Outset Goals, Outcomes, and Strategies

Assessment expectations driven by accreditation or administrative mandates will not last long beyond the accreditation visits or a change in administration. For assessment practices to be established as a culture in our institution, they need to be driven by faculty who are genuinely interested in improving teaching and learning. As a teaching university, the faculty who demonstrate their efforts to improve teaching and learning should be valued as much as those who make scholarly contributions to their field. The policy and practice of faculty recognition should be reviewed and revised to promote a culture that values faculty contribution to assessment.

A robust assessment management platform is one of the necessary components for the successful implementation of an assessment plan and for establishing an assessment culture in an institution. While drafting procedures and plans for assessing common learning outcomes for the university, we have encountered some difficulty collecting assessment data and need improved technology to streamline data collection and reporting procedures. The university has had its current assessment platform for the last four years; however, the usage rate for this platform is still very low. We need to review and analyze the current usage and examine other platforms for a potential replacement. There also need to be other supporting technology solutions to ease the faculty load on assessment.

Faculty and staff are cognizant of opportunities for professional development linked to their disciplines and specializations. They also must be provided professional-development resources and opportunities for professional growth in teaching and learning, course development, and pedagogical best practices—not only to further the continuous improvement of teaching, but also to support the success of the goals and outcomes in the FHSU strategic plan. Targeting professional development in the areas of assessment and high-impact practices will help FHSU achieve several outcomes and strategies throughout the plan and address key issues.

• Faculty attrition has been linked to inadequate faculty development.
• Faculty development needs to be delivered through a variety of methods (face-to-face, selfpaced, and online asynchronously).
• Faculty professional development is critical to fostering quality teaching and student engagement.

Inconsistent advising practices remain one of the institution’s greatest opportunities for improvement. Effective advising of students entering the institution with 45 credits or less presents the most likely opportunity for the institution to improve student success beyond the first year. Research has shown that students who engage with the institution and form connections within the first year are most likely to persist. Research has also shown that underrepresented students and fully online students present the greatest persistence challenges.

Increasing institutional engagement with students with 45 credits or less by using available tools and programming (Access to Success, Starfish Early Alert/Predictive Analytics, WorkDay academic plans, etc.) will connect students to the institution in a timely manner and improve persistence. There are many models to achieve this. Several model institutions have implemented advising models for many of their entering students and have achieved significant gains in first year retention.

An early alert/predictive analytics system has been an important component of our participation in the American Association of State College and Universities (AASCU) Re-imagining the First Year of College project. Early alert system and predictive analytics modules have been implemented with Starfish, but need further refinement and development to reach their potential. Similarly, there may be an opportunity to develop dashboards for all faculty and staff in a “phase 2” version of this project.

Current freshman transition programming includes Tiger Stripes Pre-Enrollment, Tiger Impact New Student Orientation, First Forty Days, UNIV 101 Freshman Seminar, and access to student success advising appointments. Special population programs include the Hispanic College Institute, Golden Beginnings, Project Lighthouse, and Living Learning Communities:

• The Hispanic College Institute is a pre-college summer program to help high school students prepare to go and succeed in higher education.
• Golden Beginnings is a pre-orientation program offered for first generation college students.
• Project Lighthouse is a yearlong mentoring program for first generation college students.
• A Living Learning Community (LLC) is open to all first-year students; students take classes together, live on the same floor and participate in activities together throughout the year.

• Special population programs (underrepresented, 1st generation, and rural students)
• International Student Orientation (on-campus and at international partner institutions)
• Virtual Orientation
• Pre-college programs
• Summer bridge programs
• Faculty and student relationships
• Enhancing current design, organization, and impact of FYE initiatives

Transfer students have limited orientation opportunities. Transfer Orientation is offered to all
transfer and non-traditional students. Transfer students interested in living on campus can
participate in our Transfer Network living learning community. Potential “gaps” in our initiatives
are:

• Providing “pre-advising” support for students admitted into our community college partners
  who have declared that they will matriculate to FHSU through a partnership agreement.
• Providing additional electronic/in-person transition opportunities for all transfer students.
  • Extended Orientation
  • Mentoring Program
  • Advising Appointments

The Workday advising module will go live in fall 2020 and will represent a fundamental change in approach to advising for our campus. Central to the Workday approach to advising is the concept of guided degree pathways. Workday refers to these pathways as academic plans. The concept is to use technology to plan a four-year pathway of required courses to a degree to avoid unnecessary courses and to improve student time-to-degree. Research shows that students who make a purposeful program choice, who attempt the first 30 hours of a clear pathway, attempt nine hours in an academic focus, and complete initial English and Math are most likely to graduate within 6 years.

