FIPSE THROUGH THE EYES OF A DEAN
Ollie J. Lee, Former Vice-Presdient for Acamedic Affairs, Lee University (TN)
During my 12 years as chief academic officer and 20 years in academic administration at a CCCU school in the SACS region, I have been a participant observer in the movement for quality assurance based on outcomes assessment and effectiveness evaluation in American higher education during its critical growth and maturation period. As I reflect on the implications of what we have learned about ourselves over the years, I want to focus my conclusions on some of the main areas of concern to college and university leaders as they attempt to use these results in policy reviews, institutional planning, and quality improvement efforts.
IMPLICATIONS FOR GENERAL EDUCATION FROM THE STUDENT DATA
The assessment data reveals that seniors and alumni of CCCU institutions indicate they are satisfied with the courses in humanities, science and mathematics, social science and
Bible/religion. They give very positive evaluations of the overall quality of instruction. The majority find instructional facilities to be satisfactory, feel that faculty take a personal interest in students’ progress and report that the undergraduate experience influenced their development of a wide assortment of skills, aptitudes, values, attitudes and behaviors typically listed in the Christian liberal arts statements of the objectives of general education. (These range from recognizing rights, responsibilities and privileges as a citizen to developing a Christian worldview and cultivating the practice of life-long learning.) Seniors at CCCU institutions report the same high levels of satisfaction with the general education courses and over-all quality of instruction as reported by seniors at other Protestant and private institutions.
However, like seniors at other Protestant and private colleges, seniors at CCCU institutions do not feel that their abilities and skills are much stronger as a result of their college experience in foreign language ability, knowledge of different races/cultures, reading speed/comprehension and mathematical skills. A similar problem is reflected in our students’ self-perceptions. While 46 percent of 1994 first-year students rated themselves “above average” or in the “top 10 percent” in mathematical ability, only 36.7 percent of 1998 seniors gave similar positive self-ratings in mathematical ability. Thirty-nine percent of the alumni (graduates of 1994) who were surveyed in 1996 rated themselves positively in mathematical ability, and 40 percent in computer skills. In foreign language ability 15.6 percent of the alumni of 1994 and nine percent of the 1996 seniors gave themselves positive ratings.
What are the implications for general education? These outcomes show that CCCU institutions, in the aggregate, are producing graduates whose self-ratings and program evaluations are similar to other private colleges, even though resources may be more limited at CCCU schools. While these learning outcomes and curriculum patterns are consistent with the dominant picture of American higher education, CCCU faculties may want to give serious attention to language and mathematics areas of the curriculum and to instructional programs in skills development. When 71 percent of our seniors rate themselves “above average” in academic ability and only 35 percent rate themselves “above average” in mathematical ability perhaps the mathematics component of the curriculum should be re-examined. For example, a recent analysis of general education curricula of CCCU colleges revealed that 25 percent of the schools do not require mathematics in all programs, and 33 percent do not require a foreign language (Lee, 2000). In the global village of a new century the “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (II Tim 3:17) Christian college graduate would profit from the discipline of foreign language study.
PREPARATION FOR CAREERS AND ADVANCED STUDIES
Seniors and alumni gave strong positive evaluations of the courses in their major discipline, the overall quality of instruction, relevance of course work to everyday life, and overall college experience. They were also very positive in their assessments of amount of contact with faculty and administrators, opportunities to discuss course work out of class with professors, library facilities, computer facilities and the personal interest in them shown by faculty members. Their assessments were much less positive in regard to career counseling and advising, job placement services for students and tutorial help and other academic assistance.
The products of our colleges give themselves high ratings on academic ability,
knowledge of a particular field/discipline and ability to think critically. All of these are abilities and outcomes important to success in advanced study and in professional careers. But our students do not report feeling confident about their level of preparation for graduate school: only 44 percent of the 1994 alumni surveyed in 1996 rated themselves above average or in highest 10 percent in terms of their preparation for graduate or professional study (Alumni Survey, 1996). When almost 80% of our students intend to pursue graduate study, it is imperative that they feel adequately equipped to do so. What are the implications for institutional planning? There seemed to be two issues that might be addressed. The first is a student misperception about the number of CCCU alumni who pursue graduate study. If the majority of our graduates are enrolling in graduate and professional schools this information is probably not reflected in promotional materials and institutional reports because we may not maintain adequate records about our alumni. Secondly, if our graduates feel that their preparation for graduate or professional school is not strong, specific feedback from those alumni attending graduate and professional schools would be useful not only for any needed
adjustments in the educational programs but also in the co-curricular services such as advising, career counseling, etc. It may be that seniors would benefit from reassurances from that portion of alumni who earn advanced degrees that their undergraduate preparation is stronger than seniors and new graduates may perceive it to be.
