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Planning
Strategic / Tactical plan components
Mission / Vision statement
Initiative (Goal set)
Goal (Objective set)
SWOT analysis
Ctrb: SWOT weakness
Parents
SWOT analysis
Children
Ctrb: A common concern of faculty is that transfer courses do not have the rigor and focus that courses within their own institutions have, and thus transfer students do not do well in subsequent courses. 2.7.13
Ctrb: A delivery and management system for competency self-paced programs does not yet exist 2.4.4
Ctrb: Administrators are typically not trained in fund raising 5.7.4.1.3
Ctrb: Advanced, flexible, multipurpose, and experimental classrooms and learning spaces are not widely available. 3.2.1.1
Ctrb: As on-campus enrollment grows and personnel are hired to support this there will be a shortage of office space 3.1.2
Ctrb: Assessment committee structure not in place to support peer review and monitor standards 1.3.2
Ctrb: Bottleneck in our capacity to design new online courses. Professional support not tied to number of programs in pipeline. 2.4.2.3
Ctrb: Budget to train faculty for course design 1.3.5
Ctrb: Career advising is focused toward the end of the students course of study instead of at the beginning where it may influence choice of major 2.5.1.1
Ctrb: Career services only engages with a small percent of our undergraduate students and few, if any, graduate students. 2.5.1.1, 2.11.3
Ctrb: China program is perceived to have low academic standards 1.4.16
Ctrb: Collaborative space/seminar rooms are in short supply 3.1.3
Ctrb: Common support services for underrepresented populations have never been pursued (e.g. TRIO programming). 2.10.5
Ctrb: Costs for supplementary course materials like text books are very high with the result that many students do not purchase them on time if at all. 2.9.2
Ctrb: Course surveys provide high level indicators for course improvement but not enough detail for action 2.8.2
Ctrb: Cycle time for course design improvements (faculty and tech time to work) 1.3.5
Ctrb: Department chairs need an early warning from students to determine if there are significant issues with a course so that interventions can be planned. 2.8.5
Ctrb: Departments may not have good metrics related to program quality. 1.3.1
Ctrb: Difficult to renovate and occupy facilities at the same time. 3.1.3
Ctrb: Directional signage and room number sequencing needs to be improved 3.1.3.2
Ctrb: Disproportionate use of time for assessment (3.4.2)
Ctrb: Do not have systems to match student aptitude to career path and appropriate majors 2.5.1.1
Ctrb: Evaluation does not span modalities 2.8.1.5.1
Ctrb: Evaluations are too heavily weighted toward student opinion and need to be balanced by peer, chair and self-evaluation and reflection 4.2.5
Ctrb: Excessive faculty advising loads in some programs, especially those with a high use of adjuncts 4.2.8.5
Ctrb: Existing protocols are not in place for evaluation of programs 2.1.1.2
Ctrb: Faculty and staff growth have not kept up with institutional growth 4.1.10.4.4.9, 1.3.5
Ctrb: Faculty are not currently compensated for review of PLA ePortfolios 2.1.1.2
Ctrb: Faculty are teaching too may course overloads to do all well 1.1.1.2
Ctrb: Faculty frequently report that students in their courses are so focused on the grade that they lose sight of the learning and personal growth they are achieving. 2.7.22
Ctrb: Faculty pedagogical developmental resources are nearly exclusively focused on technology to the detriment of non-technological approaches 2.7.6
Ctrb: Faculty workload capacity to develop additional delivery mechanisms for courses and programs 1.4.17
Ctrb: Faculty/staff time for evaluation of prior learning assessment 2.1.1.2
Ctrb: General lack of preparation for university level courses in our students. 2.2.4
Ctrb: Graduate student offices are not always available 3.1.3
Ctrb: Grant achievements are lower than our peers 1.4.15
Ctrb: Higher fail and dropout rate in online courses, especially for traditional students 2.4.3
Ctrb: Housing in Town is unusually expensive given the region, and new faculty and staff find it challenging to find affordable housing 3.3.2
Ctrb: Housing prices 3.3.2
Ctrb: In a larger department - one department chair, so little time 3.4.3, 5.3.3, 5.3.8
Ctrb: In class review of teaching needs to be a requirement and too much emphasis on student evaluations, which are not representative 4.2.5
Ctrb: In some departments lower level courses tend to be taught by less senior faculty 2.7.8
Ctrb: Inequitable application of quality improvement across all modalities including international programs 5.1.2
