Meeting Minutes: Committee on Learning Support and Developmental Studies

Academic Committee on Learning Support and Developmental Studies
Minutes, October 27, 1998
10:00 A.M. - 2:30 P.M.

Call to Order and Introductions: Shirley Hall, Chair, called the meeting to order. She gave us a handout stating the new procedure for submitting Academic Advisory Committee Minutes and a new form for making recommendations for Learning Support policy changes to the Board of Regents.

After we all introduced ourselves, the chair introduced the new officers: Shirley Hall - Chair; Sherry Jones - Past Chair; Bill Dodd - Chair-elect; Carol Pinson - Secretary and the other members of the Executive Board: Angelia Moore, Rick Reynolds, Carol Adams, Bari Haskins-Jackson, and Janet O'Brien. She also noted "honorary" members: LaVerne Cooper, Elizabeth Ragsdale and Larry Fennelly.
Approval of Minutes: Bill Dodd made the motion to accept the minutes of the April 30, 1998 meeting. Elizabeth Ragsdale seconded the motion, which was then approved unanimously.
Central Office Reports . . . . . . . . . . . .Cathie Mayes Hudson and Kathleen Burk
Shirley Hall acknowledged our appreciation of Dr. Burk's liaison work with our Committee.
1. Dr. Hudson gave us general information about this year's three major Board of Regents (BOR) initiatives.
  1. Priority I: The Chancellor in his visits to all the System Institutions said that we must keep up the momentum so that, no matter what happens in the election, we can be in a favorable position and that we must emphasize quality by retaining and graduating more students.
  2. The Hispanic Task Force: Chaired by Southern Polytech's new president, Dr. Lisa Rossbacher, the task force is to determine whether the System is serving the Hispanic community in Georgia. The Central Office's liaison is Dr. Art Dunning.
  3. Technology: The focus here is on infusing technology into the curriculum and in delivering courses through distance education. Some of the issues here concern the old concept of service areas around each institution. Where do the students using distance education register? With the receiving institution or the sending institution? These issues will be on the BOR's November 4 agenda. The Board will develop a list of principles and a list of action items.
  Dr. Hudson said that two things will have a significant impact on our budgets two years from now: an estimated enrollment decline of 3% this year together with a 10% decline in hours generated over last fall. Historically, there have been freeze dates for data across the System within which data were collected and reported through SIRS. However, now with 14 institutions offering mini-mesters whose start and end dates and drop/add dates are different, it is difficult to find a freeze date that would be fair for all institutions. The BOR is looking into the possibility of implementing End-of-Term counts and/or End-of-Year counts.
  
  In the Systems Admissions Phase-In Report, the definition in SIRS of a first time traditional freshman is based on a series of assumptions. For instance, a student who is both international and nontraditional would be counted as international. Right now the System is "second guessing" the institutions. In order for the State Universities, Regional Universities and Research Universities to reduce the number in Learning Support by five percentage points per year, the institutions will have to declare how the student is counted. In addition, if the institutions find errors, they must make sure the data are corrected.
  
  The System is having a hard time replicating the old Learning Support Report given SIRS, but there are problems in Banner. Students who placed and then exited could be easily tracked, but the information on those students in subsequent terms was lost. The System was getting some strange numbers on last year's report. OIT says that those problems have been fixed. A new report, CIIRP, will merge with SIRS allowing us to get information on CPE placement and exit, COMPASS placement and exit and the dates these happened. Also we can get courses taken and grades, race, ethnicity, gender, SAT and ACT scores, high school GPA, previous colleges attended - all of these parameters will be reported. The Registrars in the System have been given this information, and as soon as the one holdout institution, who has very serious computer problems, sends its information, the System will compile it, and we will be able to access the information we need. This is expected to happen within two or three weeks.
  
