WASC Forum

Shaping Our Future Together
February 21st, 2007

This forum took place at a time when the WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) re-accreditation process was in its final phase. The forum was an opportunity for the campus to discuss, across divisions and roles, challenging issues that emerged in both our reflections during the WASC review and our own strategic planning process. The topics discussed at this forum were:

Thank you to all who participated in this forum. Below is a record of the discussions organized by topic followed by a compilation of the responses from participants to the query: If you and our President were discussing a topic you believe of great importance, what would your advice be?

To view the topic summaries use the heading links above or in the table below. To view the detailed notes from the forum use the links to each table.

Advising

The Ideal SJSU

First Year Experiences

Curricular & Co-curricular Experiences

 

Topic Summaries.

For each topic a summary of the table discussions is provided below.

Advising Summary

The ideal with respect to advising:

What can the University, Faculty, Staff, Students do to help reach ideal:

What stands in the way:

Top 3 recommendations:

 

The Ideal SJSU Summary

What an ideal SJSU looks like:

What can University, faculty, students, staff do to help reach ideal:

What stands in the way:

Top 3 recommendations

 

First Year Experiences

What the ideal 1st year experience looks like:

What can University, faculty, students, staff do to help reach ideal:

What stands in the way:

Top 3 recommendations

 

Curricular & Co-curricular Integration

What the ideal 1st year experience looks like:

What can University, faculty, students, staff do to help reach ideal:

What stands in the way:

Top 3 recommendations

 

Table Discussions

Advising: Table 1

Notes WASC Forum 2/21/07 Table 1--Advising

What does the ideal look like?

Perfect information – as quickly as possible—must be customized (grad/undergrad, etc)-need to improve advising for transfers – ideally on campus meeting with pre-admissions counselors and major advisors a year before transfer-sci & eng using mandatory advising every semester (hold to prevent registration)—to make sure on track for graduation-need electronically and face time – what sort of electronic advising exists now (some colleges use Yahoo groups) – new degree audit just went live—do students know?-transfer credit evaluation and posting—increase knowledge and consistency of advisor training–advising has many meanings – closely related to retention—no coherent information—workload for advisors—some disagreement among which advising should be done where – business advising and bsac as an ideal model – roadmaps – communication of where to find roadmaps

Lack of commitment –no reward—idea of advising as teaching that occurs out of classroom—teaching credit—review given credit—all advisors should be held accountable—use retention and graduation as a metric to help evaluate—engineering working on center for first year frosh – resource issues – business has center – advising for students with disabilities – evaluation after advisor meetings to get student feedback – advisor training to include work with students with disabilities—consistency of information access and advisor training

Consider departmental/college orientations new to department during semester to use resources efficiently –consider more mass/group advising sessions—Department Town Hall meeting –provides updates—yahoo groups—use messaging system to contact large groups

Consider a graduation advisor in each department—publicize to students how to evaluate own progress to graduation / work of career center and career advising—advising that addresses issues at different points in the process

All advisors would have easy access to the same information and have same training—we would have a campus-wide advising council charged with assessment of advising

What can U do to help reach ideal?

What stands in our way?

Top 3 recommendations

Advising: Table 2

What does the ideal advising experience look like for:   students – grad, undergrad (native, transfer), international, faculty, staff.

What can the university do to help reach the ideal?   What can faculty, staff, students do to help reach the ideal.

What stands in our way right now?

Top three recommendations:

Advising: Table 3 (no information available)

Advising: Table 4

What does the ideal advising experience look like for Students – grad, undergrad (native, transfer), international; Faculty; Staff

For the Students -

• The most important from students’ perspective is the availability of advisors – when students come with questions, advisors need to be available. If advisors are not available, then there should at least be someone in the front office. If they are able to get information on their questions, they feel successful. If they leave with no information, there is a likelihood of feeling frustrated.
• Fifteen minutes of advising with the chair of department, followed by meeting with an assigned faculty advisor. In addition, have student advising every semester using a form indicating classes taken and to be taken, signed by the student and faculty advisor.
• Advising should go beyond just advising about the technicality of the curriculum (what classes to take, when) to advising the person.
• Developing a one-on-one connection with the student which will foster a connection to the department, university and also to their own learning. (Forum participant shared a story of how individual was in contact with their undergraduate advisor, years after they had graduated)
• Host open houses, having increased and accessible communication
• Being assigned an advisor will enhance accountability for the student and in turn help in student success
• Meeting with an advisor and planning out their curriculum for the year helps a student know what the expectations are for the classes for the whole year.
• Introducing students to student organizations leads to increased connections with other student and creates that student to student bond.

