the issues raised by the question of general education and the history and rationale for the critical central role of student autonomy in choosing and developing their educational program was developed in detail in John McCann\u2019s report on General Education at Evergreen (see [[Media: Gen.Ed.pdf|\"General Education at Evergreen: The Historical Context, Current Experiments and Recommendations for Implementation\"]], Provost's Office, January 2002). The report details the formation of a General Education DTF, the faculty\u2019s subsequent rejection of requirements as a vehicle for meeting general education goals, and the establishment of the Six Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate as a broad statement of the outcomes to which the college aspires for its students. In addition, in line with the recommendation of the Commission's interim report (E. Ettlich, The Evergreen State College October 30-31, 2003), considerable effort and energy has been put into enhancing modes of assessment of both student work and the delivery of mathematics and all other disciplines at the college (see [[Media: NWCCU_Evaluation_Report_2003.pdf|NWCCU Interim Report 2003]]).\n\nAfter the General Education DTF completed its work, a two-year Assessment Study Group consisting of faculty, staff, and student representatives collaboratively developed a plan to assess the implementation of the new initiatives. The first End-of-program Review instrument (EPR) was launched in 2001-02 to collect information directly from program faculty about the presence and nature of general education divisions (Art, Math/Science, Humanities, and Social Science) and a set of student outcome goals in their interdisciplinary programs. The EPR has been administered annually and has proven to be a rich source of evidence about where opportunities for general education divisional content exist across various types of programs. In response to the 1998 accreditation review, the NWCCU\u2019s Final Report stated, \u201cIn the current catalogue, eight of the ten Core programs being offered have no mathematical component, and in non-Core programs only about 20% of the programs require Mathematics or offer Math credit.\u201d The EPR now provides a more complete picture of what divisional areas are offered in programs because it asks faculty to speak specifically to these areas, unlike catalog descriptions and suggested credit equivalencies, which serve other purposes for different audiences. In 1998, based on catalog copy, the Commission identified 20% of Evergreen programs that included quantitative reasoning or math; EPR results for 2006-07 reveal that 58% of programs include work in this area (see [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Math_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Math Overview]])\n\nThe provision of general education in the college\u2019s curriculum varies significantly by subject area, with some areas (notably writing and critical thinking) reported nearly universally by faculty as present in the curriculum (see [[Media: EPR_2001-2005_-_Writing.pdf|EPR 2001-2005 - Writing]]; [[Media: EPR_2001-2005_-_Critical_Thinking.pdf|EPR 2001-2005 - Critical Thinking]]; [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Writing_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Writing Overview]]; [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Critical_Thinking_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Critical Thinking Overview]]). Other areas, such as humanities and social sciences, are reported as major or minor emphases in 75% to 80% of all programs reporting (see [[Media: EPR_2001-2005_-_Humanities.pdf|EPR 2001-2005 - Humanities]]; [[Media: EPR_2001-2005_-_Social_Sciences.pdf|EPR 2001-2005 - Social Sciences]]; [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Humanities_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Humanities Overview]]; [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Social_Sciences_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Social Sciences Overview]]). Clearly, not all of these reports of an emphasis or a skill are equivalent, and the analyses of these reports by a faculty study team and the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment point to the extraordinary array of ways in which these skills and capacities have been integrated into programs of all stripes (see [[Media: Quantitative_Reasoning_Across_the_Curriculum.pdf|Quantitative Reasoning Across the Curriculum]]). Further, exactly what is meant by critical thinking or even writing is not consistent from one faculty team to the next, yet it seems clear that for a student to escape exposure to important content in these areas of the curriculum over a two- to four-year-period would require very deliberate avoidance on the student\u2019s part.\n\nOther areas of the curriculum, notably mathematics, are less consistently present in the curriculum. Yet campus-wide, between 55% and 70% of all programs reported some emphasis on math/science and 59% to 74% of all programs reported some emphasis on quantitative reasoning (QR). Of those programs that did report some QR, about half reported a major emphasis on these skills. Similarly, approximately 65% of programs that identified math/science as a program element reported a major emphasis (see [[Media: EPR_2001-2005_-_Science_and_Math_-_Distribution.pdf|EPR 2001-2005 Science and Math Distribution]]).\n\nIn somewhat differently collected data from the faculty-revised EPR assessment instrument for the 2006-07 school year, 58% of all programs reported some math and 53% of all programs reported some science (see [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Math_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Math Overview]], [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Natural_and_Physical_Sciences_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Natural and Physical Sciences Overview]]). When programs report only a minor emphasis on math, QR, or science, this exposure can still serve to help students understand the relevance of quantitative modes of inquiry in various disciplines; even a minor emphasis provides the student with one more perspective to the problem they are studying. Programs with any emphasis level are likely exposing some students to QR who are interested in the program themes, but who might not have specifically sought out quantitative skills on their own (see [[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_-_Field_of_Study_Detail_First-time%2C_First-years.pdf|Evergreen New Student 2005 \u2013 Field of Study Detail First-time, First-years]]; [[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_-_Field_of_Study_Detail_Transfer_Students.pdf|Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 \u2013 Field of Study Detail Transfer Students]]; [[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_-_Skills_of_First-time%2C_First-years.pdf|Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 \u2013 Skills of First-time, First-years]]; [[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_-_Skills_of_Transfer_Students.pdf|Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 \u2013 Skills of Transfer Students]]).\n\nMathematics and sciences are most consistently and regularly taught in the Scientific Inquiry and Environmental Studies planning units, and least regularly taught in Expressive Arts and Culture, Text and Language planning units. Conversely, art is most frequently taught in the Expressive Arts and Culture, Text and Language planning units, and least frequently taught in Scientific Inquiry, Environmental Studies, and Society, Politics, Behavior and Change planning units (see [[Media: EPR_2001-2005_-_Art.pdf|EPR 2001-2005 - Art]]; [[Media: EPR 2006-07_-_Art_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Art Overview]];  [[Media: EPR_2001-2005_-_Science_and_Math.pdf|EPR 2001-2005 - Science and Math]]; [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Math_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Math Overview]]; [[Media: EPR_2006-07_-_Natural_and_Physical_Sciences_Overview.pdf|EPR 2006-07 - Natural and Physical Sciences Overview]]). Finally, it is important to note that, as we might expect, the two major areas of interdivisional teaching, first-year Core and inter-area programs, show instruction in both Arts and Math/Science.\n\nFaculty members think critically and write well within the disciplines they teach. Further, they know and can teach some of the social, political, and ethical dimensions of the subjects they teach, and they frequently find that using historical, philosophical, or fiction texts is a good way to bring these kinds of issues into a program. Thus, a vast majority of programs include important elements of general education, especially in the areas of critical thinking, writing, humanities, and social science.\n\nWithin the arts and natural sciences there is a more sequential learning structure. Thus, arts and math/science are intensively found in their home planning units and frequently found in Core and inter-area programs where artists or scientists teach as a part of a team, but are more often minor emphases in programs taught by faculty members whose programs do not include scientists or artists.\n\nThe college has opted to hire faculty across a wide variety of fields who have significant quantitative skills and have them participate in Core and inter-area programs as the primary way of making mathematics and science broadly available. Since 1998, when this issue was first raised, the college has hired eighty-four regular full- and half-time faculty. Of these, thirty-eight are capable of and interested in using quantitative reasoning in their teaching. Six are directly teaching mathematics; twenty-one are using mathematics in support of work in Environmental Studies and Scientific Inquiry; and thirteen are supporting the use of mathematics in social sciences. Over this same period, seventeen faculty members who had and typically used quantitative skills in their teaching have resigned or retired. The significance of this set of choices in hiring has been a broader capacity to include quantitative work in environmental studies and social sciences and to more consistently bring faculty with mathematical skills into inter-area and Core programs (see [[Media: Faculty_Employment_History.xls|Faculty Employment History]]). Unfortunately, it does not make these disciplines inescapable: the tension remains.\n\nThis conclusion has led to a second major strategy for supporting general education in mathematics. That strategy is to diversify the places where mathematics shows up as a crucial element in the curriculum by strengthening the teaching of mathematics within programs with explicit attention to planning and pedagogy and through the support of the Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning (QuaSR) Center. Over the past five years, the college has worked hard to provide paid summer time for two major forms of activity that affect the provision of effective general education. First, there has been continuing growth in the number of participants in summer planning institutes that provide time and support for program planning. By expanding planning time and directing faculty to consider issues such as advising, mathematics, writing, and other general education initiatives in their program planning efforts, by providing learning and pedagogical support for Core programs, and by actively encouraging new faculty members to participate fully in program planning work, faculty are encouraged and supported in building quantitative reasoning and advising alongside reading and writing competencies into their programs. Particularly significant has been the inclusion of staff from Student Affairs, especially advising staff, who have helped develop more awareness of advising to help students meet the six expectations.