  The Chair asked if we knew of Blacks in Higher Education and a similar publication for Hispanic educators. She said that if we were committed to diversity on our campuses, we should advertise in these publications. Then she told us that when Chancellor Portch was on her campus, she had asked him about technical schools being accredited by SACS and what that would mean to two-year colleges. His answer was that if those schools got accredited and were offering two-year degrees, they needed to be under our system. Apparently these schools are targeting the middle 50% of high school graduates - the ones who can get HOPE scholarships. They do not want the bottom half in their schools.
2. Dr. Kathleen Burk updated the items in the minutes from the April meeting. The Procedures have been revised. The recommendation we sent forward advocating maintaining the wording of the Policy calls for Learning Support to be a separate department. For the most part the wording will remain subject to some editorial changes. This was a controversial issue among a group of Chief Academic officers. Apparently some wanted to delete the requirement for a separate department. Our spokespersons, Shirley Hall and Elizabeth Ragsdale, were very convincing, so the policy will not be changed. However, in the new procedures is a provision for an institution to make a request for a different organizational structure, but the institution must provide a rationale. The official policy manual still has the OLD policies, but it will be updated. The Academic Affairs Handbook on the Web has been updated. Dr. Burk said that the four-year institutions will still have programs for non-traditional students; those departments will still exist but on a smaller scale.
  
  There was also a compromise reached to our recommendation to limit the names of departments that offer Learning Support. The names of the programs must be Learning Support, Academic Assistance, or Developmental Studies; however, the department they fall under can be something else. For instance, Georgia State has an Academic Foundations Department in which its Learning Support program falls. Even though there has been a need for some flexibility with the department names, there still needs to be some consistency among the program names.
  
  We should have already received a copy of the Regents' Test Survey results. Dr. Burk asked if there were any problems with the new COMPASS Test cutoff scores. There is a still a task force working to set minimum scores in Math and Reading.
  
  The issue of common course numbering needs to be finalized so there can be consistency across the System.
  
  Since the Chair brought up the issue of technical schools, Dr. Burk commented that because of the latest changes in SACS requirements, we are now able to consider accepting transfer credits from both accredited and non-accredited technical schools. We cannot say any more that because a school is not regionally accredited, we cannot look at its credit. This issue is being studied by the Chief Academic Officers, who are looking at a document that will tell us how we will examine credit from non-regionally accredited institutions. There is also a subcommittee of the chief academic officers, chaired by Dr. Joan Elifson, who are looking at how to make sure students cannot completely by-pass our courses by going to a technical institution, taking English and math, and transferring to one of our institutions. We need institutional policies for validating credit from courses in programs that have different purposes, like those leading to career degrees. Bill Dodd reminded us that in order to transfer in without taking the placement test, the student would have to have 30 hours. Dr. Burk agreed that this had not changed, but the 30 hours would have to be from a degree leading to a baccalaureate degree. If the hours were from a different program, then the student would be required to take the placement test. The Chief Academic Officers are meeting in November, so the System policy might be finalized within the next month or so.
  
  Dr. Burk requested that we look at the Academic Committee Web site and be sure that all the names the Presidents or Vice Presidents sent last August are correct. If corrections need to be made to the list, they must come from the President or Vice-President on each campus. (Shirley Hall commented on corrections that need to be made when we reconvened after lunch.
  
  Dr. Burk took notice of one of the issues listed for this meeting: "Need for earlier return on Regents' Test results." She said that she thought we all wanted more time to remediate the students, and that during the quarter system, five weeks just was not enough time. When we switched to semesters, she saw that as an opportunity to allow more time for remediation. The idea was to maximize the instructional time. Now, there is less turn around time at the end of the semester, and we're not getting the results back until after classes are over. Dr. Burk was amenable to having the test after eight or nine weeks if that is what we want. She is concerned when she hears that at some institutions the students were still getting just five weeks of instruction. She called for any anecdotal evidence that remediation over the longer instructional period was beneficial to the students.
  
  When asked where we stood with going to a computerized Regents' Test, Dr. Burk said that there has been little action in that direction. Computerized administration of the Regents' Test has not been included in any of the technology initiatives. When asked if there should be a motion from this Committee to have computerized Regents, she told us that in the past, groups, including ours, the Chief Academic Officers and the Council of General Education have requested it and nothing has happened.
  