International Students/Graduate Students

• Making them feel welcome
• Having advisors available to provide information about the graduate program and using it as a tool to recruit prospective quality graduate students.
• Making information about the program easily available to them

Transfer students

• SJSU loses about 20 percent of transfer students in the first year.
• SJSU needs to realize that for transfer students, it is a big jump from a Junior College to coming to SJSU. So incorporating a first year Junior experience akin to the First Year experience may be a good idea.
• Issue of transfer credits may be problematic– quarter credits to semester credits.

Suggestions for all students

• Offering an interactive class involving first year students, transfer students, international students may be good idea.
• Currently, there are three orientation programs - Orientation program for freshman – mandatory; Orientation program for transfers – non-mandatory; and an orientation program for international students

Note: There was limited conversation about the advising experience from the perspective of staff and faculty. However, issues about work load were raised. Also, attempting to have an advising policy for SJSU was discussed and it was indicated that it was met with resistance with several groups/committees on campus.

What can the university do to help reach ideal? What can faculty, staff, students do to help reach the ideal?

• Provide stronger orientation and support programs for freshman and transfer students.
• Every student should have an advisor – with phone number/email address/contact info.
• Every student should have a 15 minutes meeting with the Department Chair to be introduced to the broader curricular map of the intended major.
• Students should be provided with consistent information. All the various entities should be on the same page - university advisors and department advisors. There needs to be consistent information across the university.
• Student Advisement Center should only advise pertaining technicality of general education requirements.
• University should focus on ensuring that the college experience for the student is memorable. Focus should extend beyond curricular issues to a co-curricular emphasis. • Every student should have a written program plan which should be housed in the department computer. The department should be locus of advising.
• Each department should make mandatory the written plan for every student. If possible enter it into Peoplesoft as a central repository of information. (It was noted that currently Peoplesoft only has comment fields and does have the ability to enter/record the list of classes every student needs to take).
• Certain faculty should be identified in the department and given a 0.4 release time for the year for advising. This ensures consistency in advising across the department as well as centralized advising.
• A strategy employed in certain departments is to mix and match courses between General Education and Departmental core requirements.
• Departments should have an Advising Coordinator who is responsible for meeting with the students and then assign them to specific emphasis advisors based on the student interest.
• Department should have a folder on each student, kept in the office. Students are encouraged to meet with their advisor every semester for advising.

Issue was raised about students that change their major several times prior to graduating. Some solutions discussed to address this scenario were:

• Have an Open House for undeclared students. Maybe require them to take a class discussing available majors, hold meetings a few times of the year, and or have social gatherings.
• Student Advisement Center is charged with undeclared major advising!
• Have a Resource Center for undeclared and transfer students - Change campus culture of being a commuter campus to have students feel like they belong here and not just be here when they are required to be here. Same was discussed for faculty as well.

What stands in our way right now?

• The lack of accessibility of advising to reflect student demographics – Given the student population (Older students who are working), advising should be flexible and available at all times.
• Lack of proper tracking of information – who is advising, what courses have been advised, etc
• Lack of allocation of advising time for faculty
• An increase in paperwork and processes required by the University which take away from time that would be and needs to be spent on advising! Faculty and staff are willing to do the additional paperwork (official hiring processes including paperwork for hiring graders, etc.) but this takes time away from advising. These processes need to be streamlined.
• Administrative work load takes away from advising.
• University should look at work load allocation – 0.4 release for chair not enough to do the administrative tasks associated with chairing a department and also do quality advising.
• University should realize that students are our bread and butter. What students do not appreciate is the “campus runaround”. To enhance the quality of service the University is providing, the student affairs division hosted a culture of service training!
• Incorrect information including the online directory! Steps should be taken by correcting the information on the online directory and other processes to eliminate the “campus runaround”
• Although there is large amount of information available, at times this information is not very accessible or user-friendly. Make information on the website accessible and user-friendly!
• Bureaucracy of doing things in a particular fashion slows the process.

On this topic, what are your top 3 recommendations for the University Planning Council?