Ctrb: Inflexibility to address client needs for programs (1.1.2.1)
Ctrb: Infrastructure 4.5.6
Ctrb: Institution does not provide developmental courses for ill prepared students outside of math and English 2.9.3
Ctrb: Institution is not listed for institutional rankings in national and international rankings 1.4.9.1
Ctrb: Instructor classroom assignments are based nearly exclusively on course enrollments. It is difficult for instructors to get assigned rooms based on their need for technology, furniture and the room layout that supports their teaching style. 3.2.2.3
Ctrb: Instructors are frustrated by the range of academic preparation the students entering their classes possess. Freshman preparation varies by the strength of the individual high schools from which they originate. Strong students feel unchallenged and weak students overwhelmed by the pace and content of the course. Instructors feel they have to constantly repeat foundation material in their courses instead of focusing on class appropriate content. 2.7.13
Ctrb: International students, in cross border and programs in Hays, would perform better if English language proficiency were better 2.2.5
Ctrb: Isolated Location 4.1.12
Ctrb: Lack capacity to serve a wider network of adult learners 2.4.2, 2.1
Ctrb: Lack of a clear mission for Learning Technologies (formerly CTELT) 2.7.7
Ctrb: Lack of accreditation for College of Business (1.4.8)
Ctrb: Lack of capacity to provide reassigned time and fund instructional load. 1.4.17
Ctrb: Lack of clarity in learning expectations and curricular maps may cause inefficiency and unplanned redundancy in some programs (2.6.1)
Ctrb: Lack of clarity in the planning and process for major fund raising initiatives across departments 5.7.4.1
Ctrb: Lack of interim housing for staff and faculty transitioning to the Towncommunity 3.3.2
Ctrb: Lack of Ombuds person 4.2.9
Ctrb: Lack of standard format for position descriptions and evaluation. 4.2.1
Ctrb: Lack of standardized delivery may be challenging for some students 2.4.5
Ctrb: Lack of support, particularly in the colleges, for assessment efforts 1.3.3.1
Ctrb: Lack of uniform agreement about what constitutes good teaching 4.2.2.1
Ctrb: Lack training for budget processes and financial systems, CICS, and other administrative systems 4.3.7
Ctrb: Lecturing is still the default mechanism for delivery of content and classroom are still as the primary location where content delivery occurs 2.7.9
Ctrb: Low graduation rates (addressed through multiple initiatives to improve student success)
Ctrb: Low or non-competitive salaries in some departments 4.1.4
Ctrb: Low response rate to instructional evaluation and lack of understanding among the students as to their importance and impact 2.8.1.5
Ctrb: Many faculty are not trained well enough to conduct peer observations of teaching, especially for online courses. 2.8.3
Ctrb: Many of our UG degree programs require more than 120 credit hours to complete (1.2.5)
Ctrb: Many students are not aware of the broad set of support services available to them 2.9.6.1
Ctrb: Meet and confer unit has controlled distribution of faculty raises 4.2.2.4.1
Ctrb: Meritorious performance may align with years when there are no salary increases 4.2.2.4.7
Ctrb: Multisection courses and courses delivered across modalities and borders may suffer from curricular drift 2.7.10
Ctrb: Nearly all classrooms on campus are designed to support the sage-on-the-stage model of instruction. An ongoing shortage of classrooms reduces opportunities to redesign learning spaces for a more active student centered approach and create specialized classrooms (movie theater for film studies, group based high tech rooms etc.). 3.2.2.2
Ctrb: Need external validation of course quality, particularly online 1.3.3
Ctrb: Need to do a better needs assessment to understand what development opportunities faculty and professional staff need 4.3.3.3
Ctrb: Need to provide students with richer feedback on their learning achievements within courses so they can improve performance 2.7.22
Ctrb: No consistency in award programs across campus. 2.12.4
Ctrb: No dedicated writing team to move ideas to funded ideas 1.4.15.1
Ctrb: No deliberative approach to international distance learning 2.4.8
Ctrb: No governance representation for many unclassified staff 4.1.10.4.3.2
Ctrb: No recent survey on classroom adequacy or satisfaction with learning spaces. 3.2.2.3.1
Ctrb: Non-credit developmental courses cost the students but do not progress them toward the degree 2.2.4.1