\n\nIn addition, each summer one to three institutes focusing on specific-issues math pedagogy, the organization of Scientific Inquiry curriculum, the interdisciplinary teaching of mathematics, and quantitative reasoning have expanded the capacity of faculty to develop coherent long range support for the teaching of mathematics at the college. Institutes in particular areas such as sustainability, biology and mathematics, social justice and mathematics, computer modeling and social sciences, and others have helped connect quantitative reasoning into a wider range of program offerings. They have also helped make clear the need and importance of the mathematics pathway offered through Scientific Inquiry for students who intend to follow the pathway and those who use it to support other academic work. Vauhn Foster-Grahler, who assumed responsibility for the QuaSR Center in 2003, has been instrumental in convening summer work for faculty who teach mathematics in all areas of the college, both within full-time programs and in Evening and Weekend Studies. These institutes and work within the Scientific Inquiry area in developing a more regular and systematic mathematics track, combined with the work of the QuaSR Center and expanded course offerings through Evening and Weekend Studies, has significantly strengthened the teaching of mathematics and its availability to students over the past five years. The growth in the importance of these services is seen by the growth in the number of drop-in visits, from just under a thousand visits in 2003-04 to nearly three thousand in the 2006-07 school year.\n\nThe number of programs with assigned tutors has also increased. Furthermore, the number of credits awarded in courses taught by and through the QuaSR Center has grown from 8.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) students in 2003-04 to 9.0 FTE students in 2006-07. The FTEs generated in the center\u2019s pre-calculus courses have grown from 2.5 in 2003-04 to 5.8 in 2006-07. The growth in pre-calculus has offset the loss of FTEs from the decision to discontinue self-paced math after 2003-04. The student success rate of these courses has improved dramatically. When the program was based on self-paced learning, only 42% of students earned any credit; now a course-based format has over 90% of students routinely receiving credit. (see [[Media: Quantitative_Reasoning_Center_Statistics.doc|Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center (QuaSR) Statistics 2003-2007]]).\n\nSeveral innovations have helped support better and more widely available mathematics teaching at the college, including:\n* implementing emerging scholarship on innovative approaches to math education, \n* assigning specific tutors to programs to help teach mathematics in programs and provide support for students outside of class, \n* increasing the number of subjects supported by tutoring, and \n* consulting between the director and programs as they strive to provide support for mathematics in programs.\n\nIn academic year 2000-01, the General Education DTF completed its work and the faculty adopted a set of resolutions, including the Six Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate. In that baseline year, 215 seats were dedicated to in math and science courses offered primarily through Evening and Weekend Studies. Two-credit and four-credit courses provide students with another opportunity to achieve breadth and depth of study outside of programs. General education implementation began in 2001-02, as well as another policy change that allowed students to enroll in up to twenty credits per quarter. Up until fall 2001, the credit limit was sixteen credits. This policy permitted motivated students to enroll in courses while simultaneously enrolled in a full-time, sixteen-credit program. By 2002-03, two years into general education implementation (once student enrollment in more than sixteen credits had somewhat stabilized), there were 283 enrolled seats in math and science courses. That number has continued to increase as new math and science courses have been added. In 2006-07, there were 338 students enrolled in math and science courses. In annual average FTE terms, this is a climb from 58 FTEs in 2000-01 to 85 FTEs by 2006-07 (see [[Media: Courses_by_General_Education_Divisions.pdf|Courses by General Education Divisions]]).\n\nFinally, while Evergreen continues to work to make mathematics widely available, the college must do so in light of the fact that the lack of requirements specifically attracts students who actively seek to avoid mathematics instruction. Significant differences in SAT scores for entering students between their math and verbal scores, interview data from incoming students, and the results of math-readiness scores for incoming freshmen make clear that some students come here to avoid mathematics. Evidence from incoming freshmen SAT scores illustrate the relative dominance of verbal performance over math performance in students who select Evergreen. The 25<sup>th</sup> and 75<sup>th</sup> percentiles for verbal SAT scores of the entering freshman class of 2006 was 520/650 compared to 470/590 in math (see [[Media: Enrollmenttrends-firsttimefirstyeartrends.pdf|First-Time, First-Year Trends]]). This gap between verbal and math SAT scores appears to distinguish Evergreen students from those at other public baccalaureate institutions in Washington (see [[Media: SAT Peer Comparisons Nov06.pdf|SAT Peer Comparisons November 2006]]).\n\nWhile more than 80% of entering Evergreen first-year students had completed at least two years of high school algebra and geometry, and more than half had gone at least a year beyond this, they still rated \u201cunderstanding and applying quantitative principles and methods\u201d as their weakest ability among twenty-two skill areas (see [[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_-_Prior Math.pdf|Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 \u2013 Prior Math]]; [[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_-_Skills_of_First-time%2C_First-years.pdf|Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 \u2013 Skills of First-time, First-years]]). Furthermore, 41% of new transfer students and 48% of new students to the Tacoma program reported they had \u201cno skill\u201d or \u201clow skill\u201d in understanding and applying quantitative principles and methods (see [[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_-_Skills_of_Transfer_Students.pdf|Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 \u2013 Skills of Transfer Students]]; [[Media: Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 - Skills - Tacoma.pdf|Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 - Skills - Tacoma]]). This reality means that the near-term goal of our general education efforts in mathematics needs to focus on making mathematics available to those who need it and want it, including those students who come to recognize through their work at Evergreen the serious deficiencies in their math backgrounds. The work of the QuaSR Center is a major step in the right direction, but more work needs to be done.\n\nStudent experience overall with respect to the Six Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate and in particular with respect to experience with quantitative reasoning and mathematics shows some improvement since the five-year review period. The Evergreen Student Experience Survey reveals that 75% of undergraduates at the Olympia campus, 84% at Tribal: Reservation Based Community Determined programs, and 94% at the Tacoma program are satisfied with Evergreen\u2019s support for their development in quantitative reasoning (see [[Media: Evergreen_Student_Experience_Survey_2006_-_Learning_Growth_for_Olympia_Campus_Students.pdf|Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Learning Growth for Olympia Campus Students]]; [[Media: Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Learning - Tribal Programs.pdf|Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Learning - Tribal Programs]]; [[Media: Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Learning - Tacoma Students.pdf|Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Learning - Tacoma]]). Such basic indicators as the summary data from the Credit Equivalencies section of the 2002-05 Transcript Review Data show progress in broad terms. Assessment of a random sample of undergraduate transcripts found that evidence of breadth of learning increased 5% and evidence of ability to appropriately apply quantitative modes of inquiry improved 7% for the class of 2004 compared to the class of 2001 (see [[Media:General_Education_Learning_Indicators.pdf|General Education Learning Indicators]]). Significantly, the proportion of transcripts with no credit in mathematics/quantitative reasoning fell from 35% to 18%. Similarly, there is more positive growth in the mean scores of students responding to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) question identifying \u201cEducational and Personal Growth in Analyzing Quantitative Problems\u201d: from 2.19 in 2000-01 to 2.57 in 2006-07 for first-years and 2.68 to 2.88 for seniors over the same period. Another way of looking at this data suggests that when compared with the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) peer base, Evergreen first-years lagged significantly (p <.01)  behind their counterparts at other institutions, but in the last two years, Evergreen students were not significantly different from their peers.\n\nIn both 1999 and 2003 we surveyed Evergreen graduates and their employers. When asked about their competence with math skills and numeracy, alumni from both years rated themselves with a mean score of 2.71 on a 4-point scale, with 4 being excellent. This is the only reported mean to fall below 3. Employers responding to the same question rated these graduates with a mean score of 3.25 in 1999 and 3.38 in 2003, scores well within the general range reported by employers. This suggests that at least some students have talked themselves into an assumed deficiency (see [[Media: Greeners_at_Work_2003_-_Alumni_and_Employers_Three_Years_After_Graduation.pdf|Greeners at Work 2003 - Alumni and Employers Three Years After Graduation]]; [[Media: Greeners_at_Work_1999_-_Alumni.pdf|Greeners at Work 1999 - Alumni]], [[Media: Greeners_at_Work_1999_-_Employers.pdf|Greeners at Work 1999 - Employers]]).\n\nFinally, results from Evergreen graduates who have taken the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) show that they consistently score higher than the mean on the verbal and analytic writing sections of the test and at or slightly lower than the mean on the quantitative section (see [[Media: GRE_Results_Summary_2002-2006.pdf|GRE Results Summary 2002-2006]]). On the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), Evergreen alumni have looked very similar to the national averages both in terms of scores and acceptance rates (see [[Media: LSAT scores 2001-2006.pdf|LSAT Scores 2001-2006]]). This data show that Evergreen has made some important progress in mathematics and quantitative reasoning and, indeed, in general education across the board.\n\nStandard 2 will show that the college has been doing a good job of helping its students find ways to meet the general goals of an Evergreen education while maintaining the central values of student autonomy and choice.\n\n====Recommendation 2:====\n''The college remains in much the same financial condition in which the visitors found it in 1998. In the five years since 1998, the college identified a number of causes and has developed a range of plans to address them from bringing the auxiliary budgets into balance to the continued enhancement of private support with initial implementation producing praiseworthy results. In the next five years, the college needs to develop and implement a comprehensive financial plan that reconciles its mission, goals and programs with the available resources of the institution.''\n\n'''Response:'''\n\nThe 1998 NWCCU committee report identified several auxiliaries (Housing, Food Services, the Bookstore, and Conferences) as having a combined loss of $230,000 in 1998. In 2007, this same group of auxiliaries had a net profit of $818,000 (see [[Media: Exhibit_7-25_Ten_Year_Income_History_of_Auxiliary_Enterprises.xls|Ten-Year Income History of Auxiliary Enterprises]]). Duplicating Services and Parking, both internal service funds, have had recent rate increases that improve their financial viability. The College Activities Building is slated for a major renovation in 2009, which should have a significant positive impact on Dining Services and the Bookstore. The college is not using operating funds to provide direct financial support to any auxiliary operation.\n\nExtended Education was started in 2005 in an effort to provide new financial support to the academic operations. This program will be reviewed in fall 2008.