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Section II: SACS Core Requirement

II-12.  An institution seeking initial or continued accreditation conducts and integrates an acceptable Quality Enhancement Plan.

JUDGMENT OF COMPLIANCE

Yes, the institution is able to provide a portfolio of evidence supporting compliance.

STATEMENT OF RATIONALE FOR JUDGMENT OF COMPLIANCE

The Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) for East Tennessee State University seeks to improve the environment that supports students' efforts to achieve their educational goals. The success of the project will be reflected in student retention and persistence to graduation, as well as by students' attainment of other educational, career, or personal goals. As defined by the ETSU Strategic Planning and Institutional Effectiveness Committee (Quality Enhancement Initial Plan), the QEP will address the needs of three student populations:
1. Native first-time freshmen, who begin and pursue a college career at ETSU;
2. Transfer students, who often bring credits earned from multiple institutions over varying time spans and a consumer's expectation that the university will fit prior educational experiences into an academic plan that will not delay their progress to a degree; and
3. Place-bound students, who seek access to higher education through courses offered at ETSU's extended campuses and other off-campus sites or through internet-based courses.

The ETSU QEP supports the university's aim of creating "a student-centered community of learning" that encourages people "to achieve their full potential." The QEP builds on areas of strength in which the university has considerable pride, and also pursues significant opportunities for improvement that the university has identified through its planning and assessment protocols. Thus, the QEP will support the aspirations ETSU has identified to its governing board and the general public.

The institution will develop the QEP proposal during summer and fall 2001, in preparation for submission in December 2001. Although the ETSU Strategic Planning and Institutional Effectiveness Committee has set the broad theme for the QEP, the specific goals and methods of the plan will emerge from discussions among individuals representing a broad diversity of groups on campus. Three teams charged with overseeing efforts on behalf of freshmen, transfer, and extended campus students will develop corresponding parts of the QEP proposal. A variety of stakeholder groups on campus will then comment on the proposal, and the ETSU President's Council will endorse the final proposal.

In May 2001, the director of the QEP initiated campus-wide discussions by convening a series of focus groups. During focus group discussions, specific issues and potential improvements were identified for each of the student populations included in the plan. In keeping with the direction set by the Strategic Planning and Institutional Effectiveness Committee, the discussions center around three questions:
1. What can ETSU do to increase academic success for entering freshmen, transfer students, and off-campus students?
2. What systemic barriers to success confront each of these student populations at ETSU, and how can these barriers be eliminated or reduced?
3. How can we increase student engagement in the larger life of the university and the region?

Each focus group has included individuals representing a specific campus group or a combination of groups, and in many cases, we have conducted several discussions with key groups. These discussions have either already occurred or will occur by August 2001. The campus groups involved in discussions have included the following:

• Faculty



• Undergraduate students



• Student Affairs staff



• Academic Affairs staff



• Institutional Effectiveness and Planning staff



• Admissions staff



• Academic advisors (professional and faculty)



• Deans Council



• Seamless Transfer Committee
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• Distance Education staff



• Extended campus cohort director and staff



• Extended campus directors and staff



• Departmental executive aides and other front-line student services staff



• Representatives of ETSU's transfer partner schools

The QEP teams on freshmen, transfer students, and off-campus students will use transcripts of notes of these discussions to identify potential issues and opportunities for improvement.

The QEP teams also will employ data already available at ETSU describing the three student populations. Further, the teams will review literature on national best practices with respect to each student population. Examples of locally available data include:

• Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange (CSRDE) reports to ETSU, which examine national and peer institution retention and graduation rates;



• Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshman Survey (CIRP) data on demographic, academic, and attitudinal features of entering freshmen;



• College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ) data, collected at ETSU since 1994, on the scope and type of our students' experiences and how those experiences relate to student learning;



• internal ETSU data on the source and trends in enrollment of its native freshman students;



• internal ETSU data on the source and trends in enrollment of its transfer students, their patterns of academic success, articulation agreements, and policies; and



• internal ETSU data on the source and trends in enrollment of its off-campus students, levels of higher education attainment in counties in ETSU's historical primary service area, the number of approved off-campus teaching locations, off-campus course delivery systems (e.g., live instruction, distance learning), the growth in offerings of internet-based courses and the standards employed for such courses, and the availability of support services for place-bound students.

Based on their analysis of focus group results, locally available data, and national best practices, the QEP teams will develop plans for enhancing the success of entering freshmen, transfer students, and off-campus students. Specifically, each team will propose:
1. specific recommendations for increasing success and engagement for the designated student population;
2. a budget and calendar for implementation of recommendations, including benchmarks for measuring annual progress in implementation;
3. a plan for assessing the effectiveness of implemented recommendations in achieving desired outcomes; and
4. a plan for ongoing discovery of emerging issues related to success and engagement for each designated student population.

A calendar outlining dates for completion of the development, review, and implementation of the QEP is available (ETSU Quality Enhancement Plan Calendar). 

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