Ctrb: Non-developmental academic interventions such as supplemental instruction, structured learning assistance, Math Emporium model, and bridge programs have not been implemented at Institution. 2.9.3
Ctrb: Not all areas assessed equally or have accreditation 5.1.3
Ctrb: Not all fees are included in the official list and therefore may not be eligible for student aid (5.5.2)
Ctrb: Not all programs/departments have advisory boards or national standards for their curricula 1.3.1.3
Ctrb: Not enough informal meeting spaces proximal to classrooms where discussions with students can continue after class 3.2.2.5
Ctrb: Only a small proportion of our courses offer experiential learning opportunities and they are hard to identify 2.6.1.2
Ctrb: Opportunities for promotion or advancement 4.2.7.3, 4.2.7.4
Ctrb: Our students do not always appreciate the value of faculty contact and small classes they think this is normal 2.6.6.2
Ctrb: Overload work does not allow sufficient time for scholarly and creative activities 4.1.10.1.2
Ctrb: Paucity of supplemental learning instruction (SLI students who complete the course offer voluntary free weekly tutoring classes) and supplemental learning assistance (SLA faculty offer required and paid for co-requisite course in foundation material) programs which are more effective that developmental courses 2.2.4.2
Ctrb: PLA program lacks the management resources needed to grow and be more effective 2.1.1.1
Ctrb: Placement tests produce large numbers of false negatives and positives resulting in students being placed in inappropriate courses 2.2.4.1
Ctrb: Planning tends to assume current program and university size rather than accommodation of growth. 3.2.1
Ctrb: Post grant award management 1.4.15.1
Ctrb: Professional soft skills are not being polished. (see Liberal Education Plan)
Ctrb: Program learning outcomes and their achievement rates are not available to students 2.6.5
Ctrb: Program learning outcomes and their achievement rates are not currently published on the public web site for all programs 1.1.9.2
Ctrb: Programs do not have assessment plans with accompanying plans for quality improvement. 1.3.2
Ctrb: Prospective students may not be willing or able to leave their communities to attend Institution 2.4.1
Ctrb: Questionable ROI on the addition of articulation agreements 2.3.2
Ctrb: Referral rates by faculty for tutoring services are unknown but need to be tracked to ensure students are encouraged to take advantage of these services 2.9.4
Ctrb: Relatively open admission standards (improve reputation and promote institution through numerous initiatives listed below)
Ctrb: Reliance on 12-credit hour teaching loads affects scholarly productivity 1.4.17
Ctrb: Small on-campus graduate student presence and limited number of research assistants 2.7.14
Ctrb: Soft admissions standards correlate with the need for greater learning support resources. 5.6
Ctrb: Some faculty are reluctant to develop online versions of their courses for fear of losing the intellectual property rights to the content. 2.4.6
Ctrb: Some faculty hires to fill slots without adequate background in research 4.1.1
Ctrb: Some instructors feel it is their charge to weed our weak students rather than helping them to succeed 2.7.13
Ctrb: Some programs force students to take too many major courses before they have had the opportunity to explore through the Liberal Education program and elective opportunities 1.2.5
Ctrb: Student educational goals and our goals with respect to retention may differ. 2.10.3
Ctrb: Student group learning activities are frequently contentious as well-prepared students carry most of the load for each group while less prepared students coast. 2.7.13
Ctrb: Student perceptions of our enrichment and academic rigor are questionable 1.4.5
Ctrb: Students (and instructors) may be unclear about what they are expected to achieve in their courses. This problem is further amplified when the learning objectives of the majors and minors are unclear. Without this information students are unsure how courses tie together into a cohesive program. Without a clear curricular map students and advisors find it difficult to determine what courses are needed to complete majors/minors and conduct what-if scenarios when considering choosing or switching to a major/minor. 2.6.1
Ctrb: Students are not provided with an easy mechanism to alert chairs to issues related to faculty performance of their duties and inappropriate behavior 2.8.5
Ctrb: Students are unsure about what prior knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the courses they are about to undertake. Those who happened to take appropriate prior courses do well while those who did not struggled in the course. 2.7.13