  Another issue concerned whether or not Learning Support courses will be taught in the mini-mester. Dr. Burk wanted to know if we would consider doing Regents' remediation during the mini-mester and testing later or should we agree the students are "off the hook" for the Regents' Test during the mini-mester. Because the committee did not feel it was academically sound to remediate during the mini-mester, they agreed that the mini-mester should not count and that no Regents' Tests or courses would be offered at that time.
  
  In the draft for next year's Regents' Test schedule, Dr. Burk will set the test dates a week earlier to allow for an earlier return date and still have the benefit of a longer remediation period. She will survey the English Committee as well to see if they agree with the change. Comments were made that the earlier return time would also allow us to do drop/add for those who pre-registered. Dr. Burk asked if that were possible? She thought there was pre-registration and there was registration and that nothing occurred between, but apparently some institutions and some Learning Support folks do use the semester breaks to clean up schedule problems, including putting students in remediation or taking them out.
  
  Dr. Burk said that her office has changed the way the Regents' Test scores come to us. Now they go directly to the testing coordinator, who can get the results to us very quickly. Normally, the results are sent on the Friday before the Monday scheduled release. She also said that if a scheduled spring break coincides with the Regents' Test, we can schedule to have it a week earlier. There is some flexibility, so this is not a problem.
  
  There was a question concerning IIe on page two of the April 30 minutes. There was much discussion on just what a co- requisite was and how the remedial class and the credit class work together. Dr. Burk emphasized that the idea behind the co-requisite provision was not to allow students to take more courses, but to allow for supplemental instruction. The course needs to be designed to offer support to the student. The activity in the remedial course would be tied in to what the student is doing in the core course.
  - At Darton College the remedial reading course supports a number of co-requisite core courses. The reading students have a required reading lab with individualized components to assist all the reading students. For those reading students who are also in core courses, their core course instructors send reading lists and class assignments to the lab for them to work on during the required two hours each week. There was still some confusion. Dr. Burk then said that unless the institution has set up an alternative plan of co-requisites, it can not allow reading students in core courses.
  - Macon College took a different approach. Keeping in mind that a single reading course to dramatically change a student's life long reading problem is very ambitious, they designed two Learning Support electives. The first is Vocabulary for College, and the second is based on E.D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge. Neither course is required; neither will be paid by Financial Aid or Veteran's Affairs, but both are popular, especially with students who did not pass Reading and/or English in their first attempt.
  Dr. Burk then read from the BOR's Policy that the pre-requisite issue only refers to students with System requirements. Elizabeth Ragsdale said that the students who were participating in the Darton co-requisite program are the institutionally required students, not the System required ones. The Darton College program then is going beyond Policy which only refers to student with System requirements. Dr. Burk said that any institutions wishing to submit co-requisite proposals should submit them to Dr. James Muyskens.
  - At Georgia Southern University institutionally required students in a reading class are all linked for instance, to a history class. Not all the history students are in the reading class, but all the reading class is in the history class - that might be 25 reading students in a class of 200. The reading instructor goes to the history class and takes notes and then talks to the students about how to take notes and goes over vocabulary used in the history class. Georgia Southern University also links economics and psychology classes to reading.
  Dr. Burk said that institutions may propose that students make up deficiencies in Science and Social Science through courses offered by Learning Support. So far one proposal has been made for a Science CPC course. She then suggested that we should take this issue as a challenge or as an opportunity. We are saying these students are not ready for the Core science courses, but then we have them make up the high school deficiency by taking a college level science course. She said that the science course would have to have a lab component and suggested that vocabulary is an important component as well. Perhaps a Reading/Science Learning Support course would work. Again, Dr. Burk said, this would be yet another exception to the Admissions Policy, but she encouraged us to propose a method to improve the CPC delivery and they would evaluate it. Of course, the CPC is mainly an issue for the two-year institutions.
Issues/Concerns:
1. Semester Conversion for new Admissions criteria/Banner: No comments.
2. Are we going to allow students to take a non-exit level course as the third attempt?
  
