Institutional Effectiveness Summary Report 2006

Institutional Effectiveness Summary Report 2006

The 2006 Institutional Effectiveness summary report for Florence-Darlington Technical College (FDTC) includes the following required Institutional Effectiveness reports and assessment elements:

REQUIRED INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTIVENESS REPORTS 2006 / Majors and Concentrations on FDTC Reporting Schedule for 2006:
Results of Professional Exams / Full or Interim Reports:
Programs Eligible for Accreditation / N/A - 2006
Majors and Concentrations
Two to Four Year Transfers / Majors and Concentrations:
Advising Procedures / Health Information Management
Medical Laboratory Technology
For Future Reporting: / Radiologic Technology
Student Development and Services / Respiratory Care
Library Resources / Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning Technology
Alumni Survey -Satisfaction / Machine Tool Technology
Alumni Survey -Placement Data / Legal Assistant/Paralegal Technology
Associate in Science/Associate in Arts
Surgical Technology

OTHER REPORTING EXPECTANCIES

In addition to the reports and elements listed above, the Minority Student and Faculty Access and Equity assessment will be reported by the SC Commission on Higher Education. The following elements of Institutional Effectiveness reporting are not currently applicable to the SC Technical College System Sector: Program Changes that have Occurred as a Result of External Program Evaluation, Success of Students in Developmental Courses, Success of Entering Students in Meeting College or University Admissions Prerequisites, Academic Performance of Student Athletes, and Students Participating in Sponsored Research.

INTRODUCTION - FLORENCE-DARLINGTON TECHNICAL COLLEGE

Florence-Darlington Technical College is a post-secondary, public, two-year institution serving Florence, Darlington and Marion Counties, whose primary mission is to deliver an affordable, comprehensive technical education. The college has an open admissions policy and annually enrolls approximately 12,000 to 15,000 credit students and 10,000 to 18,000 continuing education students. Through technical, general and continuing education programs, the college responds to the educational, economic and cultural needs of a diverse traditional and non-traditional adult student population. The College's mission statement was approved by the Florence-Darlington County Commission in April 2005.

As a vital organization in the community, the college fosters educational and economic growth opportunities that quantitatively and qualitatively contribute to the economic and cultural life and development of the South Carolina PeeDee region is serves. It offers comprehensive technical education in the traditional classroom setting and through on-line instruction, college transfer programs, specialized training for business and industry, continuing education, transitional studies, and student development services. The instruction provided at the college is designed to prepare individuals for careers, advancement, and growth in health services, business, engineering, human and public services, industrial technologies and other fields. In addition to the knowledge specific to their chosen program of study, graduates of the college are expected to have mastered competencies in written and oral communication, information processing, mathematics, problem solving, and interpersonal skills.

Institutional Effectiveness And Planning

At FDTC, strategic planning, operational planning, budget planning and the institutional effectiveness model are combined to create one annual master plan that serves as a vehicle for institution-wide evaluation. As a collaborative action the college has defined its mission and identified key performance indicators in support of its adopted mission to drive the planning process and provide a platform against which to judge success. As part of this institutional effectiveness process, the college conducts an open strategic planning retreat in the spring each year, including all college personnel in the planning process. Focus groups combining faculty, administrators, and staff, led by peer facilitators, meet on Planning Day to discuss the strengths, weaknesses, major opportunities, and major challenges of the College. As a result of the process, the college develops a comprehensive multi-phase plan of institutional goals that serve as the backbone of the institutional effectiveness strategy for the period.

The divisions of the college meet and conduct planning sessions inclusive of all of their respective departments in April and May. They evaluate current operational objectives and institutional effectiveness initiatives for the next year. They revise the plans to include goals and objectives in line with the institutional endeavors appropriate to the coming year and these goals are submitted to the FDTC President, and subsequently to the Area Commission, for ratification of and inclusion in the College's Strategic Initiatives.

All college departments follow a planning and evaluation cycle that is supervised by the Vice President for Student Services and the Vice President for Academic Affairs. The planning and evaluation cycle is comprehensive, systematic, interrelated, and appropriate to the institution. Each FDTC academic and administrative department annually prepares an Institutional Effectiveness Report Planning Document including the development of evaluation criteria that tie directly to selected college goals and subsequently the College Mission. In a college-wide accepted format the document that includes the program's general purpose, establishes select annual goals and objectives, and provides a methodology for periodically assessing student outcomes and operational goals.

In the past, the Student Services Division has published a manual defining the IE process and providing a guide to its steps. The Institutional Effectiveness Report Planning Document includes a standardized form, The Institutional Effectiveness Report that is used by each department to guide its planning and evaluation efforts. Institutional Effectiveness Reports require a purpose statement that supports the College's mission statement, and two to three departmental objectives that tie directly to one of the College's six college wide goals. Additionally, departments must identify a means of assessing each of their objectives, and at the end of the cycle of IE, they must publish the results of their assessment, and propose how the assessment results will be used for the improvement of educational programs, services, and operations. These records are used to develop and revise curriculum offerings and instructional techniques and shape the college for the future. Through the Institutional Effectiveness Reports of all academic departments, the college defines its expected results and describes its methods for analyzing those results. Combined, these records constitute the College's Institutional Effectiveness Summary Report.

This year, the Student Services Division, created and installed a copy of the Institutional Effectiveness manual and produced an on-line Institutional Effectiveness Report form on the FDTC Intranet for use in updating IE plans and for review by constituencies college-wide. It is designed to make it easier to create the Report and to produce a more universal reporting format across the campus. As well, it provides a place on line where all departments of the college can make updates to their report as they complete tasks and objectives and IE information throughout the college can be shared thus keeping the process open and inter-relational.

