Agriculture News

I hope that you were able to enjoy the long Labor Day weekend. We are now headed toward a full semester of important work – none more important than what we do to help our students succeed.
 
There seemed to be some concerns at the Faculty Senate meeting about the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) program evaluation initiative. To clarify and expand, the Kentucky CPE has contracted with GrayAssociates to launch a program review process for all of its state funded universities. Rest assured that this program review process will not duplicate the efforts expended last year during our CAPE review. Rather, it will involve collection of university data that will be used to determine what programs are operating well, what programs could be improved and what resources would be required, what programs are needed but currently not offered, and where there is program duplication. At WKU, this process will begin within the next month with final outcomes projected for early spring. Gray will provide a Program Economics Platform to calculate cost and revenue, offer tools for tracking program performance, and complete a Program Planning Model to help understand the impact of program decisions on enrollment, completions, and demographic targets. I’m excited about being able to use the outcomes to help inform our CAPE Transformation Process. For those of you that would like to see more information, I have attached the PowerPoint presentation from our initial meeting with Gray.
 
The Transformation Taskforce met last week and developed a process to guide the program transformation work. This process provides a framework, guiding questions, suggestions for information and data to consider, and a suggested timeline.  Because some program faculty began transformation discussions last semester and some will begin the work soon, the document provides flexibility for completion of the work and submission of transformation plans. We hope to disseminate this process document to departments within a week or so.
 
Within the next couple of weeks, we will launch national searches to fill the positions of Vice President for Enrollment and Student Experience (co-chairs Cheryl Stevens, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Amanda Trabue, Vice President for Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement), Associate Provost for Research and Graduate Studies (co-chairs Bruce Schulte, Associate Vice President for Strategy, Operations, and Accountability, and Tania Basta, Dean of the College of Health and Human Services), and Director of the School of Media (chair Kristina Arnold, Department of Art).  Parker Executive Search will provide professional services to support these searches.  We anticipate that these positions will be filled in time for a start date of July 1, 2020.  In addition, faculty searches approved through the CAPE Grow/Enhance designated programs will also be initiated this fall.
 
Thank you for the work you do.
 
Sincerely,

Cheryl Stevens