Campus-Wide Charges
Strengthening School Structures Charge
September 1, 2022
Re: Strengthening School Structures Charge
Dear Deans Au, Cornick, Krishnamurthy, Sarathy, Watts
Thank you for supporting your schools within a shared governance context to meet the FY21 and FY22 charges. Because of your efforts, we accomplished the following:
- We have a structure for school-specific fiscal operating guidelines.
- All schools have either formalized an inclusive definition of scholarship as part of your school’s P&T guidelines or that effort is in its final stages. Each school also completed (or soon will) an overall review and update of your P&T guidelines for both tracks.
- All schools identified how each of your majors includes (or doesn’t) undergraduate learning goal #6 keeping in mind that every graduate from every major should meet the minimum expectations for all campus-wide learning goals. Your good work revealed that three of our schools have gaps. As such, more work will be needed in FY23 to close these gaps. Understanding the challenge is a good first step.
- All schools are now actively supporting our first attempt to assess our undergraduate learning goals. This will be an ongoing part of annual school charges per your collective recommendation at the end of FY21.
- Each school confirmed the empowered admissions criteria for transfer students for all majors with a few exceptions.
This is an impressive list of accomplishments given the societal challenges our campus faced during this timeframe. As we look forward to starting a new academic year, I am using this opportunity to present the focus areas for the FY23 charge to schools. These focus areas represent campus-wide decisions that require active collaboration with your elected faculty councils and leadership teams to implement. These focus areas should align with your ongoing efforts to strengthen internal school structures. I will prioritize my schedule and the VCAA’s Leadership Council (VLC) agendas so we have many opportunities for feedback and support.
Below, I’ve listed the various focus areas along with the primary group(s) who made the request, the expected deliverable, and the timeline. Note that some efforts have already been completed by some schools. The FY23 focus areas are as follows:
Professional Leave (Sabbatical) Criteria for Prioritizing
Given timing issues, most deans asked to delay this FY22 request to October 15 2022. Each school (except for STEM and IAS) needs to provide me (and OE/HR) the criteria that you use to prioritize sabbatical requests in each cycle. These criteria should be developed within your school’s shared governance framework and align with the overarching UW framework. I need these criteria so that I can approve sabbatical requests from your school during this cycle and future cycles. OE/HR will post the criteria for each school on SharePoint.
VCAA. Email/Memo with Sabbatical Criteria. Complete by October 15th
Changes to the Major Declaration Process for FYPP Students (and Change of Major Process)
All schools should move forward immediately with the recommendations for schools that were provided by the FY22 Fall/Winter Task Force regarding Student Declarations and Changes of Majors (final report previously provided). [IAS started this process in FY22.] This effort involves both logistical and pedagogical changes. The logistics include changing internal school processes to align with the timelines, websites, communications, etc. which Enrollment Management staff will finalize soon. The pedagogical work involves reviewing matriculation requirements for all majors, identifying barriers, and modifying curricula to remove barriers where possible. Dr. Scott James and Dr. Cinnamon Hillyard (and their key leads) will schedule meetings with you and the school leadership that you identify. The goal is to complete this effort before the end of FY23. The Division of Enrollment Management will provide me with a progress report by January 1st.
VCAA/DEM. Email/Memo summarizing changes. Complete by June 30th.
Campus-wide Community Engagement Undergraduate Learning Goal
continued from 2020-21
Based on the background provided in the fact sheet, the campus voted in favor of a sixth learning goal --- application of theory and skills that contribute to the public good through mutually beneficial engagement with community. Based on the FY21 and FY22 review, three schools (BUS, IAS, STEM) need to adjust curricular requirements for several majors to ensure that all undergraduate students have the opportunity to meet this learning goal. While the curricular work needs to be led and managed by each school, you should engage with the offices of Student Academic Success and Connected Learning to identify and implement solutions to close these gaps.
GFO & Carnegie Community Engagement Classification. Memo to VCAA that commits to a reasonable curricular timeline to address the gaps. Complete by June 1, 2023.
Assessment of Undergraduate Learning Goals
Historically, UW Bothell did not formally assess campus-wide learning goals as part of a continuous improvement cycle. Assessment of learning remains an issue that the NWCCU accreditors would like the entire tri-campus to focus on. UW Bothell started our formal campus-wide assessment effort in FY21 and we are moving towards a regular cadence for each step in the process. Each school should be prepared to support and contribute to the assessment efforts per requests from the Office of Student Academic Success.
OSAS & GFO CCAL. Assessment support. Ongoing.
I look forward to quarterly (5th week) updates from each dean in the form of a short memorandum/e-mail along with updates at our 1:1 and VLC meetings. And, I look forward to continuing our collaborative work to strengthen our support structures for our faculty, staff, and students. Please reach out as needed so that we can ensure success.
Sincerely,
Sharon A. Jones, Ph.D.
Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (VCAA)
cc:
Kristin Esterberg, Chancellor
Carolyn Brennan, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Offices of Research & Connected Learning
Cinnamon Hillyard, Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean, Student Success
Leslie Hurst, Interim Associate Dean, University Libraries
Adrian Sinkler, Director, Institutional Research (IR)
Wadiya Udell, Acting Assistant Vice Chancellor, Faculty Success
Shauna Carlisle, Chair, GFO
Nora Kenworthy, Chair, GFO Executive Council