Northwest Commission on College and University (NWCCU)
Annual Update for WSQA
Academic Year 2009-2010
College Name: Wenatchee Valley College
Contact Person: Susan Murray
Contact Phone: 509/682-6435
Contact email:
Accreditation recommendations to the College and year of recommendation / Actions taken by the college to address recommendations / Improvement resultsSpring 2008 Focused Interim Report
It is recommended that the college work to clearly define and publish the expected learning outcomes of each of its programs and demonstrate that students who complete those programs have achieved the outcomes. / Assessment Committee reviewed 2008-09 program outcomes reports and made recommendations to improve consistency and clarity; programs revised reports accordingly and updated with 2009-10 results. / · Program learning outcomes are clearly defined and accessible to students (published on program pages on www.wvc.edu website).
· All programs have identified means of assessment and completed a full cycle of reporting. In some cases new data sources have been secured and are being implemented to meet program assessment needs.
· This recommendation was scheduled to be reviewed by NWCCU in fall 2009; due to WVC’s participation in the pilot of the new standards and process, this review was deferred until fall 2010 (Year Seven report and visit).
Accreditation recommendations to the College and year of recommendation / Actions taken by the college to address recommendations / Improvement results
March 2009, Commission response to Year One Report (new NWCCU standards and process)
1. The Commission recommends the college more clearly define its goals or intended outcomes for its core themes. While necessarily overarching, a clearer understanding of the goals or intended outcomes for its core themes will serve as a better guide for assessment of achievement of those goals or intended outcomes.
2. The Commission recommends the college review its indicators of achievement of core themes or intended outcomes to ensure they are assessable, meaningful, and provide direct evidence of intended achievements.
3. Although not required in the Year One report, the Commission recommends the College develop and articulate benchmarks or acceptable levels of achievement for its indicators as it moves forward with its assessment activities. The Commission notes that identification of benchmarks or acceptable levels of achievement will assist both the College and the Board of Commissioners in evaluating the results of the College’s assessment efforts when it reports its effectiveness in the Year Five report scheduled for submission in Spring 2010. / The college reviewed and applied these recommendations in creating a definition of mission fulfillment and identifying indicators and benchmarking performance to identify a threshold of acceptable performance in the attainment of its mission. The majority of the intended outcomes for the core themes and the indicators used to assess performance presented in the initial Year One report have been in use at WVC over a period of years in Ends Policy reporting. As WVC addressed planning and assessment for each of its Core Themes beginning in fall 2009, review groups were convened and provided with a consistent structure. Indicators related to student attainment of learning outcomes were added for Core Themes related to instruction.
For each indicator identified for a Core Theme, the review groups:
· Identified any new or additional data sources relevant to the indicator
· Evaluated whether the objective(s) of the core theme were satisfactorily achieved, based on data for that indicator
· Described planned actions to improve attainment of Core Theme or program objectives
· Recommended targets for future performance / · Review of indicators and performance benchmarking has been completed for the college’s mission fulfillment model. Using a weighted scorecard, WVC attained 95.3% of the possible points for its 2009-10 performance on indicators of student success and community engagement.
· Core Theme review groups made recommendations in their 2009-10 review of results on targets for future performance. These recommendations are being considered in the process of aligning the college’s Core Themes and Ends Policies that was initiated by the Board of Trustees in spring 2010 and will be completed by January 2011. This work will provide a foundation for WVC’s second Year One report, to be submitted in fall 2011.
· A multi-year planning calendar integrating department/program planning, Core Theme planning, and strategic planning has been developed.
Accreditation recommendations to the College and year of recommendation / Actions taken by the college to address recommendations / Improvement results
Fall 2009, Year Three Evaluation
Given the role of distance education in achieving its Core Theme objectives, the
Evaluation Committee recommends that the College carefully consider the population of students it intends to serve and the requisite study skills and technological proficiency for students to be successful when the College selects the delivery methods of instruction. In addition, the Evaluation Committee recommends the College ensure the adequacy of the technology infrastructure to support instruction delivered by distance education methods. Finally, the Evaluation Committee recommends the College ensure that faculty and staff have the technological and pedagogical knowledge to create an effective learning environment for distance education. (2.D.1, new standards) / · The WVC Distance Learning (DL) website (http://www.wvc.edu/directory/departments/distance/default.asp) has been updated with additional information and reorganized to be more student-friendly, and includes online orientation and tutorials.
· The ITV Coordinator position description has been revised to encompass functioning as part of a team including the Distance Learning Coordinator and relevant IT staff.
· The Distance Learning Coordinator has been certified to be the campus’ ANGEL administrator.
· WVC has established a subscription to Sloan-C workshops to provide additional resources for continually improving the quality of online education.
· At the direction of the President’s Cabinet, a team of WVC faculty and staff, led by the library director, met for several months beginning in March 2010 to develop a coordinated plan for distance learning improvements addressing student preparedness, faculty development, and infrastructure needs. / · A faculty learning community group has been established to share best teaching practices.
· Faculty support is provided regarding course websites, ANGEL, Elluminate, and Turnitin.com. This includes individual consultation; workshops offered on areas identified by faculty; and redevelopment of the Faculty Teaching & Learning computer lab to be more useful to faculty.
· A grant-funded pilot group comprised of faculty and the Distance Learning Coordinator is learning and implementing the Quality Matters rubric for online course design.
· Planning efforts resulted in the development of two multi-year grant proposals, one for WVC alone and one in collaboration with another community college. These recommendations will also be considered in the institutional budget development process.
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