\n\nThe college continues to rely on state funding and tuition as the major sources of operating funds. State operating support has increased by 19% per student FTE since 2003, and as a percent of total operating revenue has remained at a range of 36% to 39% from 2003 to 2007.\n\nThe college does not rely on revenue from auxiliary services to support general operations. Most of our auxiliaries (Housing, Dining, the Bookstore, and Parking) rely on revenue from students and other campus users. Increasing the expected revenues from these auxiliary enterprises would increase students' cost of attendance or have a negative impact on departmental operating expenditures. For example, raising revenue expectations for Housing or Dining increases the costs to their primary users -- Evergreen students. And while no operating funds are directly appropriated to support auxiliaries, if costs were raised at the Copy Center, for example, those costs are passed on to its primary customers -- college departmental users -- thereby increasing the costs to units that are supported by operating funds.\n\nAn internal auditor was hired in December 2005 and reports directly to the president. She has recommended several improvements in areas such as cash handling and internal controls of fixed assets, which have been implemented. She will continue to perform audits on the entire financial operations and make recommendations.\n\nThe college purchased and implemented a major administrative software system from SCT Banner. The student system has been in place since 2001 and the finance module since 2005. This is a comprehensive administrative program designed for higher education and is used by hundreds of colleges and universities. We are in the process of searching for a new human resource-payroll system and a budgeting system. These systems will be expensive and time consuming to implement, but are necessary for a comprehensive administrative system.\n\nFundraising has increased significantly over the past ten years. Overall giving has increased 141% during this period and net assets have grown from $1,673,000 in 1997 to $7,847,027 in 2007. A new vice president for Advancement was hired in 2006 and several vacant and new positions in Advancement were recently filled.\n\nThe college\u2019s future financial plans directly support the mission and academic programs.\n\n====Recommendation 3:====\n\n''The college must address specifically the pervasive salary problem across exempt, faculty, and certain categories of classified positions in order to help assure the continuing viability and quality of its programs. Progress needs to be made toward a fair and competitive salary schedule for exempt, faculty, and classified positions (2003 Interim Report).''\n\n'''Response:'''\n\nThe college's efforts to improve faculty and staff salaries were significantly delayed by a general downturn in state revenues following the events of September 11, 2001. The state legislature acted to rescind the 2% cost-of-living increases that had been scheduled for fiscal year 2003, and for three consecutive years, the college did not receive legislative funding for cost-of-living increases. During this period of statewide budget retrenchment, the college increased tuition in order to offset decreases in state support. Higher tuition in turn made the college less attractive to students paying non-resident tuition. Taken together, these circumstances severely limited the college's ability to self-fund salary increases. Conditions began to improve in 2005, when the state resumed funding cost-of-living increases for all state employees. Since the 2003 Interim Report, salary increases were funded as follows:\n\nFiscal Year 2002       3.7%\n\nFiscal Year 2003       0.0%\n\nFiscal Year 2004       0.0%\n\nFiscal Year 2005       0.0%\n\nFiscal Year 2006       3.2%\n\nFiscal Year 2007       1.6%\n\nThese  modest cost of living increases illustrate the  financial conditions in which the college has worked to improve salaries in recent years. Compensation details for the college\u2019s three employment groups follow.\n\n'''Faculty'''\n\nThe funding philosophy for faculty compensation is the same as reported in the 2003 Interim Report (no rank, no distinctions between disciplines, one experience-based pay scale that provides larger step increases to younger faculty members through mid-career). The college continues to award annual salary adjustments to faculty associated with step increases. Funding for these increases is internal and generated from faculty turnover savings. Annual step increases range from 4.6% for our youngest faculty to .33% for our most senior faculty. (The median faculty step increase for fiscal year 2008 is 1.28% for the continuing faculty deployed to teaching.) Though modest, these annual, self-funded salary adjustments provide a tangible adjustment for all faculty members, which is particularly important during periods when state-funded cost of living increases are not provided [[see Media: salarygrid0708.pdf|Faculty Salary Grid 07-08]].\n\nWhile faculty step increases have helped keep pace with the cost of living, the financial constraints described above have prevented the college from making progress in faculty salaries relative to peer institutions. Since the 2003 Interim Report, the college has noted a modest decline in the competitiveness of faculty salaries as measured against Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) benchmarks (see chart below).\n\n'''Average Evergreen Faculty Salaries Compared to Peer Institutions'''\n{| class=\"wikitable\" cellspacing=\"0\"  border=\"1\"\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | Year\n| valign=\"bottom\" | TESC Average Salary\n| valign=\"bottom\" | Peer Average (IPEDS)\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | % Behind Peer Average\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | % Behind Peer 75th percentile\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 97-98\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 44,866\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 52,315\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 16.6%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 20.1%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 98-99\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 44,643\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 53,834\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 20.6%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 25.6%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 99-00\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 46,984\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 55,670\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 18.5%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 23.3%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 00-01\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 50,215\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 57,486\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 14.5%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 18.4%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 01-02\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 53,548\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 60,076\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 12.2%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 18.3%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 02-03\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 54,013\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 61,745\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 14.3%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 20.3%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 03-04\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 54,995\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 62,158\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 13.0%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 19.5%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 04-05\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 54,879\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 63,731\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 16.1%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 22.6%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 05-06\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 56,805\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 65,331\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 15.0%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 21.5%\n|-\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 06-07\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 58,074\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 67,718\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 16.6%\n| valign=\"bottom\" nowrap=\"undefined\" | 21.6%\n|}\n\nRecognizing the continued importance of improving the competitiveness of salaries for both faculty and exempt professional staff, the college reserved a portion of the 2007-09 tuition increase to address this and other strategic priorities. Nevertheless, the college does not yet know what future salary adjustments for faculty may look like. Collective bargaining with the newly formed United Faculty of Evergreen (currently underway) will determine any changes in faculty salaries for Fiscal Year 2008 and the future. Bargaining with the faculty union may identify other economic issues that in addition to salaries need to be addressed. Furthermore, the college's emerging framework for exempt professional staff compensation (discussed below) will require funding, and other non-funded strategic initiatives and unfunded inflationary costs (e.g., utilities) are anticipated over this same period.\n\n'''Exempt Professional Staff'''\n\nFor exempt staff, the cost-of-living increases described above have not been adequate to make up for past salary stagnation.\n\nIn 2006, the vice presidents jointly charged an Exempt Staff DTF. Among the DTF's tasks was making recommendations for exempt compensation policy that could be used to systematically evaluate exempt staff salaries on an ongoing basis. The DTF made its final recommendations in the summer of 2007 (see [[media:ExemptSalaries.pdf|DRAFT Exempt Professional Staff Compensation Framework]]). Work on the compensation system that follows from the DTF's recommendations is ongoing. The college's Human Resources staff has collected market survey data from a variety of relevant sources: the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), the Economic Research Institute, the Milliman Northwest survey, and state of Washington employment agency. From among these sources, appropriate benchmarks will be selected for each position. As of this writing (February 2008), market benchmarks have been identified for 145 of the 181 exempt staff positions. \n\nA very preliminary estimate suggests that an annual investment of approximately $620,000 may be required to bring all the exempt positions up to the 50th percentile. An additional $250,000 might be required to address salary compression and inversion issues that emerge when classified staff salaries increase more rapidly than the salaries of exempt-staff supervisors. Given the scale of this investment and other competing demands on Evergreen's strategic reserves (discussed above), the college will need to pursue a strategy over more than a single funding biennium to achieve its goals for exempt staff compensation.\n\n'''Classified Staff'''\n\nThese general increases tell only part of the story for classified staff compensation. In 2005, state law changed to allow collective bargaining for wages and benefits. Since the change in law, Evergreen and its classified staff union have bargained through a process managed by the Washington State Labor Relations Office as part of a coalition involving many of the state's two-year colleges. In addition to the general cost-of-living increases noted above, this process yielded additional salary enhancements for classified staff based on market surveys for selected job classifications (e.g., the information technology classifications). An additional pay step was also added to the classified salary grid, further raising the maximum salaries for the most senior classified employees. These changes have a cumulative effect for many employees. The average increase in our classified employee salary base was more than 7.2% in the current biennium."
