6/25/99

To: Maggie Culp
From: Hunter Ellinger

Dear Dr. Culp:

Thank you for the input you facilitated from both the administration and the student-services staff on the draft policy on student goal completion that Dr. Nasworthy and I have been developing for Board consideration. We have adapted the draft [see attachment for the current language] in several ways in response to that input and to other input from people directly involved in instruction.

This note mentions some of the considerations which led to our choices of language. In most cases, these are based on our desire to avoid repetitions of provisions in other Board policies (which already mandate student evaluations of support functions such as advising, for example) and to maintain consistency in the level of detail in different policies (e.g., while a web site on this topic is an excellent idea, that is an administrative-level provision). Almost all of the suggestions we are leaving out would be perfectly appropriate as administrative or departmental rules or goals.

While we have made several wording changes in response to your suggestions (including using "achievement" rather than "completion" in the title), the largest substantive change was in language we added to make it clear that we support your concept of systematically allocating resources based on analysis of student needs. There is no intention of mandating a "one size fits all" approach (although of course we also would not want to see a rigid "tracking" system).

Although it is primarily a matter of emphasis rather than actual conflicts in language, our draft places more attention on supporting the work of instructors and on encouraging students to act responsibly. As the preamble in our draft says, it is in the classroom (and in individual work by students themselves) that most of the progress toward achieving student goals and modeling success-producing behavior is made, although the areas covered in this policy draft also make substantial (and often essential) contributions. While it is important that student-services personnel provide a channel for reasonable student complaints to reach the appropriate academic supervisors, students will benefit most from concentrating on how to make their own performance meet the standards that instructors, employers, and universities expect.

Under ACC's governance model, the Board declares the "ends" the College is to achieve (as in policy A-4 [College Ends] and others) but the declaration of specific year-to-year operational "goals" (e.g., "develop high-tech options" in your draft) is a staff responsibility. It will be best not to have to go through a policy-amendment process to extend or modify such goals. We have added a section to our draft calling for the staff to develop and report appropriate goals each year, but these will not require Board approval. The list of goals in your draft is a fine starting set.

TO: Board of Trustees

FROM: Richard Fonté

DATE: June 21, 1999

SUBJECT: Proposed Board Policy on Student Goal Completion

The following comments reflect my personal suggestions concerning this board policy. In particular my comments are intended to address the current board proposal (pages 63-64 in the board packet) and suggestions from staff contained on pages 71-72 and pages 73-74. In some cases I believe that the staff has made some excellent wording suggestions that I would also recommend. In several instances, however, I would suggest that the current board draft is superior. Therefore, I have made my comments section by section.

1. I favor, as suggested by the administrative draft, the inclusion of a new section entitled, "College Goals." See either page 71 or 73.
2. Student Recruitment Section. I favor the opening of page 63 over page 71 or 73. I prefer (but only slightly) the language wording of page 71 for (1), (2), (3) and (4). However, I suggest that page 63 (4) under student recruitment be added, as an addition point (5) if you use the language from page 71.
3. Student Goal Achievement. I prefer the intro paragraph on page 63 ("Enabling Students..."), since this intro is not part of any suggestions on page 71.
4. Goal Declaration. Intro sentence on page 63 is good and subparagraphs (1) and (2) are better than page 71 or 73. However, I would suggest that subparagraph (3), page 63 needs to be modified to indicated that educational goal declaration should be updated each semester during the registration process ("...shall be maintained and updated each semester through the registration process for each college-credit student.")
5. Advising. I prefer language suggestions of page 71, subparagraphs (1), (2) and (3) over paragraph (1) on page 63. However paragraph (2) on page 64 (top of page) should be added as an additional point (4).
6. Financial Aid. The paragraph (c) on page 64 should be included in the policy and is missing from any of the administrative suggestions.
7. Counseling. I have no preference between page 64, subparagraph (1) or (2) and page 72, subparagraph (1) and (2). I do prefer (strongly), page 64, subparagraph 3(a) and (b) over pages 72 (3) and (4).
8. Results. I see little difference, but slightly prefer pages 72 (1), (2) and (3) to page 64 (1) and (2).

RF/pws

xc: Pat Stubbs