QRAC meeting, 9/30/2009

RE: Minutes

Attendees: James Beyers, Ed Conjura (outgoing chair), Orlando Hernandez, Dave Letcher, Paula Maas, Teresa Nakra, John Puscio, Don Vandergrift

Absent: Bob Anderson, Ursula Wolz (newly elected chair)

1) The meeting opened with Ed Conjura proposing an agenda

a) discuss membership questions: profile and new chair—should all schools be represented and how do we recruit?

b) How do we proceed with papers project—funding and logistics issues to be discussed

c) What suggestions are there by the committee for new projects/directives for the upcoming year and how might we wrap up such things from last year (see b, above)

2) Ed indicated that Ursula has expressed interest in assuming the responsibilities and position of chair of the committee. Ed nominated Ursula, and there was a seconding of that nomination and consequently, Ursula was elected unanimously (and unopposed) as the new chair of the committee.

3) In terms of the membership question: a name was forwarded to the committee: Eileen Alexi (School of Nursing). As a committee we agreed that Ursula should contact Eileen to discuss with her the possibility of Eileen’s serving on this committee.

4) With regard to the paper QR evaluation project, Ed has agreed to continue to spearhead that project with the support of the committee. Paula has agreed to continue to explore funding options, to provide food for the evaluation meetings as well as a small stipend for evaluators

5) Beth Paul declared this the Year of QR, so we as a committee discussed what that means for us? What should we do? We proposed the idea of a community learning day focused on QR. We also decided that Ursula should talk to Mark Kiselica about what The College’s needs/expectations are with respect to the year of QR.

6) Points raised by the committee to discuss/address:

a) Should there be a college-wide assessment of QR in place? Could Ed’s paper evaluation in that capacity?

b) How can we as a committee help others to see that QR is occurring? How can we help to identify when QR is not occurring? How can we help motivate/reinforce more uses/occurrences of QR?

c) Orlando has access to a 1, 3, 5 year plan, and the committee would like to see it.

d) Perhaps we can look at exit survey data and sort it by school and major to look for self-reports about QR.

e) Perhaps we could try to infuse QR tasks in capstone course to ensure QR is addressed explicitly.

f) Are we intending to assess exposure to, ability to engage, or retention of QR? All of these or some combination?

g) A university in VA (now identified as James Madison) uses a university-wide standardized assessment of QR. We could consider using it or a modified form to assess QR here. Orlando has emailed the committee the presentation from eth workshop associated with the QR assessment.

h) Committee members are going to search for QR assessment options and share them with other members of the committee. We are going to review our options to see if we can devise a way to assess QR here at The College.

i) We want QR to be given the same attention/credence as the writing assessment here. How do we consider a plan to get QR more attention on campus in terms of it’s status: should we approach the liberal learning committee. Perhaps Ursula should contact the LLPC.

j) We want students to know that QR is a liberal learning goal—it’s part of the LL goal statements. We should refer back to that goal statement (perhaps post it in our meeting room as a constant reminder) and keep it mind while exploring possible assessment procedures.

k)

7) Proposed agenda items for next time:

a) Lay out and examine the JMU model for QR assessment (as well as other examples of QR assessment found by committee members, e.g., Carlton College—may present difficulties logistically).

b) Discuss how to get QR the same status as writing (e.g., community learning day centered around QR).

c) Revisit the LL statements/goals RE: QR as a liberal learning goal for our students.