                    }
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            },
            "1406": {
                "pageid": 1406,
                "ns": 0,
                "title": "Standard 1",
                "revisions": [
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                        "contentformat": "text/x-wiki",
                        "contentmodel": "wikitext",
                        "*": "==Standard 1 - Institutional Mission and Goals, Planning and Effectiveness==\n[[Image:one_seminar.jpg]]\n<br />\n\n===Standard 1.A Mission and Goals===\n\n'''''The institution\u2019s mission and goals define the institution, including its educational activities, its student body, and its role within the higher education community. The evaluation proceeds from the institution\u2019s own definition of its mission and goals. Such evaluation is to determine the extent to which the mission and goals are achieved and are consistent with the Commission\u2019s eligibility requirements and standards for accreditation.'''''\n\nThe Evergreen State College, chartered in 1967, celebrates its fortieth birthday as it prepares the self-study for the 2007 accreditation visit. The college has matured yet remains true to its founding principles and essential innovations as a public, experimental, liberal arts college. \n\nThe college mission, as articulated in its strategic plan, honors the vision of its first president, Charles McCann, who forty years ago took seriously the legislative mandate that encouraged innovation. Dean Claybaugh's early history articulates this mandate. \n\nPerhaps most important was the mandate to the college by the governor and legislature for an innovative approach. Governor Evans declared the need for a \"flexible and sophisticated educational instrument,\" as opposed to the \"vast and immobile establishment,\" and expressed the need to \"unshackle our educational thinking from traditional patterns.\"  Senator Gordon Sandison, Chairman of the Advisory Council, remarked: \"It was not the intent of the Legislature that this would be just another four-year college; [the college would be] a unique opportunity to meet the needs of the students today and the future because the planning would not be bound by any rigid structure of tradition as at the existing colleges nor by any overall central authority as is the case in many states.\"  \n\nMcCann and Evergreen\u2019s founding faculty created a college devoted to teaching and learning, infused by a culture of innovation and opposition. Their innovations were influenced by the ideas of Alexander Meiklejohn \u2013 that education should prepare students for a purposive public life within a democratic society. The founding faculty created coordinated studies programs and processes to foster collaborative, team-taught interdisciplinary learning communities. McCann established the \"Four Nos\" that set the foundation for Evergreen's distinctive competence: no academic departments, no faculty ranks, no academic requirements, no grades. Embedded in this set of negatives was his vision that the authority to determine what constitutes a liberal arts education should be centered on student learning fostered by the relationships among students and faculty. Evergreen\u2019s pedagogical practices evolved from this collective effort of the early faculty to create an innovative liberal arts education and foster the qualities associated with student learning, for example, deep engagement, a wide range of knowledge, and reflective thinking. This is reflected in the mission and the maintenance of a culture that supports engaged, active citizens, community participation, and the qualities associated with publicness/community, i.e., autonomy, responsibility, problem solving, and teamwork.\n\nErnest Ettlich, in his 2003 interim accreditation report, captured the creative tension that has sustained Evergreen since its founding: \n\n\"The tensions between being able to assure uniformly the achievement by all students of general education goals particularly in writing, critical thinking and quantitative reasoning even as all students are being required to take responsibility for their own education is a healthy tension which should be a continuing hallmark at the institution and its evaluations. It is at the heart of the institution and contributes to its health and strength.\"\n\nThe founding faculty came to Evergreen to \"make a difference\" and recruited students interested in doing the same. Today, Evergreen is one of two public colleges cited in Loren Pope's ''Colleges That Change Lives: Forty Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College,'' which he wrote to \"help youths of many levels of academic aptitude find catalytic colleges that will change their lives, help them find themselves, raise their aspirations, and empower them. In doing so it will free them from our system's obscene obsession with academic aptitude, which does not determine achievement, satisfaction with life, or the merit of a human being.\"  \n\nForty years later, Evergreen is still an experimental college with an impressive track record of student engagement and success fostering and disseminating interdisciplinary teaching and learning, anchored by a vibrant community of scholars committed to providing an affordable education to Washington residents and nonresidents alike and to serving underrepresented and non-traditional students.\n\n====1.A.1 ''The institution\u2019s mission and goals derive from, or are widely understood by, the campus community, are adopted by the governing board, and are periodically reexamined.''====\n\nOver the years, the college has had a variety of mission statements and goals. The latest iteration of the college's mission was adopted after a three-year review process by the board of trustees in January 2007. In May 2004, the president directed the provost to lead the update of Evergreen\u2019s 2000 Strategic Plan. The Strategic Planning Coordinating Committee conducted a collaborative, multi-year strategic-planning process that reinforced Evergreen\u2019s core values, articulated its mission, established strategic priorities for the allocation of resources, and set guideposts for the Campus Master Plan. The committee foregrounded the Northwest Commission of Colleges and Universities' 2003 interim recommendations during its planning process. In the three years leading up to the accreditation self-study, Evergreen\u2019s Strategic Planning Coordinating Committee collected and coordinated the work completed by multiple Disappearing Task Forces (DTFs), work groups, and faculty,<sup>1</sup> and linked several central themes: a dynamic and collaborative academic community, a focus on student learning, attention to the quality of faculty and staff work life, stewardship of our natural resources, community partnerships, and the reality that state accountability requirements would likely increase at the same time state operating support, as a percent of total operating revenue, would likely flatten or decrease. The mission statement reiterated Evergreen\u2019s core values and its distinctive competence:\n\n: \"As the nation\u2019s leading public interdisciplinary liberal arts college, Evergreen's mission is to sustain a vibrant academic community and to offer students an education that will help them excel in their intellectual, creative, professional, and community service goals.\"\n\n====1.A.2  ''The mission, as adopted by the governing board, appears in appropriate institutional publications, including the catalog.''==== \n\nThe mission is prominent in college publications but, more importantly, it has sustained an ongoing faculty conversation at the heart of the self-study, i.e., what it means to be a \"public\" \"interdisciplinary\" \"liberal arts\" \"college.\" This faculty conversation is occurring at the same time the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board's (HECB) Master Plan calls for a significant increase in baccalaureate degree production to align with state workforce needs. Further, the Washington legislature enacted \"performance contract\" legislation to link higher education funding to these degree production outcomes (in contrast to the current practice of funding inputs, i.e., student FTEs). The process of developing and reinforcing the mission and goals of the college over the past several years has allowed the faculty and administration to think hard about what the college is and to create a vocabulary that allows us to articulate the college's mission in a way that can be understood by external agencies.\n\nAt both the national and state level there has been a discrediting of liberal arts and a growing demand for professionalization, e.g., the Department of Education is promoting standardized tests of college graduates and greater control over regional accreditation agencies to enforce accountability standards and student learning outcomes. The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) champions the relevance of liberal arts in an increasingly professional-oriented educational environment. Their Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) initiative asserts that \"college graduates need more cross-disciplinary knowledge, more skills in a range of areas \u2013 especially in the areas of communication, teamwork, and critical thinking and analytic reasoning \u2013 and more real world applications to succeed in a demanding global environment.\" Their recent publication, ''How Should Colleges Assess Student Learning: Employer's Views of the Accountability Challenge,'' presents survey information suggesting that:  \n \n: \"Few employers believe that multiple choice tests of general content knowledge are very effective in ensuring student achievement. Instead, employers have the most confidence in assessments that demonstrate graduates ability to apply their college learning to complex real world challenges, as well as projects or tests that integrate problem-solving, writing, and analytical reasoning skills.\"     \n\nEvergreen's Master In Teaching (MIT) accreditation visit in October 2007 was a case study of this challenge and demonstrates how an ability to clearly articulate our goals helps the college achieve strong career preparation in the context of a liberal arts education. The Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) accreditation standards were geared for graduate ''professional'' schools of education, including strict standards for centralized assessment and clear expectations that programs demonstrate \"positive impact on student learning.\" The Evergreen MIT program is purposely embedded within its liberal arts mission and pedagogy and not the traditional professional school of education model. There were clear cross-cultural communication issues at play between the accreditation team and Evergreen during the entire four-day visit as Evergreen simply did not fit the standard teach-to-the-test mold. Gradually, as they met with various stakeholder groups on campus and in the community, the team began to translate and ultimately to appreciate. At the exit interview, the accreditation team leader indicated that the MIT program met all of the accreditation standards and complimented the staff and the faculty for the design and delivery of a teacher educator program that turns out well-trained educators as evidenced by the team\u2019s interviews with local school superintendents, principals, teachers, and MIT graduates. Evergreen's ongoing challenge, as evidenced by the MIT accreditation visit, is to retain its founding mandate, its mission, and its distinctive interdisciplinary liberal arts competence while complying with increased regulatory and accountability requirements.\n\n====1.A.3 ''Progress in accomplishing the institution\u2019s mission and goals is documented and made public.''====\n\nThe ''Strategic Plan Update 2007'' was approved by the board of trustees in March 2007 following several on-campus and local community fora with college stakeholders ([[Media: Strategic_Plan_2007.pdf|Strategic Plan Update 2007]]). The senior staff held a retreat in March to use the plan as a framework to guide budget priorities for the 2007-09 biennium, craft annual work plans, and finalize the development of forty institutional indicators to assess progress towards the strategic plan priorities on an annual basis. The board of trustees directed staff to distill these forty indicators into a set of [[Media: Dashboard.pdf|Dashboard Indicators]] for their own use. The ''Strategic Plan Update 2007'' set the stage for the ''Campus Master Plan'' (CMP) and the ''Strategic Enrollment Plan'' (SEP) launched in March 2007. \n\nThe vice presidents, in their annual self-evaluations, assess progress meeting the annual goals and send these self evaluations to the entire community and the president as the basis for their annual performance evaluations. Similarly, the strategic plan is being used to frame the 2009-11 budget planning process. The president's Office of Planning and Budget coordinates the institutional budget process. The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment prepares the accountability documentation required by the state and posts it on its Web site. [[Media: Trends%2C_Highlights%2C_and_NSSE_Accountability_Performance_Indicators_2001-2007.pdf|NSSE Trends, Highlights, and Accountability Performance Indicators 2001-2007]].