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Academic Affairs

Goal 1
Continue to strengthen academic quality by enhancing the educational experiences of current students as well as improving Whitworth's visibility and reputation among external audiences.

Actions steps include:

• Compare current majors and curricular offerings with Whitworth's peers and evaluate on the basis of their ability to contribute to a stronger academic profile; consider innovative programs that meet student needs; using the process of departmental reviews as an evaluation tool.
• Collect evidence from current students and alums in order to refine gen. ed., majors, and programs.
• Continue to strengthen the sciences and the visual and performing arts, including a recommendation to the board to build a visual-arts center; performing arts center, and expand science facilities.
• Establish endowed fund of $1 million for faculty-student science research and equipment.
• Work with the arts and with Institutional Advancement to identify initiatives and funding, e.g., a national touring schedule for music ensembles, endowment goals.
• Identify strategies to enhance the academic experiences of particular groups of students, including freshmen, seniors, and honors-at-entrance students; examples include establishing an honors program, consideration of a nationally competitive forensics program, and provision of specialized advising for graduate and pre-professional schools and post-baccalaureate fellowships.
• Design data-collection systems to track alumni placement in graduate schools and careers.
• Continue and expand opportunities for student-faculty research across the disciplines; where possible, emphasize visible products, e.g., the Japanese-American internment CD.
• Complete fund-raising for endowed chairs in music and religion; plan for chairs in science and business.
• Convene task force on academic profile to identify additional action steps.
• Explore collaborations with other institutions and entities to enhance academic offerings, e.g., international partnerships, distance learning.
• Explore possibility of including graduate research in the research conference at the end of each year.

Benchmarks:

• Admitted Student Questionnaire data will show an annual positive increase in images associated with academic quality.
• Graduate Record Exam data will show Whitworth graduates in the 25% related to peer-institutions.
• Graduate and pre-professional school admissions will rise by 50% by 2010
• Alumni Survey data in 2007 and 2010 will continue to show alumni satisfaction with their Whitworth education is at the 90th percentile.
• Collect evidence of student learning to demonstrate student achievement of educational principles listed in the catalog.

Goal 2
Ensure that Whitworth's mission to honor God, follow Christ, and serve humanity is embodied in academic priorities that serve as hallmarks of the institution and that affect all of the college's students. These priorities include the integration of faith and learning, civic engagement, cross-cultural learning, and theological reflection on vocation.

Actions steps include:

Integration of faith and learning

• Evaluate general education, academic majors and programs, and faculty effectiveness by including attention to integration of faith and learning.
• Plan for and initiate in-depth faculty development for pre-tenure faculty to enable them to deepen their understanding of Whitworth's mission and the ways in which they can contribute from their own faith traditions.
• Host national conference on human nature through the Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith and Learning.

Civic engagement

• Submit multi-year, cross-disciplinary grant proposal focused on engagement in the Spokane community and related to the new Regional Learning and Resource Center in Weyerhaeuser Hall.
• Continue collaboration with Student Life in service-learning.

Cross-cultural learning

• Clarify general-education objectives and increase curricular offerings that help prepare graduates to be effective citizens of a diverse U.S. and world.
• Increase study-abroad and teaching opportunities for both faculty and students, in Jan Term, summer, and semester-long terms; and investigate such opportunities as part of a regular teaching load and/or as part of an overload and investigate the feasibility of establishing permanent site(s) abroad via the business model presented in the ad hoc International Education Committee white paper.
• Establish policies and procedures for the recruitment of international students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as faculty and staff.
• Look for ways of integrating U.S. students of color and international students in order to promote cross-cultural understanding.
• Design an organizational structure to administer effectively all aspects of international efforts.
• Assess the on-campus study, study-abroad programs, and co-curricular experiences to determine how well cross-cultural learning goals are being met.
• Pursue and develop international partnerships that provide a collaborative model for enhanced international educational experiences for students, faculty and staff.
• Initiate a pilot project of hiring nontraditional visiting professorships for the purpose of providing value-added education in international education.

Theological reflection on vocation

• Support academic departments (in collaboration with the Career Services Center and the Weyerhaeuser Center) in integrating vocational/theological reflection within their majors.

Benchmarks:

• Comparison of freshman and senior interviews will reflect a rise in student understanding of and engagement with the themes above.
• Senior CIRP will reflect deeper understanding of these themes, compared with the freshman CIRP data.
• Alumni Survey of 2007 and 2010 will continue to show that alumni satisfaction with their Whitworth education is at the 90th percentile; there will be a noticeable increase in civic engagement as reported by post-2006 graduates.
• Murdock and Lilly assessments will reflect the positive results of those initiatives.
• Cross-cultural assessment tool will indicate seniors have a deeper understanding of and appreciation for cultural differences.

Goal 3
Continue to support a select number of graduate and nontraditional programs which relate to the mission, are designed for a viable target market, and will be recognized for their quality.