Here is the list of recommendations in the order of priority

• Faculty advisors should treat students the way they want to be treated. Advise the individual not just the technicality of the curriculum
• Make culture of service training mandatory for the staff, faculty, and administrators
• Provide in-service trainings for faculty to become better advisors
• Create mandatory tracking for every student
• Make Orientation, and/or mandatory class (1 unit), and/or classes, and/or events for Native students, transfers, international students, and graduate students mandatory
• Consistency of communication between GE advising to departmental curricular advising
• Back of the San Jose State University catalogue reading of 12 pages mandatory for all at San Jose State University

The Ideal SJSU: Table 5

The ideal SJSU – Students and working perspective for faculty & staff

• Buildings that don’t leak
• Clean Classrooms
• Windows Washed
• More parking
• Elevators in parking lots

Get in our way:

The Ideal SJSU: Table 6

What does the ideal look like with respect to working and/or studying here at SJSU?

What can the university do to help reach ideal? What can faculty, staff, students do to help reach the ideal?

What stands in our way right now?

On this topic, what are your top 3 recommendations for the University Planning Council?

1. More external funding/resources – research funding is great but fundraising from external resources is fundamental to all of this.

Faculty has to be a part of this. At some level they have to be involved.

2. The bureaucracy piece – we really need to streamline what we are doing. Combine resources where we can.

If administrative obstacles were improved, it would go a long way to improve faculty morale. It is a trickle down effect when the people at the bottom end up dealing with the problems – they just can’t do that.

3. Communication problems and sense of community

University culture needs to have a strategic plan for building and enhancing the community.

We’re doing all kinds of stuff – lots of initiatives – but they’re not all coming together.

Are there any other universities that have a demographic like ours? It seems so difficult.

UNLV, the faculty had low morale. They hired a new president and he brought in a whole philosophy of “you’re great.” He had monthly meetings with faculty and pointed out faculty successes. At first we thought it was cheesy but he really put effort into the culture… that came from the top.

When I hear the description of demographics, I see a kaleidoscope. The way that you describe the university is a beautiful thing. It’s not the “classic” tower, light, but it is truly CA at its best.

Which is why I am here. But it’s a challenge to create a coherent identity.

Our identity is in fact our demographic….

But this makes everything we’re trying to do so difficult.

We have to take what we are and communicate it –

Every time you turn the kaleidoscope it’s different.

I think SJSU has done a very good job of advertising demographics but now the piece is “what are we going to do with it” – and that’s what we’re not doing. We’re advertising it but no plan for integration and what it actually looks like as an action plan. I don’t have the answer but I think that needs to be the focus, not the advertising part.

Other recommendations:

So what should be the focus?

Hard to say. We do a good job with a few different programs but again it’s hard because of the “commuters” and the demographics etc… I work at MOSAIC and I find this challenging. Catch 22. We have some resources but how are they able to take advantage of them?

We know that a lot of our students have to work. We know industry is getting more comfortable with telecommuting. Do we have a place on campus where students can do telecommuting? That would be something where we could partner with industry.

Wouldn’t this be counterproductive to making the educational process the first priority/central in spending more time on campus?

But if they don’t have a reason for them to be here, then they won’t.

If there are programs on campus, then there is no central location for students to have a place to find out about things. At Colorado State, email blast went out every day that announced what was going on around campus. This seems like a tangible way to start the communication process. (with students)

At UNLV they have plasma screens all across campus announcing events.

They have started that here but it’s so decentralized and procedure related and there is no central system.
In addition, registration deadlines, scholarship possibilities…etc…. all of the things that have to do with students…

We need to figure out how to get the resources in place.

The Ideal SJSU: Table 7 (no information available)

The Ideal SJSU: Table 8 (no information available)

The Ideal SJSU: Table 9

What's the ideal look like?

• 3 course teaching load – more time to do research
• Faculty/staff reflective of student diversity. Retention programs for student/faculty/staff.
• Improve plant; more smart classrooms, technology infused in entire campus
• More resources: fiscal, equipment
• Easier bureaucratic structure
• Hurdles need to be reduced
• More accessibility, less paperwork, more friendliness
• Admissions
• Enrollment

• Normative to speak 2nd language
• Normative 7 year sabbatical
• People feel good about being here
• Teach students how to navigate a complex world
• Intellectual enterprise
• Students – nurture their minds
• Encourage academic excellence (Not just for students)
• Intellectual, Social, Moral Excellence
• Give students a foundation to succeed
• Take a Holistic approach to teaching
• Too many Transcripts lost; Advising is problematic
• Letter communication regarding getting in, getting out; students need to be better informed
• Produce a student population that is comfortable discussing events around the world (global)

Orientation – student, faculty, staff, administration
• Safe places on campus: theme houses
• Most faculty/staff living in close proximity
• Problem: cost of living, having differentials.

What can University, faculty, staff, students do to help reach ideal?