MORAL AND SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
Five years of data from multiple senior surveys, alumni surveys, faculty surveys, and senior interviews give a consistently strong evaluation of the impact which the Christian college experience has on the moral and spiritual development of that portion of our student population which persists to graduation. As has been clearly noted by various analysts in the research reports, these positive assessments may reflect some selective bias in the nature of the survey respondents in contrast to the non-respondents – particularly in the alumni survey.
But the consistent and persistently strong evaluations from the repeated CSS senior surveys corroborate the picture presented by the alumni survey that these Christian colleges are producing graduates who, whether because of or in spite of their four year college experience, maintain a strong Christian faith, demonstrate the attitudes and commitments that CCCU faculties value in the moral and spiritual domains, and reflect the “conservative” social lifestyle and political values consistent with many of the evangelical constituencies served by CCCU institutions. Much of the research has shown that one of the most pervasive impacts of a Christian college education is found in the area of moral and spiritual development.
What are the implications for institutional action? The strong positive finding of the data regarding the moral and spiritual development of CCCU students is an important outcome of this assessment project.
These findings are obviously useful from the perspective of institutional promotion. The data can be used to reassure parents, donors, denominational leaders and other supporting constituencies. But there are also powerful implications for those who work in our institutions. As academic professionals, we have been conditioned to be critical, to be relentlessly unsatisfied with the quality of our services and the outcomes of our students’ educational experiences. But perhaps the admonishment to “hold fast to that which is good ” is appropriate here; while acknowledging the need to continually improve the quality of our students’ educational experiences, we also need to preserve the best of our curricular, instructional, and spiritual life distinctives.
Some suggestions for future consideration:
First, institutional research efforts can seek to track changes over time in the values and the moral maturity of incoming students and graduating seniors to see if there are significant trends of change. Second, institutions whose graduating classes include a large number of transfer students may profit from sub-population comparisons of the significant differences between graduating seniors who experienced two years or less versus those who participated in the institution four years or more. Third, institutional leaders and faculty will want to carefully analyze their own assessment data, as well as that of CCCU peer institutions, in order to review, refine and enlarge their mission and institutional goal statements.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE CCCU FACULTY DATA
The faculty in our Christian colleges and universities report higher levels of satisfaction with their work than faculty in other four year Protestant and private institutions. This is in spite of relatively high stress levels due to teaching loads and outside obligations and in spite of significantly lower salaries compared to other Protestant and private college faculties.
CCCU faculty are committed to teaching, satisfied with their professional lives in general, and positively engaged in their faculty roles. They express a strong commitment to teaching as their most important role. The majority have produced scholarship and the higher the faculty rank the more productive they tend to be. Compared to other Protestant and private faculties, our faculty members tend to be more conservative socially and politically, tend to place a high value on their personal relationship to God, and desire to encourage students’ development of their relationship to God. In general, CCCU institutions have strong faculties who are committed to
teaching, are engaged with their students and exhibit strong faith commitments attend to several issues related to our faculty.
Less than 35% of the full time faculty are female, while 62% of the students are female. Women faculty report higher stress levels, particularly with regard to professional performance evaluation, subtle discrimination and household responsibilities. They are paid less, promoted at a slower rate and are clustered in the lower academic ranks. They spend a disproportionate amount of time with students and are less likely to do research. Yet women’s strengths as advisors and classroom teachers who foster collaborative learning are often not valued by our institutions when it comes time for tenure and promotion. A critical task for academic administrators remains finding ways of recruiting more women faculty and being more supportive of the women faculty already on our campuses. In spite of strong expressions of commitment by administrators to faculty diversity as well as student diversity, most of our institutions have little ethnic and racial diversity in the faculty or student population. As other articles in this newsletter have suggested, academic administrators must find ways of “growing our own” faculty of color and creating more hospitable environments so that we retain more of our students and faculty of color.
