|
> Office of Planning & Analysis
Productivity, Quality, and Outcomes Agreement
Executive Summary
As Montana's land grant research university, Montana State
University-Bozeman has many complex and distinctive roles to perform
in its service to the citizens of Montana, all of which are fully
described in its Long-Range Planning Document. The Productivity,
Quality, and Outcomes Agreement, which can be viewed as a subset of
the University's Long-Range Planning Document, focuses primarily on the
following themes in the near term, but these emphases, as they are
presented here, should not be construed as modifying in any respect
the established missions and roles of Montana State University-Bozeman.
Although the goals and outcomes described in the Agreement are very
much faculty-focused, it should be understood that they will require
increased activities and efforts on the part of administrative,
professional, and classified personnel as well. Finally, the
Productivity, Quality, and Outcomes Agreement clearly demonstrates the
commitment of the faculty, staff, students, and administration of
Montana State University-Bozeman to serve the citizens of Montana as
effectively and efficiently as available resources permit.
This Agreement, which is the collaborative work of faculty, students,
staff, administrators, and external constituents, includes the views
and beliefs of many individuals and groups. Truly the product of
intense debate and discussion within the University community, which
exemplifies the process of shared governance, this document focuses
primarily on these Montana State University-Bozeman roles:
- Improving access to and the quality of learning for all
Montanans, with an estimated increased commitment by the University to
undergraduate teaching of 15%.
- Supporting the economic development of Montana through
enhanced linkages with and support for the private and
public sectors.
The Agreement pursues these roles in a manner that is consistent with
the approach identified by both the Office of the Commissioner of
Higher Education and the Governor as appropriate for higher education
in Montana. More specifically, the Agreement:
- Establishes specific goals and objectives identifying the
areas where the University and its faculty will focus their
efforts and resources.
- Provides accountability measures that allow the citizens
of Montana to assess the University's success in meeting
these goals.
- Concentrates attention on the outcomes of the learning
process and the development of innovative solutions, rather
than on the measurement of inputs.
- Describes how the University plans to implement the
proposed changes.
The Productivity, Quality, and Outcomes Agreement addresses nine areas
to which the University will commit greater effort and attention. In
each of these areas, the Agreement identifies multiple goals and
outcomes measures and includes implementation methodologies. It also
establishes requirements for reporting the progress of the University
as it attains each of these goals during the coming years.
- Increase Access to Undergraduate Education
by reducing the time
to complete undergraduate degrees and to increase access to
academic offerings for non-traditional students. MSU-Bozeman will
pursue numerous strategies, detailed in the Agreement, to reduce
the time to completion of degree requirements, particularly for
first-time, full-time students. Non-traditional students, who
are unable to attend on a full-time basis or during conventional
day-time schedules, will be accommodated with self-paced learning
opportunities, asynchronous course delivery,
telecommunication-based course offerings, as well as conventional
evening, weekend, and compressed course offerings.
- Enhance Quality and Availability of Advising
so as to improve the
quality of academic and career advising and to increase access to
qualified advisors for students. New initiatives, some of them
included in the Assessments and Outcomes program, will be
established to provide faculty advisors with the most effective
advising skills and the training to employ state-of-the-art
information technologies for advising purposes. The Assessment
and Outcomes program has established preliminary tracking
mechanisms to track advisee cohorts. Furthermore, faculty
advising performance will become a more influential factor in
annual evaluations and merit pay decisions.
- Increase Quality of Undergraduate Education Through Smaller
Classes and Active Learning
to provide undergraduate students
with greater access to smaller, seminar-style classes which will
include a variety of teaching techniques that engage students
more directly in their education. These modes of instruction can
be particularly effective for freshmen and sophomore students.
Active learning includes those pedagogical techniques which
engage students directly in problem-solving, debate and
discussion, the collection and analysis of information, and the
application of knowledge to new situations or issues. Students
who are active learners take responsibility for their own
educations and are more likely to become life-long learners and
more valuable employees.
- Increase the Quality of Undergraduate Education Through Expanded
Involvement of Undergraduates in Research and Creative Work
in
order to provide all students opportunities to engage in
independent work with faculty and colleagues, and to enable them
to integrate concepts and ideas from across different fields of
study. Building on the national reputation of its students
(e.g., extraordinary success in Goldwater Scholarships and USA
Today Academic All-Americans competitions), MSU-Bozeman's new
Undergraduate Scholars Program will continue this impetus by
increasing student and faculty awareness of undergraduate
scholarship resources and opportunities and by further promoting
faculty participation. The University will encourage academic
departments to increase significantly the opportunities for
capstone educational experiences which encourage students to
synthesize their studies in a variety of culminating experiences
such as senior theses or projects.
- Increase Quality of Education Through Greater Access to
Information Technologies
in ways that give all students access to
computing and information technologies, that extend information
technologies to the classrooms, and that expand the use of
information technologies within the libraries. To accomplish
these ends, MSU-Bozeman will re-allocate resources to expand and
enhance information technologies systems.
- Reward and Further Develop Teaching Effectiveness
by making
effective teaching a primary criterion in awarding merit pay, by
recruiting and supporting faculty as much on their teaching
skills as on their research skills, and by providing more support
for developing new teaching methods which will reflect the
related instructional goals in this Agreement. MSU-Bozeman's
recently developed and adopted University-wide promotion and
tenure criteria incorporate standards which serve this purpose.
For example, the new standards permit differentiated faculty
tracks, a comparatively new concept in colleges and universities
across the nation which enables faculty members, with the consent
of their departments, to select a track of professional
development that concentrates chiefly on teaching performance,
rather than on the traditional mix of teaching and research.
Significantly, faculty members who select the teaching track can
achieve the rank of full professor via that route. Consequently,
departments may search for and hire teaching specialists who will
do more teaching than their traditional colleagues. This
initiative will necessitate providing current members of the
faculty opportunities to update their teaching skills.
- Continue Growth in External Funding Support for Student Learning
to increase access to high quality equipment and facilities, to
increase the number of students receiving financial support, and
to keep faculty members at the forefront in the developing of
knowledge in their fields. Increasingly, high-quality
instruction and student learning depend upon the availability of
equipment, instrumentation, and facilities that the State of
Montana cannot afford to purchase without external funding
support. At MSU-Bozeman, however, this margin of educational
excellence is supported through the externally-funded research
and educational programs of the faculty. Thanks to the grant and
contract activities of the faculty and staff, state-of-the-art
equipment and facilities can be provided to MSU-Bozeman's
undergraduate students. In addition to transmitting information
on the availability of external funding and enhancing faculty
grant writing skills, the University must continue to identify
sources for the matching funds required for successful grant
proposals.
- Expand Off-Campus Access to Classes and Educational Resources
Throughout Montana
by increasing the use of telecommunications,
by assuring that the focus of Extension and Outreach educational
programs is on the critical needs of Montana, and by expanding
the opportunities for place-bound, life-long learners to gain
access to the information resources and services of the
University. As a Montana's land grant university, MSU-Bozeman has
always included extension and outreach to the citizens of the
state as an integral part of its mission which it will continue
to pursue by the application of new technologies. Clearly, the
Burns Telecommunication Center and the presence of KUSM-TV on
campus will be instrumental in fulfilling this mission.
- Enhance Access to MSU-Bozeman's Intellectual and Physical
Resources Which Will Support the Economic Development of Montana
through the transfer of new technologies, the provision of
technical advice and assistance to the public and private
sectors, and the maintenance of a highly trained work force.
These efforts will make Montana more attractive to business and
industry and thereby stimulate economic growth.
Back to Table of Contents or
On to Preface
|