  There was much discussion here. It appears that there numerous interpretations of the policy including those who feel the policy limits the student, especially in Math, to passing after no more than two semesters and having a semester (the 3rd semester) to complete the area. This student, being in an exit level course, would be permitted to appeal for one more semester (4th semester). Failure would mean an automatic three year suspension. Other directors feel that students need to be given every opportunity to pass each area. Students who make no effort or simply don't come to class, of course, don't deserve this opportunity, but the student who is genuinely making an effort should be afforded the maximum number of semesters in each area to pass. Then there are others whose interpretation falls somewhere in between including one semester suspensions somewhat like the old quarter policy. Dr. Burk said that the policy needs to be examined and changed to reflect the Regents' original intent. She asked that we come to some consensus about students who are not passing. She would like these students to be evaluated if it looks like they have a chance because to continue enrolling students who have no hope of passing makes us look like we're more interested in the students' money and not the student. Dr. Burk would also like us to come back with some data on how many students we allowed in the third semester of the first course and how many exited.
  
  The student can be in the first math course for the third semester if s/he has first been individually evaluated as having a chance of completing the program in the allotted time. Students who have made no progress will not be given the same opportunity. Institutions may or may not allow students in non-exit level course to have a third attempt. As always the institutions are allowed to have a more stringent policy than the System policy.
3. Policies for transfer students: No comments
4. Course numbering: 0097, 0098, 0099 (who is using which?): Five institutions are using 0097/0098. Both 0098 and 0099 are exit level courses, so on a transcript, a passing grade in 0098 or 0099 indicates the student has passed the exit level course.
5. Co-Listing of exit-level courses: No comments.
6. New transition policies: No discussion.
7. NADE and NADE/GA: Cindy Geoffroy asked that we promote membership among the faculty. NADE is interested in political issues such as the third attempt in lower level courses.
8. Who is having a mini-semester during the month of May - will LS courses be taught? Most of the group were against any Learning Support classes being taught in the mini-mester. Dr. Burk asked if we would allow a student to take a core course, instead. In general, we agreed that if the 20 hour rule was not violated and if the pre-requisites had been met, that we should allow a student to enroll in the mini-mester course.
9. Absence of System-wide annual report which generates comparative data: There was a discussion about the System audit. Angelia Moore asked the we be audited as it provides a means through which we can look at the enrollment patterns at all the institutions. The audit process gave us the means to follow policy because we could legitimately say that, unlike other programs, we are audited, and so need to follow policy. Annual audits also allow us to go to our Records Offices and Computer programers and ask for reports that prepare us for "The Audit." We need backup from the Central Office or somewhere to enable us to get the campus Banner folks to get us what we need. Dr. Burk says that she will follow up on why LS auditing has not been done.
  
  A question on course audits was asked. How do teachers know who is auditing and who is volunteering? One clue is whether or not the student was required to take the COMPASS or CPE for placement. If not required or if placed out of Learning Support, the student could request to audit and a "grade" of "V" would appear on the grade sheet. If the student chose to get a grade, s/he would not officially audit. One person said her registrar wanted another grade specifically for the volunteer. At this point we do not have that letter.
  
  There was another inquiry about what other institutions are using to determine who the institutionally required students are. Most said they used higher cutoffs on the placement test, so that those students who were above the System minimum on the COMPASS or CPE and below the higher cutoffs were institutionally required.
  
  There was a question about what to do when a student has pre-registered and then finds out s/he failed the Regents' Test? Some schools notify the students of what the consequences are if the student does not come in and change the schedule. Other schools have BANNER set to purge the schedule. There does not appear to be a universal method.
10. Need for earlier return on Regents' Test results: Already discussed by Dr. Burk.
11. Other? One director wondered that if Georgia placed 49th of 50 states in the U.S. in SAT scores, why are we talking about doing away with remediation? One other director noted that the Chancellor's recent "middle of the editorial page" article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution needs to be addressed with a rebuttal.
  