\n\n====''1.A.4 Goals are determined consistent with the institution\u2019s mission and its resources - human, physical, and financial.'' ====\n\nThe strategic plan established nine strategic priorities within three broad goal areas:\n\nEducational Goal: Evergreen\u2019s tradition as an experimental public liberal arts college devoted to scholarship, teaching, and learning, and strengthening its commitment to our original principles remains intact. At the same time we must adapt to growth, new students, and a new generation of faculty.\n\n\n:1a. Reinvigorate Evergreen\u2019s interdisciplinary liberal arts mission.\n\n:1b. Deepen the teaching and learning experience at Evergreen, focusing on student success.\n\n:2. Improve student recruitment and retention.\n\n:3. Recruit, retain, and revitalize faculty and staff.\n\n:4. Provide institution-wide support for diversity and equity initiatives.\n\n\nSupporting Goal: We will continue to strive for an administrative culture that mirrors and supports Evergreen's pedagogy (interdisciplinary, collaborative learning environments) and uses human and physical resources to support teaching and learning. Two examples include cross-divisional collaborations around student success and campus sustainability.\n\n\n:5. Evergreen: A place for sustainability.\n\n:6. The college\u2019s physical resources will imaginatively enhance the learning and working environment.\n\n:7. Use technology to enhance teaching and learning and administrative support at Evergreen.\n\n:8. Evergreen\u2019s local, regional, and national partnerships are a rich resource conduit to its unique mission. The college both contributes to these partnerships and learns from them.\n\n\nFinancial Goal: Evergreen faces decreasing state support, prompting tuition increases, yet remains committed to serving underrepresented students. Evergreen must, in order to sustain its mission and principle augment and diversify revenue streams, improve net tuition revenue, control operating expenditures to sustainable levels, and make prudent use of existing resources.\n\n\n:9a. Diversify revenue streams.\n\n:9b. Keep the growth of operating expenditures to sustainable levels.\n\n\nThe strategic plan was used as the framework to guide the 2007-09 biennial budget allocations, the annual goals and work plans, and the ''Campus Master Plan'' (CMP). Each year, the senior staff retreat sets the annual divisional and college goals for the year. The strategic plan was used to set those goals for the 2007-08 biennium and again in the 2009-11 budget request. Examples of how resources have been allocated to these nine goal areas occur throughout the self-study. Specific examples in each of the nine goals include: \n\n1) Enhancements to the Office of Institutional Assessment to provide multiple methods to assess student learning, report back to faculty in summer institutes, and provide mini-grants to faculty to conduct assessment projects; \n\n2) Convened a cross-divisional Strategic Enrollment Group and provided them with resources to increase student recruitment (see Standard 3); \n\n3) Convened an Exempt Salaries DTF to prepare an exempt compensation plan and set aside operating funds to enhance faculty and exempt staff compensation; \n\n4) Charged a Diversity DTF and subsequent Diversity Implementation Team and augmented budgets for annual diversity activities; \n\n5) Convened a Sustainability Task Force to produce a plan and hired a new sustainability coordinator; \n\n6) Completed a campus master plan; \n\n7) Added several new  media/technology teaching laboratories (see Standard 5); \n\n8) Expanded its Public Service Centers to include a new Center for Community-Based Learning and Action to enhance students' service-learning opportunities within the curriculum linked to community projects; and \n\n9) Significantly enhanced the college's fund raising capacities with noteworthy results (see Standard 7).\n\n====1.A.5 ''The institution\u2019s mission and goals give direction to all its educational activities, to its admission policies, selection of faculty, allocation of resources, and to planning.''====\n\n\"Every organization has a culture that is a persistent, patterned way of thinking about the central task of and human relationships within an organization. Personality is to the individual as culture is to the organization. It includes the predisposition of members, the technology of the organization, and the situational imperatives with which the agency must cope.\"<sup>2</sup>  The founding faculty sought to eliminate traditional barriers to learning by inculcating a culture with a healthy distrust of administration. This has helped create an ideal of a communitarian, relatively egalitarian culture at the college. Evergreen's academic administrative structures, established in the founding period, valued a flat non-hierarchical organization, a rotating deanery with close ties between academic administration and teaching, and semi-autonomous work groups (academic program teams) loosely coupled to the academic administrative structure (deanery/provost). Evergreen has sustained itself as an innovative experimental college in large part because it has retained a high degree of congruence among its critical task/mission/distinctive competence, its organizational structure, and its culture (shared values, beliefs, practices). The critical elements of collaboration, autonomy, accountability, and interdisciplinary learning have persisted over all the years of Evergreen's history.\n\nThe strategic plan mission and goals reinforced these values and gave direction to its admissions policies (discussed in Standard 3). Central to this policy is the recruitment process that is open to and looks for a wide diversity in the student body. The ideal of a public, interdisciplinary liberal arts college compels the college to look for faculty who are strong teachers, with broad interests and concerns and a capacity to work well with others to create interdisciplinary inquiry (full discussion in Standard 4). And of course these same qualities underlie the structure and content of the curriculum as described in Standard 2.\n\nThe allocation of resources and planning is clearly linked to the goals of the college. For example, the strategic plan and goals established one immediate priority \u2013 to develop a strategic enrollment plan ([[Media: A_Charge_for_Enrollment_Management_Planning.doc|Strategic Enrollment Plan charge]]) to increase enrollments due to a mandated increase in the supply of college seats in Washington, coupled with a significant softening of the in-state transfer student market. The vice presidents charged a Strategic Enrollment Group to oversee implementation of the plan. In fall 2007, the college admitted the largest freshman class in its history. Preliminary indications are that the fall 2008 freshman class will be even larger.\n\n====1.A.6 ''Public service is consistent with the educational mission and goals of the college.''==== \n\nAs a public, interdisciplinary liberal arts college, Evergreen honors the traditions of a liberal education: educating students to be thoughtful, well-educated, ethical, and active citizens. Evergreen\u2019s culture of innovation is evident within its public service centers as they deepen Evergreen\u2019s mission and extend the reach of the college outward from local to international communities.\n\nEvergreen\u2019s public service centers represent a unique resource and contribution to public service that extends well beyond the campus. They have grown in number and scope since the last accreditation. These centers enact, through their work, the central values of the college: community, diversity, cross-disciplinary approaches, social justice, and education with local, state, and national constituencies. \n\nThe centers position themselves in a reciprocal and collaborative relationship with the communities and organizations they work with. The assumption is that the centers will work in partnership with their constituents to identify needs and resources, establish goals and objectives, and collaboratively develop and implement programs and services that respond to the issues and resources that were mutually identified.\n\nThe result of this co-teaching and learning is that the experience and knowledge gained are reciprocal and of benefit to each party involved.\n\nThe seven centers enrich the campus environment in a variety of ways: by bringing guest lecturers, artists, and scholars to campus; teaching throughout various areas of the curriculum; providing public forums for presentation and dialogue; serving as consultants (subject matter experts) to faculty and staff who are developing programs; providing resource rooms with books, films, newsletters, etc., that are open to students, faculty, staff, and community members; linking students with internship opportunities in the broader community; writing and publishing materials that are available to Evergreen and beyond; partnering with other educational institutions and with community organizations on research and educational programs that inform teaching and learning at Evergreen; and so on.\n\nAs the work of the centers proceeds, the skills and capacities of the centers expand and they come to take on more complex roles in the local, regional, national, and international work in their areas of focus.\n\nThe Center for Community-Based Learning and Action, founded in 2004, works with academic programs to integrate service-learning and community project work as an integral part of the Evergreen student\u2019s experience. They provide connections for students to work with nonprofit and community-based projects such as trail maintenance, food banks, or low-income housing. One such project is the Gateway Program that helps incarcerated youth at Maple Lane and Green Hill (youth correctional facilities) obtain pathways to higher education while promoting the youths\u2019 awareness of their own cultural identities. ([[Media: ccbla_homepage.pdf|CCBLA home page]])\n\nThe Evergreen Center for Educational Improvement works to improve teaching and learning in the K-12 system. Established in 1993, the center partners with school districts and trains teachers on educational reform in math, science, and culturally appropriate curricula. ([[Media: ecei_homepage.pdf|ECEI home page]])\n\nThe Labor Education and Research Center opened in 1987 to provide a safe forum for workers, community members, and students to examine their work and lives in the context of labor history and political economy. The center develops credit and not-for-credit educational programs for Washington state residents, often contracting with labor unions to provide continued education for their membership. ([[Media: laborcenter_homepage.pdf|Labor Center home page]])\n\nThe Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute, established in 1999, works with tribes to address issues important to the future of their communities, such as cultural revitalization, tribal governance, resource management, and economic sustainability. The institute played a major role in the establishment of our MPA program in Tribal Governance, the first of its kind in the U.S. ([[Media: niari_homepage.pdf|NIARI home page]])\n\nSince 1983, the mission of The Washington State Institute for Public Policy has been to conduct practical, non-partisan research on issues important to Washington\u2019s citizens. Through the work of its own policy analysts, economists, and consultants, the institute works with legislators, government agencies and experts in the field to provide recommendations on relevant public policy questions in education, criminal justice, welfare, children and adult services, health, utilities, and government relations. ([[Media: wsipp_homepage.pdf|WSIPP home page]])\n\nSince 1985, The Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education has successfully fostered collaborative approaches to educational reform by conducting campus-based, statewide and national professional development workshops based in principles of access, equity, and significant student learning using a variety of curricular approaches including integrative learning and ongoing assessment. For the past ten years, the center has held the National Summer Institute on Learning Communities at Evergreen, which draws twenty to thirty campus teams from all over the U.S. each year. ([[Media: washingtoncenter_homepage.pdf|Washington Center home page]])\n\nThe Longhouse Education and Cultural Center celebrated its tenth anniversary in September 2005. The \u201cHouse of Welcome\u201d was built in collaboration with Northwest Indian tribes. Its mission is to promote indigenous arts and cultures. As a gathering place for people of all cultural backgrounds to teach and learn with each other, the Longhouse also provides a venue for hosting cultural ceremonies, classes, conferences, performances, art exhibits, and community events. More recently, the Longhouse has evolved into one of the premier Native arts management and cultural preservation centers, fostering cross-cultural exchange and expanding an indigenous Pacific Rim network. The 2006 [[Media: IllumiNation_Capacity_Plan_LH.FINAL.pdf|''Capacity Building Plan'']] and the current Web site demonstrate the center's growing importance in Native arts locally, regionally, and nationally. ([[Media: longhouse_homepage.pdf|Longhouse home page]])\n\n====1.A.7 ''The institution reviews with the Commission, contemplated changes that would alter its mission, autonomy, ownership or locus of control, or its intention to offer a degree at a higher level than is included in its present accreditation, or other changes in accordance with Policy A-2 Substantive Change.''====\n\nEvergreen has experienced few changes of this nature during the past ten years. In each case, it has notified the Commission in advance of the contemplated changes, e.g., the dual Master of Public Administration/Master of Environmental Studies degree and the newly approved Master of Education degree.