• Email address: students – provide a-mail address upon admission
• Nice and accessible meeting rooms easily available
• Recruit local students, more extensive programming
• Branding – need more resources
• Each of us: ambassadors
• Bench markers for admissions office, performance measures – turn around
• Staff – overlap of work! Responsibilities – need to be streamlined
• Faculty – professional development on teaching in a diverse institution
• Skills, moral and ethical commitment – diverse faculty – overload (+4 courses)
• Students used to the challenge – give everything to their courses/study
• Set high standards – support students
• Culture of being on campus for faculty
• Development of environment conducive to above
• Resources for adjunct faculty
• Physical plant – custodial staff – outsourced – disconnected
• All have name tags
• University-wide recognition and award program
• Inspire website – needs to be re-done
• Meetings between administrators and student leaders
• Interface reflecting the culture. Customer service – losing documents, transcripts very problematic

What Stands in our way?

• Culture and attitude – slow here
• Short staff, short resources. 50 years old business model.
• Change Practices; disconnect between administrative priorities, reality of students
• SJSU culture too thick on processes. Re-thinking, re-territoriality. What will work – future?
• Change a culture of ‘Yes’; too a culture of ‘No’.

Top 3 recommendations

• Administration needs to be accountable to the students
• Losing valuable input/ideas from students.
• Visible, accessible infrastructure.
• All on same page. Common branding.
• Orientation for Chairs.
• Compared to other large CSUs - high A&R complaints
• Expectations of excellence from:
• faculty – research,
• students – read,
• staff – treatment.
• Demand excellence: conduct, standards, content, process, methods

• 2-year goal: Administrative task force. Website redesign task force – Help from outside.
• Rewards and support – Language acquisition – Solid command of English, ability to communicate in 2nd language. Multi-cultural environment. Engage in a deep profound way.
• Embed in GE major co-curricular education. Senior seminar. Field placement.

The Ideal SJSU: Table 17

The ideal SJSU

What can the University do to reach the ideal? What can faculty, staff students do?

What stands in our way?

On this topic, what are our top 3 recommendations?

1. Integrated communication on all levels.

2. Increase resources, e.g., increase support staff

3. Leveraging our location, marketing our successes, building our sense of community, define our identity.

The Ideal SJSU: Table 18

What does the goal look like?

- comfortable
- accessible
o SJSU web sites, in general, are not intuitive.
o decisions are often made without adequate awareness of the affected individuals
• CMS… it is amazing how hard it is to download a roster into an excel sheet even though this is a VERY common faculty action.
• Organization is generally poor.
• Functions are often hidden, etc.
- re: working
o office space, HVA issues (e.g., DMH is a huge issue)…
o no way YRO makes sense without decent HVAC
o sharing offices is bizarre
o not enough faculty office space
o physical plant poor
o faculty child care is hard to find, is unstable, and is very expensive
- re: technology
o it is very difficult to get technology, either new or refreshed
• personal resources used to support campus resources
o licenses and tech agreements ought to be established uniformly
o it is bizarre to have many heads to the IT software…
o some services of this nature are better off centralized, despite the general strength of this campus with empowered entities
- re: studying
- re: student
o gathering places for students are effective, beginning to emerge, are desirable --- we are in a good direction
• Problem: Industrial Studies building gathering place has student places directly outside faculty offices… this is a problem when it gets warm since then have to have office windows open.
• The problem was that IS occupants were not in the loop on developing student space outside the building.
• General problem of communication with affected units/individuals
o gathering places good but should be near where students take classes
o night students need these spaces too… but typically not available after business hours
- re: physical environment
o Parking sucks. Major issue for both faculty and students.
o Clean floors (even sweeping is not regularly performed), very rare clean office floors
o Dust, etc.
o We are growing the departments but no additional space to put faculty
- Re: gathering places / community building
o Faculty dining / gathering for faculty for building community is at least as important as gathering spaces for students
- Re: inequities in resource allocation
o It appears that academic (dept and bigger programs, e.g., MUSE) are funded much less well than most others (e.g., the high gloss 2010 brochure)
o The ‘currency’ of Vacant rate puts active departments in the hole.
o Three resources:
• Personnel
• Space
• Money
- Re: Transparency
o Huge issue
o Culture of protect own
o Staff being cut to a bare minimum (or beyond?) means that often actions are taken expeditiously which doesn’t allow advertisement, consultation, or other reflective assessment
o Who is “THEY”
• “THEY” decided to build MUSE
• “THEY” decided to fund first year experience
• “THEY” prioritized some things via an opaque process (to most faculty)
• There is a disconnect between student activities near buildings that need occupant approval… but that major construction building (e.g., student space, refurbishment, etc.) does not touch on building occupants during the planning process.
- Re: workload
o For both faculty and staff the job expectations/demands are increasing
• Example is the (7 page?) job assessment reports (from chairs?)
• This form adds workload; the form does not appear to influence fiscal rewards
- Re: Morale
o School teachers, BART drivers, Prison Guards… earn more than faculty and staff.
o Bizarre shift for some Depts salary structures as they move colleges… standards of what SJSU can pay change
o More courses and more students
o Reclassification of faculty is very difficult/slow
• Such changes do not have ‘best practices’ or examples available