  The Chair stated that the Executive Committee had formed two committees as a means to encourage a continuing dialogue between now and our April meeting. The Enrollment Committee will be chaired by Angelia Moore and the Semester Conversion Committee by Rick Reynolds.
1999 Spring Conference: "Reflections and Projections Approaching the New Millennium" is the theme for the annual Learning Support Conference in Augusta, April 18-20, 1999. The Directors' meeting will be on the 17th from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. followed by the Directors' banquet. The Directors will meet again on the 18th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Conference banquet on the 18th will have as its keynote speaker, Sen. Charles Walker speaking on the needs of Georgia's higher education in the next decade.

The room rates at the Radisson Riverfront Hotel are $89/single and $99/double, triple or quads. The first call for papers has already been sent out with a November 23, 1998 deadline. A second call will be sent sometime after the new year.
Committee Reports:
1. LS Enrollment Subcommittee - The Subcommittee will gather information to comprise a list of students who applied and were accepted this year and then run it against the criteria for the Year 2001. The subcommittee would like to add questions to the survey going out to all superintendents to see how much they and their communities know about these changes. The subcommittee doesn't see P-16 serving much more than a 10th of the students it should. They also want to look at a list of those who applied for school but were not admitted and see what happened to them. Where are they? Are they in technical schools, the military, private schools, or in the work force? What happens to the ESL students? The subcommittee will be busy between now and April and will be happy if they can resolve just one of their questions.
2. Semester Conversion Subcommittee - The Subcommittee will develop a questionnaire to send to all institutions regarding issues that affect us in the semester system. These issues include how much are part-time faculty being paid, the length of the summer term, the course load of students and faculty, and the impact of the semester system on L.S. students, in general. Once the questionnaire responses are back, the subcommittee will summarize the results and send on to the Committee as a whole.
Adjournment: The Committee meeting adjourned at 2:25 p.m.

ATTENDANCE ROSTER

*Carol Adams, Chair	Bainbridge College
Tabitha Barnette, Chair	Georgia Institute of Technology
Kathleen Burk	Regents' Central Office
Pat Burns, Chair	Valdosta State University
Carol Callahan, Chair	Floyd College
Peggy Capell	Clayton College & State University
Rebecca Casey, Chair	Kennesaw State
LaVerne B. Cooper, Chair	Coastal Georgia Community College
Cindy Craig	Augusta State University
Beverly Davis, Acting Chair	University College of Columbus State University
*Bill Dodd, Chair	Augusta State University
Valerie L. Epps, Chair	Atlanta Metropolitan College
Laurence W. Fennelly, Chair	Macon State College
Judy Forbes (for Carol Pinson)	Gainesville College
Cyndee Geoffroy, Chair	Armstrong Atlantic State University
Sheryl Gowen, Chair	Georgia State University
*Bari Haskins-Jackson, Chair	Georgia Perimeter College
*Shirley Hall, Chair	Middle Georgia College
Jim Head, Chair	Dalton College
Jason Horn, Acting Chair	Gordon College
Cathie Mayes Hudsom	Regents' Central Office
Rosalyn T Jones, Acting Chair	Albany State University
*Sherry Jones, Chair	Georgia College & State University
Betsy Kidwell	Georgia Institute of Technology
Carl McDonald, Chair	South Georgia College
Penney Miller	Clayton College & State University
*Angelia Moore, Chair	Georgia Southwestern State University
Jaynie Nesmith	University College of Columbus State University
Sherrie Nist, Chair	University of Georgia
*Janet O'Brien, Acting Chair	Georgia Southern University
Joyce P. Peoples	Atlanta Metropolitan College
Rosie W. Petties, Acting Chait	Fort Valley State University
Elizabeth Ragsdale, Chair	Darton College
*Rick Reynolds, Acting Chair	Clayton College & State University
Beth Saxon, Chair	Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
Sandra Sharman, Chair	East Georgia College
Francesca B. Taylor, Acting Chair	State University of West Georgia

* Executive Committee

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Meeting Minutes: Committee on Learning Support and Developmental Studies

Academic Committee on Learning Support and Developmental Studies Minutes, October 27, 1998 10:00 A.M. - 2:30 P.M.

ATTENDANCE ROSTER

Academic Committee on Learning Support and Developmental Studies
Minutes, October 27, 1998
10:00 A.M. - 2:30 P.M.