\n\n===Standard 1.B - Planning and Effectiveness, Accountability and Assessment===\n'''''The institution engages in ongoing planning to achieve its mission and goals. It also evaluates how well, and in what ways, it is accomplishing its mission and goals and uses the results for broad based, continuous planning and evaluation. Through its planning process, the institution asks questions, seeks answers, analyzes itself, and revises its goals, policies, procedures, and resource allocation.''''' \n\nThe college has long had a culture of evaluation and collaboration. Evaluation has been seen as a fundamental part of the learning process that lies at the heart of the college for students and staff. This culture has emerged out of the experience of the college as an experiment that needs to be accounted for and from a widespread desire to make Evergreen distinctive and demanding. Long before the era of numerical accountability, the college had a culture of mutual narrative evaluation that underlay all members of the Evergreen community. Some of that practice and the ethos that surrounded it have supported the move toward more formal assessment in the late 1980s and 1990s. These developments helped create the college as it was described in the Documenting Effective Educational Practices (DEEP) report in 2003. ([[Media: DEEP_Final_Report_TESC.pdf|DEEP Report]])\n\n'''Positive Restlessness: A Culture of Evaluation'''\n\nThe most extensive external assessment of Evergreen during the past five years occurred with a visit from George Kuh and his team of educational researchers from the DEEP program at Indiana University. Their report, dated December 31, 2003, was a remarkable affirmation of Evergreen\u2019s pedagogy and a clear, accurate depiction of Evergreen\u2019s culture and practice: \u201cthe operating philosophy: innovation leavened with autonomy, personal responsibility, and egalitarianism.\u201d  The DEEP team reported on Evergreen\u2019s success in each of their five benchmarks of effective educational practice (academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, and a supportive campus environment) and was effusive in its praise for Evergreen in all five areas. \u201cEvergreen has created a structure for putting higher order mental skills into practice.\u201d\n\nThe DEEP team\u2019s work is anchored by the concept \u201cstudent engagement,\u201d of which there are two elements: (1) the amount of time and effort students put into their studies and other educationally purposeful activities, and (2) how an institution allocates its resources and organizes the curriculum and other learning opportunities and support services to encourage students to participate in activities that lead to student success (learning, persistence, satisfaction, graduation).\n\nSubsequently, in their book, ''Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter''<sup>3</sup>, the DEEP researchers identified twenty \u201cgemstone\u201d colleges which share six features that foster student engagement and persistence. These features are:\n\n1. A \u201cliving\u201d mission and \u201clived\u201d educational philosophy;\n\n2. An unshakable focus on student learning;\n\n3. Environments adapted for educational enrichment;\n\n4. Clearly marked pathways to student success;\n\n5. An improvement oriented ethos; and \n\n6. Shared responsibility for educational quality and student success.\n\nEvergreen was one of the twenty gemstone colleges. The study cited several of Evergreen's practices and characterized our culture as one of \u201cpositive restlessness\u201d meaning:\n\n*Restless in a positive way, never satisfied with their performance, continually revisiting policies and practices to get better;\n*They simply want to be the best they can be; and\n*Focused on the quality of their work and its impact on students and institutional performance.\n \nSimply put, Evergreen has a rich culture of evaluation. At the conclusion of each academic program, faculty members write narrative evaluations of each student. Students write self-evaluations of their own work and a narrative evaluation of the faculty. Faculty teaching colleagues prepare and exchange written evaluations of each other. Each faculty writes a self-evaluation. At the end of the year, the academic deans write annual evaluations of faculty on term contracts. All of these evaluations are kept within each faculty\u2019s portfolio and reviewed annually by the deans until conversion to continuing status, and then every five years hence by teaching colleagues and an academic dean. Feedback loops abound within the academic culture of Evergreen, a hallmark of reflexive thinking.\n\n====1.B.1 ''The institution clearly defines its evaluation and planning processes. It develops and implements procedures to evaluate the extent to which it achieves institutional goals.''==== \n\nSince the college's founding, several core values have guided the development of all its programs and services. These values continue to define Evergreen\u2018s distinctive competence including a focus on teaching students to think critically and reflectively. Elizabeth Minnich\u2019s recent work captures the essence of Evergreen\u2019s pedagogy and purpose, wherein she argues that the center of a liberal arts education, especially one that is interdisciplinary, is the act of ''reflexive thinking, ''not simply that the learner is reflecting on what it is that she has learned, but that she is reflecting on how she has learned and what she has become as she has learned. This pedagogy stands in stark contrast to mainstream efforts to emphasize standardized test scores. \n\nLegislators at the national and state levels have increased their demands on colleges to be more accountable, to improve \u2013 and provide evidence of \u2013 student learning, and to be more productive. Evergreen has responded to this challenge in a manner consistent with its mission by actively participating in state work groups to develop accountability indicators in national efforts to develop interdisciplinary assessment tools and rubrics. Multiple assessment efforts have continued, following the commission\u2019s 2003 visit, to strengthen and reinforce the emphasis on interdisciplinary learning at Evergreen.\n\nNationally, researchers rely on indirect quality indicators that directly address the epistemic dimension of interdisciplinary work. Evergreen, a college with narrative evaluations in lieu of grades, and devoted to interdisciplinary and integrative learning, has had to develop its own set of interdisciplinary assessment rubrics. Student engagement is an overarching theme and guiding principle for Evergreen\u2019s assessment work. Evergreen uses the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) scores as an indicator of academic quality. The End of Program Review (EPR) was created by Evergreen's Assessment Study Group to improve cross-curricular general education and to help the college recognize and articulate curricular offerings. In academic year 2001-02, the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment began surveying faculty at the end of each program. Faculty were asked how they integrated the four main divisions of liberal arts (arts, sciences, humanities, social science), as well as several skill areas (critical thinking, information technology literacy, quantitative reasoning, and writing), into their programs. Alumni surveys and Greeners at Work surveys are used to assess student learning, query about alumni employment and advanced education, gauge the level of alumni satisfaction with their Evergreen experience, and gather suggestions for improvements to the college. Transcript reviews are conducted to assess the degree to which students demonstrate evidence of the six expectations of an Evergreen graduate (see Standard 2).\n\nFor the institution as a whole, the strategic planning process has led to the development of a wide range of approximately fifty indicators drawn from the strategic plan to help align resources with the mission of the college. Enrollment, fund raising, net revenue/expenses, retention and graduation rates, academic quality and student success, workforce, diversity, stewardship and sustainability, public service and community service, and public relations constitute the major categories of these indicators ([[Media: Dashboard.pdf|Dashboard Indicators]]).\n\n====1.B.2 ''The institution engages in systematic planning for, and evaluation of, its activities, including teaching, research, and public service consistent with institutional mission and goals.''====\n\nEvidence that the college engages in systematic planning and evaluation at the institutional, divisional, and program levels is presented throughout the self-study in the form of institutional accountability metrics, multiple academic assessment methodologies, and internal program reviews. Much of the college's planning and evaluation work begins with off-campus retreats, an integral part of Evergreen culture. Annual retreats include, but are not limited to: board of trustees, management, senior staff, president/vice presidents, faculty, deans, agenda committee, divisional and unit. Faculty summer institutes provide focused venues for faculty to engage in curriculum planning and other strategic planning work. \n\nBroad-based steering committees or Disappearing Task Forces (DTFs) are convened to undertake planning. In the last ten years at least eighteen major DTFs were charged, covering a wide range of issues including human resources, general education, risk and liability, enrollment growth, and diversity among other topics (See Standard 6 for a complete list). In addition, numerous study groups, advisory panels, and standing committees engaged in important elements of planning for particular areas of the college. DTFs and other planning groups use a wide variety of data and techniques to both gather data and disseminate policy ideas. Community fora on campus and in the community are held and a wiki Web site with summaries of iterative drafts of the works in progress is utilized. \n\nSeveral of the work groups that emerged from the strategic plan priorities are now permanent and have institutional support, e.g., Sustainability Task Force, Diversity Task Force, Strategic Enrollment Group, and the Information Technology Collaborative Hive (ITCH).\n\n====1.B.3 ''The planning process is participatory, involving constituencies appropriate to the institution such as board members, administrators, faculty, staff, students, and other interested parties.''==== \n\nEvergreen has a forty-year history and culture of inclusive, participatory processes and decision-making. The previous section referred to eighteen major DTFs in the past ten years. In addition, there have been numerous additional advisory committees, standing committees, the Agenda Committee, S and A Boards, and, indeed, the Faculty Meeting, which have had a role in the college's governance and decision making. During the past ten years, Evergreen has experienced steady growth. This, combined with increased complexity and faculty/staff workload pressures, contributed to a sense that Evergreen\u2019s shared governance model was deteriorating. The Governance DTF's work galvanized this sentiment and resulted in an institutional re-commitment to experiment with new structures and participatory processes (e.g., the Governance Groups convened by the Agenda Committee, the Provost and Agenda Committee co-charging DTFs, Faculty Advisory Panel on the Budget, and the United Faculty of Evergreen). Sustaining a participatory culture in this transitional era is a challenge facing Evergreen. \n\nIn recent years, the strategic plan, the CMP, and this accreditation self-study have used a combination of methods to increase participation. For example, the self-study process began three years prior to the accreditation visit, first with the strategic plan, followed by the Curricular Visions work (see below), and the CMP. By taking considerable time and working over several years, the college used this participatory model to make important progress in clarifying and articulating its institutional goals and begin a process of important incremental changes in the curriculum.\n\nIn addition to issues of size and complexity, the college's participatory governance structure is challenged by the increasing pressure on the college from the legislature, the Higher Education Coordinating Board, and other state offices to persuade the college to grow and develop in specific externally determined ways. These pressures, which have serious long-range consequences, tend to press for decisions on a much shorter time line than most internal processes. During the past five years, Washington state exerted increased pressure on the public baccalaureates to align their enrollment growth goals with those of the state. For example, the 2008 Strategic Master Plan for Higher Education in Washington, \"Moving The Blue Arrow: Pathways to Educational Opportunities,\" which was published in December 2007, set two statewide aspirational goals: 1) create a high-quality higher education system that provides expanded opportunity for more Washingtonians to complete postsecondary degrees, certificates, and apprenticeships; and 2) create a higher education system that drives greater economic prosperity, innovation, and opportunity. The HECB plan articulates ambitious policy goals to raise, by the year 2018, baccalaureate degree production to 42,400 per year (an increase of 13,900 degrees annually) and advanced degree production to 19,800 per year (an increase of 8,600 annually). Overall, the HECB advocates a total higher education enrollment of 297,000 Student Full-Time Equivalents (SFTEs), an increase of 27% over the current biennium. These Master Plan enrollment goals, if funded, represent a significant increase in planned enrollment growth for Evergreen over the next ten years (775 new enrollments versus the planned 250) and would exceed the projected enrollment-ceiling target of 5,000 total SFTE for the college. \n\nIncreasingly, over the past three biennia, the state provided ''targeted'' enrollment growth funds in specific \u201chigh demand\u201d degrees such as biological science, engineering, computer science, nursing, and teacher education in math/science. Clearly, legislators expect the public baccalaureates to increase degree production and do so in high-demand math/science areas while four-year college participation rates in Washington are near the lowest in the nation ([[Media: hetrends_section4.pdf|Washington State Higher Education Trends and Highlights]]). 