Strategic Focus Area 3: Academic Excellence

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Associate Provost for Academic Operations, Accreditation and Assessment

• Tactic 1: Design faculty-led processes to create and administer interdisciplinary programs across academic units.
• Tactic 2: Ensure academic rigor and quality in all majors and programs to meet regional and professional accreditation standards.
• Tactic 3: Implement HLC Assessment Academy as S&T’s Quality Initiative.
• Tactic 4: Articulate learning objectives and curriculum maps for all programs/majors to help students make informed decisions about selecting courses and degree programs.
• Tactic 5: Design a process to internally review the sustainability of all degrees and certificates by tracking their enrollments and graduation rates.
• Tactic 6: Update the process for external department reviews into a comprehensive process.
• Tactic 7: Articulate course learning outcomes and document them in all syllabi and in the course catalog, and assess progress through S&T’s HLC Quality Initiative: participation in the HLC Learning Academy
• Tactic 8: Ensure consistent web presence for academic programs and faculty.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Vice Provost for Online Education and Educational Innovation

• Tactic 1: Restructure the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence (CAFE) in to support teaching excellence in all programs.
• Tactic 2: Create CAFÉ training related to effective course and program assessment.
• Tactic 3: Establish new teaching evaluations with the Committee for Effective Teaching (CET) (mid-semester and end-of-semester evaluations together with CET observations and the Peer Evaluation Team).
• Tactic 4: Improve the graduate teaching assistant (GTA) training program.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Associate Provost for Academic Operations, Accreditation and Assessment

• Tactic 1: Plan and implement affordable dual enrollment offerings with high schools to strengthen the region’s college readiness, leveraging existing transportation options to Rolla.
• Tactic 2: Develop a unified general education curriculum consistent with accreditation requirements and Missouri Core-42 guidelines with appropriate levels of student choice and ease of transferability.
• Tactic 3: Develop methods to assess the general education curriculum and dual enrollment programs.
• Tactic 4: Pursue partnerships with community colleges to facilitate ease of transfer for students with associate’s degrees.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

• Tactic 1: Diversify and update undergraduate programs through new emphasis areas, certificates, or concentrations.
• Tactic 2: Simplify pathways to graduation by applying the results of curricular analytics to curriculum maps and modularizing courses and prerequisite chains accordingly.
• Tactic 3: Encourage and incentivize the creation of interdisciplinary majors and programs.
• Tactic 4: Using agreed-upon metrics, create, enhance, sunset, or redesign majors and/or programs.
• Tactic 5: Explore the potential for developing a more robust honors program to recruit, retain, and develop outstanding students.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Interim Vice Provost for Online Education and Educational Innovation

• Tactic 1: Coordinate student marketing and pricing models.
• Tactic 2: Develop plans for face-to-face offerings of non-thesis master’s programs in St Louis.
• Tactic 3: Evaluate the feasibility of moving non-thesis master’s courses to shorter terms (e.g. eight-week blocks).
• Tactic 4: Develop new high-demand master’s programs.
• Tactic 5: Leverage or market appropriate 4+1 programs for non-thesis master’s degrees.
• Tactic 6: Develop or adopt metrics to assess the need for new master’s programs and differentiate them from research graduate programs.
• Tactic 7: Explore new options for professional master’s programs in order to diversify our offerings.

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Vice Provost of Graduate Education

• Tactic 1: Review and revise our online PhD programs.
• Tactic 2: Grow marketing and recruitment of graduate students into appropriate non-thesis master’s programs and research (i.e. thesis master’s and doctoral) programs, as appropriate.
• Tactic 3: Pursue dual PhD programs to attract outstanding PhD students and leverage shared funding programs.
• Tactic 4: Explore new opportunities for online professional doctoral programs (e.g. D.Eng. Ed.D., DBA).

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Associate Dean for Academic Programs

• Tactic 1: Investigate, evaluate, and develop executive education programs.
• Tactic 2: Establish a process for regularly seeking alumni and corporate input on new programs and course modalities based on market need.
• Tactic 3: Establish a cost model for executive and corporate educational activities, including the potential for compensation across college boundaries.
• Tactic 4: Set up a website for off-campus programming.
• Tactic 5: Expand corporate programs and course offerings in the St. Louis area and investigate other potential locations..

Strategy Group Accountable Person: Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

• Tactic 1: Develop funding models to ensure that academic priorities will be adequately resourced, including graduate student support, start-up costs, library needs, and additional teaching from other departments.
• Tactic 2: Survey alumni and corporations to investigate future educational topics and delivery modes.
• Tactic 3: Create a website devoted to off-campus programs.
• Tactic 4: Hire staff support for the St. Louis location.

Grow enrollment to 12,000 students; Achieve a top 100 ranking. Attain Carnegie R1. 

Student Success; Engagement and Outreach; Research and Creative Works.