Actions steps include:

• Evaluate current programs and organizational structures to determine changes and/or additional support needed to ensure appropriate academic quality.
• Assess the potential for new majors and programs to enhance the academic profile of the college, e.g., a graduate degree in theology or a doctorate in education; use criteria identified by the Academic Study Group.
• Determine the optimal size of graduate and nontraditional programs, and provide the support and structures necessary, as they relate to Whitworth's undergraduate program.
• Continue to position the college with technology, training, and development of pilot programs to pursue online delivery in programs to be selected.

Benchmarks:

• Exit interviews and employer surveys indicate that alumni from these programs are satisfied and successful.
• Annual enrollment goals are met.
• Assessment of distance-learning pilot courses or programs is used to design the next pilot, whether in traditional or nontraditional programs.

Goal 4
Strengthen the intellectual climate and ethos of Whitworth College.

Actions steps include:

• Encourage investigation of courses, majors, and programs that provide cross-disciplinary intellectual challenges and help address changing curricular needs of students.
• Increase the number and diversity of speakers, artists, and films offered on campus, e.g. a film and lecture series on Core themes.
• Collaborate with Student Life to identify significant, timely, controversial topics and present both sides to model civil debate.
• Evaluate student and faculty use of the library and technology and the effects of these resources on the intellectual climate of the college.
• Expand the undergraduate research conference to include more disciplines.
• Host regional and national disciplinary conferences for faulty and/or students.
• Continue to add visual art to the Whitworth campus, both inside and outside campus buildings.

Benchmarks:

• Student presentations at the undergraduate research conference will double by 2010 and will include 3/4 of the academic departments.
• Student audiences at Speakers & Artists events will increase faster than increases in overall enrollment.
• Art holdings will increase.
• Senior interviews, senior CIRP data, and Core Worldview essays will indicate that more students have been challenged to think deeply regarding complex ideas, particularly as ideas relate to implications of their worldviews.

Goal 5
Strengthen faculty development and support to enhance effective teaching and meaningful scholarship.

Actions steps include:

• Support significant faculty scholarship, in addition to faculty-student scholarship, through foundation grants and increased awards from Whitworth's endowed faculty-development fund.
• Administer the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to students as a roadmap for planning faculty development in pedagogy based on learning theory.
• Review non-teaching assignments of faculty to determine whether a different academic structure would enable faculty to do more teaching and scholarship and less administration, e.g., two half-time assistant deans in place of 17 department chairs.
• Investigate peer models of individualized faculty contracts to use individual strengths most effectively.
• Analyze faculty credit hours to determine how to spread workloads more evenly.
• Provide faculty development in linking technological tools with learning objectives.

Benchmarks:

• NSSE data will indicate that the majority of faculty are using pedagogy that effectively engages students.
• Survey of Student Satisfaction shows increased student benefit from teaching and advising.
• Faculty workloads compare favorably with those of peers in the national Delaware study.
• Longitudinal comparison of HERI faculty-survey scores over 12 years shows increased achievement and satisfaction among Whitworth's teacher-scholars.
• More than 90% of the regular faculty will know how to use course-management software effectively.

Goal 6
Strengthen academic resources including human resources, facilities, and program support.

Actions steps include:

• Define a goal for faculty-student ratio that will support the quality of student-faculty engagement for which Whitworth is known.
• Analyze the number of adjunct-taught courses over the past five years (1) to determine a target ratio of courses taught by adjuncts to those taught by regular faculty, (2) to determine needs by discipline, and (3) to decide whether a category of lecturer (in between adjunct and regular faculty) would serve the college and part-time faculty well.
• Increase the percentage of the college's operating budget devoted to instruction and academic support
• Engage consultant to assess current science facilities and assist in planning for expansion.
• Engage consultant to plan for visual and performing arts center.
• Determine date to begin programming for new athletics complex.
• Complete faculty-development endowment
• Coordinate assessment data and storage through institutional research committee oversight to provide pertinent data for decision making.

Benchmarks:

• Track college operating budget to analyze total expenditures for academic program.
• Track completion of Institutional Advancement goals.
• Determine if faculty-student ratios compare favorably by department with peers, as reflected in the Delaware study.

Goal 7
Continue to connect Whitworth's athletics programs to the college's mission and educational principles through providing quality experiences for varsity athletes.

Actions steps include:

• Evaluate the manner in which goals in the athletics philosophy statement are achieved across participants and within Whitworth overall.
• Establish a campus athletics-oversight committee, chaired by the faculty athletics representative (FAR), to provide two-way communication and dialogue on issues related to student-athletes.
• Evaluate staffing needs in view of the increasing number of varsity athletes, currently approaching 500 male and female students.
• Continue to monitor the mandates of Title IX.

Benchmarks:

• Exit interviews with graduating athletes will indicate a high degree of satisfaction with their Whitworth varsity experiences.
• Win-loss records of the varsity teams will meet the goals stated within the athletics philosophy statement.
• Athletics budget and staffing will continue to rise in relationship to increases in other academic departments and in relationship to increasing numbers of participants.
• An increasing number of Whitworth varsity athletes will be recognized by their respective conferences as leading student-athletes.