40% of students in four-year colleges take remedial courses (National Center for Education Statistics), the diversity of students is increasing, and access to higher education is decreasing due to the rising costs of tuition ([[Media: HECB_2008MasterPlan_excerpt.pdf|excerpt from the 2008 Strategic Master Plan for Higher Education in Washington]]).\n\nThese pressures raise three challenges for Evergreen's participatory decision-making culture. First, given Evergreen\u2019s particular emphasis on learning communities and student engagement, pressure for growth makes it more difficult to both preserve and adapt its culture and distinctive competence as an interdisciplinary learning community of scholars. Second, the emphasis on high-demand degrees, combined with increased competition for students, challenges Evergreen to find ways to grow in areas that are less liberal arts oriented. Third, over the past three biennia (2001-07), Evergreen's enrollment growth of about five hundred new SFTEs was combined with periods of budget cuts and a plethora of accountability requirements imposed by legislators and regulators upon the four-year baccalaureate institutions. A summary of these state-mandated accountability requirements is displayed in the supporting documentation at the end of this chapter. Evergreen continues to seek ways to meet its obligations to the state's Master Plan and accountability requirements while maintaining its core mission as the state's liberal arts college and honoring its participatory decision-making culture. \n\nIn its 2007-09 biennium budget request, Evergreen requested no-growth in SFTEs but was subsequently directed to add high-demand degree enrollment Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs). Within its own enrollment growth planning process, Evergreen had enhanced its upper division health sciences program enrollments and has added a new Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with emphases in Mathematics and English as a Second Language. As a result, Evergreen was able to meet these high-demand degree requirements. \n\nEvergreen's faculty is in the midst of a generational turnover. During the ten-year period 1999-2009, about seventy-five faculty, or 50%, of Evergreen\u2019s regular, continuing full-time faculty will retire or leave the college. One indication of the impact of this turnover is that during the three-year period 2005-07, nineteen faculty retired with a combined 598 years of service to Evergreen (an average of thirty-one and a half years each)! And at the 2007 convocation, Evergreen recognized seven faculty members, each with thirty-five years of service to the college. The faculty has been at the center of planning efforts since the early years, but with growth in the size of the college, new models of governance structures such as the Faculty Advisory Panel on the Budget whose goal is to make the budget process more transparent and inclusive are being tested.\n\nEvergreen is in the midst of a transitional era wherein it must balance the retention of its culture and core values with adaptation to a rapidly changing external environment, a new generation of faculty, staff, and students, a new student union, and a new faculty union and collective bargaining process. Strategic planning has played an important role in this process as it reinforced the college's commitment to a set of core values and deepened its commitment to others (e.g., sustainability, diversity). When faced with the imposition of new accountability or accreditation requirements that threaten to divert it from its mission, Evergreen turns to its core values, its unique pedagogy, and its culture of innovation and creativity to make the case for its importance and distinctiveness.\n\n====1.B.4 ''The institution uses the results of its systematic evaluation activities and ongoing planning processes to influence resource allocation and to improve its instructional programs, institutional services, and activities.''==== \n\nThe accreditation self-study is the overarching systematic evaluation activity. The Commission's recommendations dictate specific areas to improve instructional programs, institutional services, and activities over a five-year planning horizon and much of the current self-study speaks to those efforts in general education, assessment, salaries, financial planning, and fund raising. Biennial state accountability requirements provide another external evaluation mechanism and time frame that guides resource allocation, planned activities, and program improvements (e.g., in such areas as enrollment management, assessment, and student retention). The strategic plan provided another five-year evaluation framework to guide biennial budget requests and resource allocation. Two distinct areas emerged in the recent strategic plan (sustainability and diversity) that influenced final budget allocations. Allocations within academics were directed at program planning, interdisciplinary work, curricular visions, and improving teaching in mathematics, writing, and technological literacy (See Standard 4 Institutes). Budget requests put faculty salaries as the top priority. The budget and budgeting process is described in Standard 7.A.2, 3, and 4 and illustrates the paths by which information influences the resource allocation process. \n\nThree specific examples of how Evergreen uses systemic evaluation activities to influence resource allocation and improve programs are: 1) the Campus Master Plan, 2) faculty development summer institutes, and 3) the Evergreen Fund for Innovation.\n\nThe Campus Master Plan (CMP) consultants took the strategic plan as their starting point, and employed three core principles (learning, community, and sustainability) as the foundation for the CMP. They employed a broad, extensive, community-wide process as they developed several iterations of the CMP, held several campus fora to solicit input and feedback, and employed an Evergreen student in the process. They succeeded in capturing the spirit of Evergreen and its future aspirations, especially in the manner in which they infused sustainability into all aspects of the plan. The CMP was approved by the board of trustees in January 2008. This plan served as the basis for the formulation of Evergreen's ten-year capital plan and to establish private fundraising priorities.\n\nFaculty summer institutes, described in Standard 4, are both faculty-driven (i.e., faculty propose topics that, by their own assessment, are priorities for improving their teaching) and data-driven (i.e., the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment suggests areas, based upon multiple assessment tools, for inclusion in the summer faculty team curriculum planning institutes such as interdisciplinary learning and assessment, handling difficult seminar topics such as racism, and freshmen retention). The preface describes how summer institutes have been used to improve general education at Evergreen. \n\nThe Evergreen Fund For Innovation supports ideas that may be sustained after the award and represent the best that Evergreen has to offer in interdisciplinary and cross-divisional collaboration, as well as pioneering efforts by members of the Evergreen community for projects that will shape the college\u2019s future. This year, the call for proposals utilized the strategic plan priorities as criteria for awarding the funds. The team of Sally Cloninger, Peter Randlette, Randy Stilson, and Jules Unsel received an award to establish The Evergreen Visual History Archive, which will preserve the visual and aural media record of Evergreen\u2019s academic mission and accomplishments since the college\u2019s inception. The team of Rob Cole, Dylan Fischer, and Alexandra Kazakova received a Fund for Innovation Award for their proposal, \"Carbon Fluxes in Our Forest and Carbon Offsets as a Piece of Evergreen\u2019s Goal of Carbon Neutrality by 2020.\"  The research team will work to examine and address the efficacy of purchasing carbon offsets and will also address the carbon uptake and carbon-offset potential associated with the management of the un-built Evergreen State College forest reserves.\n\n====1.B.5 ''The institution integrates its evaluation and planning processes to identify institutional priorities for improvement.''==== \n\nCentral to the strategic planning process was the work of the faculty that began in 2006-07 and is still in progress. The agenda committee and the provost co-charged a Governance Group Curricular Visions DTF to guide faculty discussion of \u201cwhat adjustments are needed to bring current curricula, structures, responsibilities, and practices into alignment\u201d with Evergreen\u2019s mission as a public, interdisciplinary liberal arts college.\n\nPositive restlessness emerged among the faculty in 2005, when many felt that the planning unit structure (implemented in 1995 as the result of a Long Range Curriculum DTF process) was moving Evergreen towards departments and threatening its core educational values. The curriculum seemed to be drifting away from full-time interdisciplinary coordinated studies programs. In response, the Faculty Agenda Committee reinstituted dean's governance groups to facilitate faculty conversations outside of the planning units and within interdisciplinary venues. As a result of these lively and well-attended conversations, the agenda committee and the provost co-charged a Curricular Visions DTF in fall 2006 to \"summarize and disseminate the content of these discussions and produce coherent proposals that substantially reflect the governance groups' discussions.\"\n\nFaculty governance group discussions during 2006-07, as well as several summer institutes in 2007, highlighted the central questions about what is meant by \"public, interdisciplinary liberal arts education\" and about what obligations faculty have to offer curricula that provide this education. The DTF produced an interim report on May 18, 2007, wherein three proposals were cited that were \u201cready-to-go\u201d: Thematic Planning Groups, Fields of Study, and First-Year Cohort. The DTF also recommended that the provost provide summer funds for faculty to develop proposals for the next year. Summer work groups developed recommendations that were sent to faculty for review during the fall of 2007. Briefly, these recommendations include:\n\n1) Fields of Study \u2013 Make the curriculum more transparent and accessible to those using a disciplinary lens: create Web-based content descriptions of the fields of study available at Evergreen; ''offerings ''in the field affiliated with the field; ''news'' and ''discussion'' sections; ''on-campus resources'' that support the field; some links to ''professional resources; ''Web pages designed so that all faculty affiliated with a field can edit the page at will and offerings will be updated automatically to match the online catalog; and brief profiles of alumni and students with examples of work done by those who\u2019ve studied the field at Evergreen.\n\n2) Thematic Planning Groups \u2013 This speaks to the need to reinvigorate Evergreen\u2019s curricular structures and invites faculty to form broadly interdisciplinary groups to explore topics and issues of high interest. Faculty would create and join groups on themes they genuinely want to teach and study over a sustained period of time keyed to matters of public significance, revisable on a regular basis, and drawing together faculty from across the college who share common interests but might never realize it otherwise. These groups signal a fertile new direction in Evergreen\u2019s life as an interdisciplinary institution.\n\n3) First-year cohort \u2013 This idea, originating in the First-Year Experience DTF report, calls for a more integrated academic experience that will give both faculty and first-year students a sense of themselves as a teaching and learning cohort and for multi-year commitments by faculty to teaching first-year programs (e.g., an initial cohort model with a three-year cycle wherein faculty commit to teaching core two of the three years. Each core program would be twelve credits with a common four-credit module with a shared reading list, lecture series, films, etc., and a faculty seminar). A group of faculty has met during fall 2007 to begin the planning for a fall 2009 implementation date.\n\nSeveral of Evergreen's major innovations (learning communities, interdisciplinarity) have been adopted by the other public baccalaureates in Washington state as well as nationally. The Washington Center for Educational Improvement is a major exporter of these innovations. Their weeklong National Institute on Learning Communities draws twenty to thirty campus teams from across the U.S. each summer.