Academic Affairs News

Although we are only a few weeks into the new year, many exciting opportunities and initiatives are underway that I am pleased to share with you today:
 
Student Success Summit
On January 17th, WKU hosted 226 attendees at its 6th annual Student Success Summit. Each year, the summit provides an excellent forum exploring cooperative and collaborative ways to position our students for success. As we continue to implement the strategic plan, it is essential we persist in examining and improving our practices in service of our students. I wish to thank the WKU Student Success Summit Planning Committee, presenters, those who led breakout sessions, and the faculty and staff who attended the summit. A survey will be sent out soon from academic.advising@wku.edu.  Please take a moment to provide your feedback, suggestions for a 2020 keynote speaker and topics of interest that you would like included in next year’s summit tentatively scheduled for Thursday, January 23, 2020.
 
Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL)
Dr. Marko Dumančić and the talented CITL team are diligently working with colleagues across disciplines to support our exceptional faculty in developing, enhancing and implementing evidence-based high impact practices that empower our students to persist and succeed.
 
WKU has partnered with The Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) to offer an immersive and practical two-semester online course that prepares faculty primarily engaged in high enrollment courses to use research-based techniques that are shown to positively influence and impact student persistence.  Thirty-two faculty members representing all colleges and several disciplines have already joined this inaugural cohort. Upon successfully completing the program, the participants will earn a national credential in effective instruction.
 
CITL has also begun offering training sessions on how departments might develop effective peer-to-peer teaching observations. Peer observation is the process of an instructor being observed by a colleague for the purpose of encouraging his/her professional growth in the field of teaching and learning. The process has been shown to enhance teaching practices, build collaboration and collegiality, and improve the quality of instruction and educational experience for our students.  For more information about this or other CITL opportunities please visit their website at: https://www.wku.edu/citl/.
 
Comprehensive Academic Program Evaluation (CAPE)
The University-wide CAPE Committee membership was announced January 16th.  Eighteen dedicated individuals representing the University Senate, our five academic colleges, University Libraries, Student Success, Admissions and Global Learning & International Affairs have agreed to devote a considerable amount of time and effort to this important work. This excellent group of individuals completed evaluator training on January 24th and will have their orientation and kick-off meeting on January 31st.  The deans will provide their college’s program recommendations by February 1st and the work of the university-wide committee will begin in earnest.  We are grateful for the enormous amount of work already expended by our faculty, department heads and deans on this important initiative.  For more information about the CAPE process, please visit our website at: https://www.wku.edu/academicaffairs/cape/cape.php.
 
HIPS in the States National Conference
WKU is hosting the second annual High Impact Practices (HIPs) in the States National Conference on February 20-22, 2019. HIPs in the States is an informal association of college and university educators working to improve the quality, definitions, tracking, implementation, equity, and the assessment of high-impact educational practices through evidence-based research. Registration closes February 1. For more information or to register please go to: https://www.wku.edu/hips/.
 
I join President Caboni in congratulating everyone on improving the rates at which our students persist toward graduation.  I look forward to continuing our cooperative and collaborative efforts toward even greater success throughout the semester and the coming year.
 
Sincerely,
 
Terry Ballman