WHAT CAN THE UNIVERSITY DO TO HELP US REACH THE IDEAL? WHAT IS CONTRIBUTION OF FACULTY SPACE ETC.

IDEAL:
Clean & comfortable environment,
Break rooms
Community building
Feeling of treated equitably
Feeling of being respected (some of this negativity comes from Long Beach)
VISION 2010 has “first year experience” for all incoming students… need to put resources behind it
- There is a difficulty in establishing this as priority over faculty research space (never mind office space, etc.)
Advising needs to be more integrated
SJSU web sites need to be intuitive
Student driven needs assessement used to guide website

TOP 3 RECOMMENDATIONS

1. More responsive FDO (buildings, heat, and A/C in all YRO buildings)
2. Web-Site: User friendly, intuitive, comprehensive, information rich, Human Factors appropriate web-site.
3. Communication:
- Campus wide bulletin board (any faculty/staff can post… e.g., see San Bernadino)… something to increase information sharing
- Agendize communication (from administration)
- Deans town-hall meetings held monthly
o Not just top-down… fac/staff/students get to give feedback & control the conversation (e.g., “please fix the leaky toilet”)
- Spartan daily is the standard “news source” for most faculty… this does not seem ideal.

First Year Experiences:Table 10

What does the ideal first year experience look like for graduate students, freshmen, and transfer students?

What can the university do to help reach ideal? What can faculty, staff, students do to help reach the ideal?

What stands in our way right now?

On this topic, what are your top 3 recommendations for the University Planning Council and the new person coming in to lead the first year experience (FYE) programs for students?

 

First Year Experiences: Table 11

What is the ideal FYE?

• For first year student there needs to be instructor-student communication both in class and outside; encouragement; streamline technology and process; communicate expectations and make certain they are understood.
• A program to connect transfer students better to campus; they don’t know where to go and how to connect with people.
• Introduction sessions about how to do things and what to expect.
• Grad student orientation – one suggestion a student made was to connect them by program/degree area; also consider social aspects not just the academic ones.
• What about a session on PeopleSoft how to use it and what you are expected to do with it.
• Advising in the first year – need exposure early on in first year; need more guidance; have one advisor that you can go to over time and develop a relationship.
• Teach them how to be self assertive; how to work with the system.
• Peer groups – those that have already been through their FYE; learn from those that have already successfully worked their way through the system; teach others about how they’ve dealt with problems.
• Assignments to help them learn to be more self-assertive.
• Students need tools that will help them deal with obstacles when arise but don’t know how or where these tools exist.
• Tool to help students know how to apply their education to what they want to do/accomplish (in their life).
• Revisit the road map they create during the FYE process.
• Students so diverse it’s hard to have one ideal FYE.
• In some cultures people are taught not to be assertive but we may have to teach them to switch codes between SJSU culture and their home culture.
• Create a special sense of community; outside of class, extracurricular activities too.
• Need to teach them to have a voice and how and when to use it.

What can the university/faculty/staff/students do to help?

• Talking to students at the community colleges, having them take a class at SJSU before transferring.
• Need a program for linking transfers to each other like that in the College of Science.
• University-wide introduction program for grad students.
• Students don’t know what the Bursars office is and what it does. The Bursars staff setup a booth during 1st week of semester in the Student Union and talked to many students about its function, services, and where it is located (some students have the impression that the office is off campus because of its location across San Fernando). There is a need for more programs and student services units to do the same.
• If we can graduate a student without an opinion about the administration (registrars, bursars, etc.) we’ve done our job because it means those administrative units haven’t been a roadblock to students.
• Being clear about our expectations (as an instructor). In a helping mode, it is being clear about expectations but each student has a different experience. Access is also important; want to meet with every student early on to make certain expectations are understood; make certain to be available during office hours.
• Work and discussion within own group/cultural group and then with other groups of students.
• Multicultural aspect – don’t put (your) values on it? How do I have a set of tools that I can use that will help me deal with people from other cultures without losing myself/my own identity?