FHSU has done an exceptional job of growing the university by 10,000 students over the past 20 years. However, declining traditional high school enrollments and increased competition in both the traditional and online market will create the need to be more efficient in the development and sustainability of enrollment initiatives to keep FHSU growing in the future. To meet these challenges over the next 10 years FHSU will create a Strategic Enrollment Plan and a planning process that promotes growth, keeps FHSU true to the university mission, and reallocates resources when past or current initiatives do not meet key performance indicators.

The common title for this type of plan and project is “financial aid leveraging”; however, most of the impact from such a project will be directly related to the institution’s scholarship program. FHSU’s current scholarship program has benefited the university in many ways, but new models of data collection and needs-based funding have evolved. These new models have proven to be effective at other institutions in improving identification of students with true need for financial assistance and thereby leading to institutional growth, improved retention, and additional tuition revenue.

A report from the Education Advisory Board notes that a “financial aid” counseling [leveraging] program at one institution helped triple the first- to second-year retention rate of students on academic probation. Additionally, financial aid incentives for strong academic students at another institution helped increase the overall ACT score of incoming students.

Financial aid leveraging plans often result in:

• financial assistance models that increase enrollment,
• improved utilization of institutional scholarship money, and
• improved retention and persistence rates.

Faculty and staff are the greatest resource we have for growing our university and providing outstanding learning and university experiences for our students. In addition to ensuring that we have appropriate buildings, technology, and infrastructure we must continue to attract and retain a great workforce to teach and support learning and research and to reflect the diversity of the student body we hope to attract and retain. As we grow our academic offerings and our student body, our human resources must keep pace.

Annual revenue growth from existing and new sources will be needed to support current operations and to achieve the outcomes prioritized for the university in the strategic plan. Current revenue is generated primarily from two sources, tuition and state support. Tuition revenue will be strengthened by maintaining and growing enrollments and by managing tuition rate increases strategically to support growing enrollments. State support is dependent upon legislative action and can be strengthened by ensuring those responsible are aware of our successes and gaining support from the KBOR. Revenue creators will include the Foundation and grant-funded research.

In 2012, Fort Hays State University contracted with a planning firm to undertake a new Campus Master Plan, in response to Board of Regents requirements. The previous Master Plan had been completed in 1970 and was no longer valid. The new plan was completed in 2013. This plan lacked specific direction and was very general in form, with regard to future planned development. Given the quantity of capitol development which has occurred over the last (6) years, there is now a need to align the development plan with the built campus as it exists today and anticipate future development of the campus ten years into the future. The plan would represent findings based on current input from students, faculty, and staff. The Campus Master Plan serves to guide the maintenance and improvement of campus infrastructure and resources in an ever changing and growing campus environment.

Fort Hays State University maintains a physical plant of sixty built structures, which are located on approximately 200 acres. The campus is also comprised of multiple streets, parking lots, sidewalks, utility tunnels, underground electrical, gas, water, sanitary, and storm sewer systems. The built structures represent just over two million gross square feet of academic, residential life, auxiliary, athletic and agriculture buildings. The oldest structure on campus dates to 1904, with the newest structure to be completed in 2019. Streets and utility systems date to as early as 1950. All facilities, equipment and building systems need to be maintained in a sound, reliable operating condition to support campus operations including academic needs, residential life needs, athletic needs and
agricultural needs. In accordance with Board of Regents reporting requirements, a review of building conditions is completed on a biannual basis. These reviews exclude Residential Life, Athletics, Memorial Union and the  resident’s Residence. It would be desirable to complete a basic evaluation of all facilities on an annual basis to detect deficiencies in a timely manner and to more accurately predict required maintenance or replacement of various components.