Ctrb: Students cannot try out multiple majors without losing course credits 2.5.1.3
Ctrb: Students do not have access to rigorous course evaluation data and therefore make use of systems like RateMyProfessor.com. The return rate on end of term surveys is poor because students receive no direct benefit from completing them. 2.6.4
Ctrb: Students do not have opportunities to experiment in new areas in which they are unsure of their performance capabilities without a large risk to their GPA 2.7.23
Ctrb: Students do not know how to be good students and what to expect of the Higher Ed system 2.2.3
Ctrb: Students do not understand and rarely attempt or are asked to integrate materials across courses or disciplines. 2.7.13
Ctrb: Students have no access prior to registration to documents, such as course syllabi, that explain the purpose, difficulty level, and content of the course. 2.6.2
Ctrb: Students see each course as a hurdle to be overcome and promptly forget most of the course material as soon as the final is complete. 2.7.13
Ctrb: Students who enter without a declared major tend to have higher dropout rates 2.5.2
Ctrb: Term lengths are all currently 16 weeks and may need to be more flexible to attract post traditional students in the online market 2.4.4
Ctrb: There are limited opportunities for moving into leadership 4.3.7.5
Ctrb: There is no scheduled review process for current online courses 1.3.3.2
Ctrb: There is no training program for faculty wishing to participate in PLA 2.1.4
Ctrb: There is spotty interest and participation in the current faculty awards process. 2.7.27
Ctrb: There may be a perception that administration do not listen to faculty and staff input 4.1.10.4.4
Ctrb: Though it is growing, limited number of faculty seeking external funding 4.4.3
Ctrb: Too few of our excellent students apply for national awards and programs such as Fulbright 1.4.3
Ctrb: Too many choices to be made by student all at once 2.5.5, 2.5.3
Ctrb: Understaffed office for external funding assistance 1.4.15.1
Ctrb: Variability in faculty advising qualifications, knowledge of the Gen Ed and variety of programs available, and individual capability 4.2.8.4
Ctrb: We are not helping international students find optional practical training (OPT). 2.11.6
Ctrb: We currently only have a rudimentary prior learning assessment program 2.1
Ctrb: We do not bring enough visitors to campus from other Higher Ed institutions for conferences and meetings 1.4.10
Ctrb: We do not compare learning outcome achievement rates between F2F, Online and cross-border programs 1.3.2
Ctrb: We do not do a good job of promoting the expertise of our faculty and access to them by the press etc. 1.4.11.1
Ctrb: We do not provide performance data to and therefore opportunities for feeder institutions to improve the level of preparation of the students they send us. 2.2.1, 2.2.2
Ctrb: We don't have a campus portfolio system for students that can follow them post-degree. 2.11.1.1
Ctrb: We don't necessarily know what student educational goals actually are. No incoming goal assessment. 2.10.3
Ctrb: We have not been good at promoting the institution and its achievements 2.6.6.5
Ctrb: We have not been successful significantly increasing on-campus enrollment 5.6.2.1
Ctrb: We have not inventoried all fees charged to students 5.5.2
Ctrb: We have not maximized opportunities for accreditation where possible 1.4.8
Ctrb: We have not yet developed measures of value i.e. learning delivered in proportion to Ctrb: cost (1.2.1)
Ctrb: We lack a good set of measures to indicate the overall quality of instruction at the University 2.7.1, 2.7.2, 2.7.3
Ctrb: We lack clarity on what is expected of our incoming students as they enter our courses and need mechanisms to assess that readiness and redress it 2.2.4.1.2
Ctrb: We lack uniform mechanism for placement across most GEN-ED offerings. 2.2.4.1
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Ctrb: While faculty are interested in improving retention many need help with strategies to do so. 2.10.8
Ctrb: While our faculty have the greatest contact and intelligence about our students not enough of them are reporting information on students in jeopardy 2.10.1.5
Ctrb: With so many of Institution students being the first in their families to attend university, students lack agency and self-regulation in the learning process. 2.2.3.1
Ctrb: Workload saturation of faculty (perceived or real) (1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.2)
PM: Weaknesses
Jumps
Type: SWOT weakness