What stands in our way?

• At least many freshmen know they are going into a new situation, that is; they expect that college is different than high school. It’s different for grad students. They may think that the rules and systems are the same from institution to the other.
• Freshman: Get them admitted as efficiently as possibly. They are told they can’t get in because of missing paperwork but can’t find out exactly why (or what is missing). Faculty/coach can’t find out status of students they are trying to recruit. We need a faster response time. Applicants can’t seem to get in touch with the right people.
• Problems with our bureaucracy; we send a mixed message in trying to get students admitted by telling them we’ll do everything we can to help them but at the same time we say there is a higher standard because you’re at a university level now and you (the student) need to figure your own way through it. We need to smooth out how we do the process.
• First generation college students – they don’t have people with experience to guide them.
• There is not a Summer Bridge program and that is important for 1st generation college students.
• Students will try (anything and everything) to avoid having to deal with administration and/or administrative activity. “The PeopleSoft web site is a joke.” Its not functional nor user friendly and kicks you out after a few minutes. Why can’t we have a good website especially since we’re located in Silicon Valley, the heart of the hi-tech industry.
• What individuals do versus what we do programmatically?
• When doing the extra effort needed for FYE it takes time and commitment and the first question from faculty will be how much time will this take and what will I take time from in order to do this.
• Systems built to address western world; need to consider first generation students, don’t have the same guidance as others;
• There is not a strong community feeling amongst students.
• No feeling of having to pay it forward to the next generation of students.
• Go to class and go home or work; create more of a family feeling – important to start that in the first year.

What are your top three recommendations?

• A required FYE course – Develop a FYE course that helps students deal with all the aspects of transitioning to the university. This would include:
o Navigating the bureaucracy: PeopleSoft, SJSU rules in all areas of students’ lives, working with specific offices they will encounter
o Developing skills for success: Planning the undergraduate career/course road map, how to participate in class, how to talk with professors, developing their own voice
o Creating a peer support group(s), including extracurricular activities
o Negotiating student/home identities and conflicts
o Tools for negotiating specific obstacles
• Faculty workload and time; put resources behind a FYE program.
• Don’t have a one-size fits all approach; Engineering has developed some courses over several semesters to assist their students, they are not all focused purely on engineering.
• Other recommendations:
o Credits for students who participate as orientation leaders and other leadership roles.
o Student/peers who can serve as connections between various groups.
o There needs to be a core group/common interest – not necessarily academic or athletic – that connects the entering student with the university.

First Year Experiences: Table 12

What's The ideal?

The MUSE program is close to the ideal for freshmen. It is successfully nurturing a sense of belonging by preparing students academically, helping them make connections, and showing them how to navigate the admin system. The ideal experience for all new students would be similar.

Reaching the ideal

The university needs to do a better job reaching out to all new students. No matter where they come from -- high school, community college, undergraduate from another four-year institution, first-year graduate student or student from abroad.
That's because nearly all students new to SJSU need help getting questions answered, whether they are academic (for example, is what I am doing here plagiarizing?) or procedural (where do I go to get a parking sticker?).
The university could assist with the transition by improving outreach efforts to high schools and community colleges.
The university could set up a concierge that would be responsible for answering all questions, or referring students to the proper office.
The university could establish simple traditions that everyone can enjoy.
The university could plan more campus-wide events for everyone, such as the upcoming day of service.
One team member felt the university employs too many part time faculty members, resulting in too few full time faculty members to manage the work load. Perhaps the university needs to increase the number of full time faculty.
Individual colleges could assist by designing their own for-credit courses that help newcomers with the transition to our campus and to that college in particular.
Individual colleges could also set up simple events (perhaps coffee and cookies each week or term). Doing so would reduce the university's enormity to a manageable size.
Individual colleges could keep at least one office open at night for graduate students who take evening classes.
The website could be improved to make information more accessible. The search engine in particular could be improved.
The university could also set up a virtual community on the web, given heavy use of the Internet by students.

What stands in our way

It is difficult to create a feeling of belonging give the university's size (30,000 students, 5,000 employees).
Another difficulty is the fact that most students and employees do not live in or near campus.
Many students are too busy with work and school to get involved in anything that is not for credit.
Many graduate students take class in the evening when many offices are closed.
Faculty members may not see nurturing a sense of belonging as a top priority because of their workload. They might need release time, which would require money.
All this means that we need to find something one participant called "a convenient community," a community that is easy to join yet will raise the level of engagement for all.