\n\n====1.B.6 ''The institution provides the necessary resources for effective evaluation and planning processes.''==== \n\nIncreased external accountability demands combined with increased internal data-driven decision-making has put significant stress on the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment (IR). Since the 1998 re-accreditation visit, Evergreen has increased its IR staff from three to four FTE. While small in size relative to the other state baccalaureates, Evergreen's IR staff has played a big role at the national level through presentations at national conferences, including the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), the Consortium for Innovative Environments for Learning (CIEL), and numerous assessment conferences. They have garnered national awards for their poster displays. The IR director assumed a leadership role at the statewide level among her peers and plays a key role in the Council of Presidents deliberations of a variety of statewide educational policy issues. Internally, IR is in constant demand across the campus and in the provost's office. Institutional research has played an important role in framing the primary message to external audiences, i.e., Evergreen is committed to assessment but let Evergreen continue to develop its own learning outcome measures that fit its unique pedagogy and experimental mission rather than forcing it to conform to standardized tests and traditional assessment techniques.\n\n====1.B.7 ''The institution\u2019s research is integrated with and supportive of institutional evaluation and planning.''====\n\nThe strategic plan heightened the awareness of the need to coordinate and focus institutional research on strategic priorities. Three examples include sustainability, diversity, and the First-Year Experience. Evergreen's sustainability initiatives have resulted in a remarkable degree of congruence among academics (hands-on, real world academic programs such as Eco-design); facilities projects (Seminar II green building design, composting facility, green purchasing); students (green energy fees); faculty research (carbon neutrality); and advancement (sustainability fundraising priorities). The Evergreen Fund for Innovation funded a faculty research project to develop methods to measure the college's carbon footprint to support its strategic planning goal to attain carbon neutrality. The Sustainability Task Force has been funded to hire a coordinator. \n\nThe Diversity Implementation team has been launched with an emphasis on outcome indicators and program assessment. Several disparate activities and budgets have been consolidated to support this effort, including speaker series, summer institutes, and curriculum development.\n\nThe First-Year Experience has received institutional research support to assess the effectiveness of Orientation and Beginning the Journey initiatives. The Office of Institutional Research provides mini-grants to faculty for academic program assessments. The public service centers support institutional planning and evaluation with their community service work. Summer faculty institutes provide venues for faculty to deepen their work and skills on a variety of subjects that support the institutional mission.\n\n====1.B.8 ''The institution systematically reviews its institutional research efforts, its evaluation processes, and its planning activities to document their effectiveness.''====\n\nEvergreen submits annual accountability reports to the Washington State Legislature through the Higher Education Coordinating Board. During the current biennium, the legislature inserted budget performance indicators into the appropriations bill [freshman retention (1st time, full-time), seniors graduating within 125% of expected credits, and job placement/graduate school attendance rates].\n\nWashington passed legislation that now requires all state agencies, including colleges and universities, to submit an application for the Washington State Quality Award (based on the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award) once every three years, which will provide another indicator to the degree that Evergreen\u2019s planning, management, and evaluation efforts are reviewed and improved.\n\n====1.B.9 ''The institution uses information from its planning and evaluation processes to communicate evidence of institutional effectiveness to its public.''====\n\nOver the past five years pressure to fill enrollments has grown as the supply of seats has increased and the number of students able to afford attendance at full-time four-year institutions has declined. The state has funded two new four-year branch campuses to the north (Tacoma) and south (Vancouver) that directly compete with Evergreen. Additionally, private online colleges and mega-universities increase the supply of seats. Thus, Washington ranks forty-nine of fifty states in the participation rates for four-year colleges among eighteen to twenty-five year olds. An important part of Evergreen\u2019s strategic planning work over the past two years has been the development and implementation of a strategic enrollment plan. The college has developed a much more sophisticated enrollment and mailing plan that helps move prospective students towards visiting campus and enrollment (See Standard 3). In addition, Evergreen has enhanced its Web team staff in order to more effectively communicate its distinctive qualities, its educational opportunities and its institutional effectiveness to the public in general and to prospective students specifically. \n\nStudent engagement, success (learning, satisfaction, graduation), and autonomy to devise their own academic pathways are core educational values at Evergreen as articulated within its five foci and six expectations. \n\nEvergreen\u2019s Five Foci: \n\n:1) Interdisciplinary education, \n\n:2) Personal engagement in learning, \n\n:3) Linking theory and practice, \n\n:4) Collaborative learning, and \n\n:5) Teaching and learning across significant difference.\n\nThe Six Expectations for all Evergreen graduates: \n\n:1) Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work, \n\n:2) Participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society, \n\n:3) Communicate creatively and effectively, \n\n:4) Demonstrate integrative, independent and critical thinking, \n\n:5) Apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines, and \n\n:6) As a culmination of your education, demonstrate depth, breadth, and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning.\n\nEvergreen's educational assessment methodologies derive from these core goals. This assessment data demonstrates that there is a remarkable degree of congruence among what the college purports to do (above), why students select Evergreen, and what employers say about its graduates. To summarize briefly, the top three factors in students' decisions to attend Evergreen are 1) opportunity to design their own education, 2) interdisciplinary learning, and 3) integrated learning. The top four fields of interest for entering first-year students are visual/performing arts, natural resources, psychology, and social science. For transfer students they are visual/performing arts, education, natural resources, and public administration/social science. The top three goals, cited by entering Evergreen students for earning their degree are 1) personal success or satisfaction, 2) personal growth and development, and 3) creative and effective communication skills (for first-year students) and job or career change (for transfer students). ''[[Media: Greeners_at_Work_2003_-_Alumni_and_Employers_Three_Years_After_Graduation.pdf|Greeners at Work 2003 - Alumni and Employers Three Years After Graduation]]'' is a survey research project studying how Evergreen prepares its graduates for the workplace, consisting of a survey of alumni who graduated in 1999-2000. The survey also includes supervisors of alumni and indicates that supervisors rated Evergreen alumni highest on their willingness and aptitude to learn new skills, ability to work in a culturally diverse environment, and ability to cooperate on team efforts.\n\nAn important piece of the work of the strategic enrollment planning group and the new Web site is to convey to prospective students the ways in which Evergreen can help them create and develop successful and meaningful educational and career paths at the college. Much of the analysis that supports these efforts draws on the experience of college recruiters, and on their understanding of why first-year and transfer students choose Evergreen. \n\nOne important consequence of Evergreen's growth and distinctiveness is the question of identifying appropriate peers for comparisons with other institutions. The lack of comparison groups for peer benchmarking represents a challenge for Evergreen. The new Carnegie classification of colleges and universities was unveiled in 2006. Evergreen\u2019s peer college rankings are based upon these Carnegie classifications, e.g., the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) benchmarks, ''U.S. News and World Report'' rankings, and HECB accountability measures, to name a few. Evergreen is no longer in the baccalaureate liberal arts college classification due to the fact that it awards greater than fifty graduate degrees per year. This bumps Evergreen into a different peer group entitled Masters, Smaller Programs (MSP). Given the MSP criteria (size, selectivity, residential, four-year, public/private, etc.), various sub-groups can be delineated within the MSP universe. Interestingly, Evergreen is literally in a class by itself, or \u201cpeerless,\u201d because no other college shares all of our characteristics. This forces Evergreen to merge sub-groups using one or two Carnegie characteristics in order to create an adequate peer comparison group. Whereas in the past Carnegie classification Evergreen had several legitimate peers, in the new MSP classification, there are only five legitimate peer institutions. Without a consistent set of peers, Evergreen\u2019s challenge is to find realistic benchmarks for the variety of data sets and indicators that are monitored and reported both internally and externally. \n\n<sup>1</sup> Sustainability, First Year Experience, Campus Life, Curricular Visions, Enrollment Growth, Governance, Exempt Staff Work Group,  Student Evaluation Process Review Study Group, Hiring Priorities, Information Technology Collaboration Hive (ITCH)\n\n<sup>2</sup> James Q. Wilson. ''Bureaucracies: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It''. (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 91.\n\n<sup>3</sup> Kuh, George, et al. <u>Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter</u>. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 24.\n\n<sup>4</sup> Kuh 146.\n\n<sup>5</sup> In 1982, tuition payments covered 17% of Evergreen\u2019s costs per SFTE. Today, it\u2019s up to 47%. Put another way, state General Fund support per Evergreen SFTE dropped from 83% in 1982 to 53% today.</div></div>\n\n===Standard 1 Findings and Conclusions===\n\nThis chapter demonstrates Evergreen\u2019s ongoing commitment to its mission as a public, interdisciplinary liberal arts college. It argues that the college has a strong sense of its mission, that it has a strong commitment to student learning, to innovative and collaborative teaching, to public service, and to effective communication of its distinctiveness and accomplishments. Beyond this, the college has worked hard to develop a useful system of evaluating its academic program and, in conjunction with the effort around the strategic plan, it has developed institutional measures to help align the use of resources and institutional goals. The college has used its research and assessment efforts to strengthen teaching, program planning, and institutional policies. Efforts at assessment within the college and nationally continue to help convey the effectiveness and worth of educating liberal arts graduates.\n\n'''Commendations and Recommendations:''' The college has managed to maintain its commitment to its mission and its distinctive pedagogy in a time when there are increasing pressures to standardize and measure its outcomes. It has continued to place reflexive student learning at the center of its commitments and efforts. In the years ahead, the effort to maintain the commitment to its mission will continue to be a major effort. As the college is pressed to grow, maintaining a collaborative internal ethos and governance process in the face of growing numbers and complexity will prove a major challenge. Recruiting students to study in the liberal arts will continue to be difficult and may push the college toward more professional high-demand growth based on legislative mandates. Containing such pressures while finding ways to respond to external demands will be an important job for faculty and administrators. The development of the strategic plan and the subsequent development of the CMP will help provide a rationale and a framework for future growth. The Curricular Visions process, in conjunction with the long history of annual planning of the curriculum, should allow for continuing development and strengthening of the curriculum. The college will need to continue to reflect carefully on its experience as it has in this self-study process as it goes forward.\n\n== Standard 1 - Supporting Documentation ==\nSee [[Supporting Documentation for Standard One|Supporting Documentation for Standard One]]"
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    }
}