For preservation of the university’s core business, a formal business continuity / contingency plan should be kept current, along with a disaster recovery plan. The business continuity / contingency plan should consist of the necessary components that Fort Hays State University needs to continue operating during an unplanned event. This would include identifying the essential business functions of the university, the systems and processes needed to sustain those functions, and details regarding how those are maintained. Business Continuity planning includes information technology and should extend to campus infrastructure as well. As part of the Business Continuity  Plan, specific disaster recovery documentation for information technology services should be developed. Business continuity planning and disaster recovery documentation was identified as an area for improvement in the 2017 Legislative Post Audit (LPA) Security Audit.

The LPA audit in 2017 specifically detailed the following:

Criteria: All entities shall develop Business Contingency Plans for their information technology and communication resources [ITEC #53106]
Condition: The university does not have a business contingency plan for its information technology or communication resources
Cause: IT officials agreed this was not a priority, given its other projects and tasks 
Effect: When an entity doesn’t have a business contingency plan, the entity does not have assurance that it could restore essential IT operations in a timely fashion after a disaster or other major interruption.

Because of the findings of the LPA audit, Technology Services officials now believe that a Business
Continuity Plan and IT Disaster Recovery Plan should be made a high priority.

The growing interest in defining the public good of public higher education has led policy makers at the state and national level to begin asking that the capabilities and innovation of public higher education be leveraged in new, direct, and more novel ways to enhance the general economic prosperity of communities on a local, regional, and state‐wide basis. FHSU is well-positioned to contribute to economic prosperity, locally, regionally and in the state through its long-standing practice of developing innovative partnerships with industry, school districts, healthcare and other key entities. FHSU will develop prosperity metrics which are institutionally aligned and programmatically generated.

Like the needs of Kansas families and Kansas business, the need for Kansas and its communities to prosper is being addressed by the Regents system. With emphasis and accountability, universities will become innovative, intentional partners in building state and local economic prosperity. Using metrics developed in strategy 5.1 and reporting expectations from the Kansas Board of Regents, FHSU will assess and report annual and ongoing contributions to economic prosperity.

The Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement classification is an elective classification to assess university collaboration through mutually beneficial partnerships with local, regional, national, and global communities. The classification is evidence-based and requires significant effort to collect data and documentation for self-study of civic engagement practices by the participating institution. Institutions apply on a 5 year-cycle. The application process will open in 2023 for classification in 2025.

The goal of investing in community and global, or civic, engagement at Fort Hays State University mirrors our university mission “to develop engaged global citizen-leaders” through curricular and cocurricular activities. Engagement helps students develop civic knowledge, skills and values and contributes to the quality of life in a community and the economic prosperity of our region and state.

Civic engagement means working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes. - Thomas Ehrlich

The first step toward meeting the desired outcome to apply for classification as a Carnegie Community Engaged institution is to gather data representing FHSU’s current activities and the level of engagement and impact of those activities. This data should then be updated annually. We will look broadly at activities and impact across the university through connecting students to learning experiences beyond the classroom – experiential learning, undergraduate and graduate research, community involvement, or international / global experiences. 

The second step in meeting the desired outcome of applying for classification as a Carnegie Community Engaged institution is to review the data gathered in strategy one and to analyze the alignment of the FHSU program with the Carnegie requirements.

As we complete the evaluation of FHSU’s engagement activities and review the requirements for the Carnegie Foundation’s Community Engagement classification we expect that we will uncover gaps. The third step in achieving classification seeks to address the need and the interest in new engagement activities. We also expect that the new Director for Civic and Learning Engagement will generate renewed interest across campus in engagement.

The fourth strategy for Goal 5 seeks to fully institutionalize community and global engagement
activities across the university, encompassing many disciplines and programs. The implementation
team will work with other units to determine the need for new engagement activities and to ensure
alignment with the Carnegie Community Engaged classification.

The final step for Goal 5 is the process of applying for Carnegie Foundation's Classification for Community Engagement. The implementation team will gather, adapt, and fine tune models and templates for Carnegie Community Engaged documentation and data submission.