Top 3 recommendations

1. The university should develop an office for that would coordinate all efforts to assist new students. This would include MUSE-type programs for all new students (see below), as well as a help desk for miscellaneous but important questions that come up throughout the year. In addition, the office would survey new students via email on their interests, and match them with applicable students clubs; send welcome packages via email to all new students the summer before their arrival; create and maintain an FAQ website; and coordinate a team of SJSU community members to serve on a welcome committee. On the first few days of the term, committee members would wear t-shirts saying "Ask Me."
2. The university should also establish a mandatory first-year experience for all students including transfers and graduate students. The experience would take into consideration diversity among students, offer credit for undergraduates and non-credit informational events for graduate students.
3. Individual departments and colleges should be provided resources to hold events that would nuture a sense of belonging.

First Year Experiences:Table 13


PROBLEMS AND HOW TO ADDRESS THEM

THREE TOP RECOMMENDATIONS:

Curricular & Co-curricular Experiences: Table 14

What does the ideal integration of curricular and co-curricular experiences look like?

• How students learn in class applies to the real world
• Engagement with student organizations
• Orientations
• Theory into practice, the relevance of learning
• Service learning courses, community involvement, 25% (6000 students) currently equate to 10 - 25 hours/semester
• To be competitive with the economy is to engage students at the undergraduate level
• Integrate research
• Everything that happens to the student is the curriculum; broad vision of co-curricular, such as: did I get to eat, were the bathrooms clean, was the professor welcoming, clubs/organizations, open departments in the evening, university voice mail outgoing messages utilize a clear speaking voice that is welcoming and informative, parking difficulties to be dealt with
• Entire experience when the student steps foot on SJSU campus or enters SJSU virtual campus
• Don’t separate the curricular from the co-curricular
• Next step, change the name from co-curricular or extra curricular to a name that will represent integration of the two
• Students should learn from class instruction as well as outside class experiences; mold the whole person
• Students should be independent, and be able to access university services up to 10:00 PM; hire staff in shifts, this speaks to the mission of the university
• Professors should make accommodations for their office hours focusing on the population the university serves and be responsive. Students must also have responsibilities and not a sense of entitlement
• SJSU is a unique campus due to commuting and working students; it takes students longer to graduate due to the aforementioned as well as delays in getting in classes as a result of courses only being offered at specific times during the academic year or not a sufficient number of sections. How can the university work to accommodate and make it more convenient at a certain level for the students
• There are a lot of problems with “the system” as a whole; one size fits all does not work; example: some faculty do not change with university and student needs - This needs to be fixed.
• The question is, how many campus problems cause students delay in graduation (7% take longer than 4 yrs to graduate); this needs to be addressed
• Tenure process is a management problem do not want to look at problem
• Cheating, what is the root of the problem, never try to find the root of the problem
• Build reward for student service into RTP process, not just faculty evaluation and publication, process is wrong and does not support service; instead, pushes faculty to research
• Support for faculty and staff on all venues: office environment and equipment extremely important
• Faculty living location makes a difference in terms of the time they are willing to stay on campus

What can the university do to help reach ideal? What can faculty, staff, students do to help reach ideal?

• Increase class capacity, hire more teachers – majority of new hires not willing to move to San Jose due to high cost of living
• Infra structure needs to shift in terms of fund raising
• Classrooms with technology, heat, clean bathrooms
• College of Business considering fundraising; should this occur, the fundraising will be exclusively for business faculty. What about other colleges?
• College of Business working with student clubs to support student experience under the direction of a newly formed Executive Council; all clubs receive $2500 operating money; however, the student club must submit a budget in order to receive the money. All faculty work with business students in support of the clubs. Should other colleges being doing something similar?
• If there is not enough of everything to go around, determine the one, two or three things that should be accomplished first. Ask students and faculty what their 3 recommendations would be. A consensus must be reached so that action can be taken, stop spinning wheels.
• Re-engineer the enrollment process for ease of use, to cumbersome, to difficult
• Provide services to graduate students who are involved in careers and not on campus
• More faculty, more school

What stands in our way right now?

• No clear communication to identify problems, express level of discontent
• No open lines of communication
• No acceptance of problems
• Unethical contracts by trustees, CSU system needs to revise hiring contracts

On this topic, what are your top 3 recommendations for the University Planning Council?

• Student recommendations to UPC: increase class sections, offer courses at different times, do not offer a required course only once during an academic year. Faculty recommendations to UPC: release time, or reduced teaching load; this will allow faculty more time to engage with students
• Institutional research on how curricula and co-curricula improves student learning
• It might be said that “curricula” and “co-curricula” is a false dichotomy. The curriculum is the total experience students have in school. So we need to create a responsive community to meet the needs of all students, commuter/resident, undergrad, graduate, etc. A well supported faculty, attractive, functional facilities, efficient, friendly services are all part of the deal.

Curricular & Co-curricular Experiences: Table 15

What does the ideal integration of curricular and co-curricular experiences look like?

What can the university do to help reach ideal? What can faculty, staff, students do to help reach the ideal?

What can students do to reach this ideal?

What stands in our way right now?

On this topic, what are your top 3 recommendations for the University Planning Council?

Curricular & Co-curricular Experiences:Table 16

Prior to jumping into our questions, we tried to define what “curricular and “co-curricular” means to us. The responses are as follows:

“Curricular”:
-Formal learning in the classroom that is documented and recorded (i.e. catalog)
-Where you receive a letter grade
-Happens in the classroom
-Pertains to academics (i.e. internships, utilizes academic services like tutoring center
-Degree Program
-Library is both curricular and co-curricular

“Co-Curricular”:
-Participation in professional organizations and conferences
-Involvement with leadership types of experiences that includes activities that promote
Team-building, speaking skills, and social justice events.
-Student government and both formal and informal recreational activities
-Resident Hall experience where you learn negotiation skills (roommate conflicts), independence, and community building
-Service learning
-Learning that is not related to a particular course
-Co-curricular must have some university responsibility with built in assessment and structure

What does the ideal look like with respect to working and/or studying here at SJSU?

• Creating experiences that matter where integration of co-curricular activities happens in multiple places within the class or discipline.
• Having facilitated discussions or “reflective thinking” after the co-curricular experience.
• For students to initiate “out-side” classroom experiences like attending a speaker presentation or going to a museum on their own.
• Understanding the intrinsic value of co-curricular experiences

What can the university do to help reach ideal? What can faculty, staff, students do to help reach the ideal?

• Faculty initiate or encourage co-curricular experiences by building it into the curriculum but also providing opportunities for their students that are not mandatory.
• Reward incentives for faculty by building it into their review/tenure process.
• Establish the E-portfolio for students so that they have more than a transcript to show for their entire college work
• Have co-curricular be part of the grade process
• Show that co-curricular experiences are inherently important for student’s overall college experience.
• Utilize the existing departmental and student organizations
• Continue and support first-year programs like MUSE where faculty can then serve as a mentor for the student’s entire college career.
• Need more work-study opportunities for students
• Have more retreats like Leadership Today and other events that focus on social justice issues and community building
• Encourage more student involvement with offices like MOSAIC Cross Cultural Center, Study Abroad, Career Center, and Resident Life.
• Need better infrastructure for technology support
• Provide long-term mentoring opportunities for both students and faculty
• Have faculty work more closely with Career Center, Study Abroad, MOSAIC, and Center for Service Learning

What stands in our way right now?

• No central place to advertise co-curricular events and programs on campus
• Student’s current mind-frame is to only view their education as a means to getting a degree and starting a career. They have more or less an “instrumental view” about their educational experience. “Get in and get out”. They don’t understand the intrinsic value of the “college experience”.
• Workload issue for faculty and staff.
• There is a real disconnect between the classroom theory and “real-world” experiences
• Students are busy with their class load and working one or two jobs on campus.
• Lack of common physical space for both informal and formal interactions
• Lack of parking around campus. Keeps community members and students at bay.
• Little or no funding for offices that coordinates and supports co-curricular activities on campus
• Morale is low. Faculty and staff are overworked and not compensated adequately compared to their CSU counterparts and the competitive job markets in Silicon Valley.

On this topic, what are your top 3 recommendations for the University Planning Council?

1.) Improve both formal and informal communication infrastructure
-we need to receive information from a central place
-use technology that is meaningful for students
-one e-mail system
-have more kiosks around campus
-have SMART boards in all classrooms and not concentrated in just a few departments
-be strategic with technology
2.) Foster community engagement and learning communities
-provide better funding for co-curricular programs and experiences
-create better facilities for people to hang out it
3.) Improve customer service orientation (particular with registrar’s office)
-streamlining enrollment, registration, and graduation

Participant Advice for SJSU President