The budget planning component of the College's strategic and operational planning is based on the ratified Institutional Effectiveness goals and objectives and is conducted in May and June each year. The budget process consists of open budget hearings with the Institutional Effectiveness Report being used to support departmental budget requests.

Florence-Darlington Technical College also utilizes the DACUM (Develop a Curriculum) process to assist in academic program review and enhancement. DACUM reviews are conducted for all academic disciplines according to a predetermined three-year cycle for each curriculum.

In addition to the Institutional Effectiveness Reports and the DACUM process, all programs at Florence-Darlington Technical College collect and analyze Program Evaluation data in their annual assessments. This data set contains responses from a survey of graduates of the previous academic year regarding current employment status and participation in higher education at an advanced level. This process is annually coordinated by the SC State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education and called the Program Evaluation Report.

Full and Interim Reports 2006

Advising

The guiding philosophy of Academic Advising at FDTC is that well directed students are successful students. The College's faculty and staff are dedicated to providing students with their time and expertise to advise and counsel them on respective academic and career decisions.

The advising process at FDTC is both directive and sustaining. It focuses not only on guiding the student on what course to take, but also on providing the student some understanding of how to make particular curriculum choices that will lead to an achievement of their respective goals. Student development, growth, and maturity are goals of the advising program, and advisors are trained to assist students in meeting the College's requirements and life's challenges. Advisors take personal interest in students and assist them in choosing a program that will drive them to achieve their personal goals in life.

All FDTC faculty receive training on student advising immediately upon employment with the College. The Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs publishes and distributes an annually updated Faculty Handbook and Academic Advising Guide. The Faculty Handbook and Academic Advising Guide includes a copy of the College's Advising Procedure 40-6 - Faculty Administration, which specifies advisors' responsibilities, and provides clear directions. The Academic Advising portion of the handbook covers: Advisors Responsibilities and General Admissions Information as well as Student Placement guidelines including expected testing and transfer or advanced credit assignment policies. It also provides details on the FERPA and ADA administration at our institution. The College's Early Alert Academic Advising Process, facilitated by the Student Success Center, and advising students in transformational situations such as Developmental Studies, Transfer and Co-op Programs are also included in the guidelines. The manual is published on the FDTC Intranet for universal access. Faculty is also trained by department heads to use the appropriate Datatel Colleague student information screens to review and gather pertinent information on their advisees, and to create files and prepare and execute processes such as WebAdvisor, and Degree Audit regarding a student's status throughout his or her career at the College.

A student's file will include such elements as transcripts, change of curriculum forms, their personal profile and personal record, advisor-advisee contact logs, long range program plans, progress checklist/graduation certification checklist, and other records deemed appropriate by the department head or advisor.

The advisor is expected to maintain current files on an assigned student, unless and until the student is allowed to change programs and is appointed another advisor. The contents of student files include information pertinent to the students' academic life at the College, appropriate student information received from outside the institution, and those records developed internally to guide the student in marking their progress through their academic experience at FDTC.

Students are required to see their advisor each semester to review the expectations of their chosen curriculum, discuss prerequisites for the program, and plan a schedule of classes for the semester. Also advisors and advisees will discuss the student's career goals, present and future course load, grades, outside workload, absence policy, GPA expectations, and other issues pertinent to the student as necessary. Advisors are responsible for telling students of changes in the registration and records maintenance processes and other academic policies and procedures, as they affect the student.

The FDTC Academic Advising process is regularly reviewed and evaluated in response to the changing academic environment. Additionally, advisors are trained to be aware of current legal issues in today's society and understand how they may impact students' rights and the academic policies of the institution. During the most recent academic year, FDTC designed and implemented an Advising Center to serve new students entering the College. The center was installed in an area at the college that was able to house representatives of all the College's services and staffed by faculty advisors and other college staff members to provide students with a one-stop approach to achieving college entrance and academic advisement. The center's goal was to assist new students in working through college processes including admissions, advising, financial aid and career counseling in efforts to maximize a student's potential for a successful college experience. During the registration period for Fall Semester 2005, 691 or 70% of FDTC's enrollment of new students was accomplished in the Advising Center.

Faculty advisors are evaluated in accordance with the College's Evaluation/Performance Appraisals Policy and Procedures #30-07 which incorporates the annual Faculty Performance Management System review. Additionally, students directly evaluate advisors on the College's Student Opinion of Instruction Survey administered each semester and in the graduate exit survey conducted at graduation each year.

Transfers

Institutional Effectiveness reporting, in accordance with an agreement between the SC Commission on Higher Education and the SC Technical College System, requires that Technical Colleges review and analyze GPA data on the first semester of First-time Fall Transfer Students who have transferred from SC Technical Colleges to SC Four-year senior and Regional institutions.

SC Four �year institutions supply the SC Technical College System information, which is in turn provided to the respective Technical Colleges, on the number of students attending the senior institution from the College, the number of credits they transferred in, the student's ethnicity and their GPA during their initial Fall semester.

In the following analysis Florence-Darlington Technical College is utilizing the data acquired, as compiled and described above, for students who fulfilled college requirements and statewide procedures to enter one of the State's Four-year Colleges in the Fall Semester 2005.

The data reveals that 207 students from Florence-Darlington Technical College attempted to transfer from FDTC to one of the SC's Four-year Colleges for fall semester 2005. Of those 207, 146 or 71% completed the application process and were accepted to the college of their choice. One hundred and three (103) of those accepted, or again, 71%, enrolled in a senior institution.

The data further reveals that 174 or 84% of the students who applied to senior institutions as First-Time Freshman in the Fall semester of 2005 applied for admission to four specific SC institutions, Francis Marion University, the University of South Carolina at Columbia, USC Upstate and Coastal Carolina University.

Subsequently, the data examined indicates that 40% of the FDTC transfer student applicants who were accepted to Four-year institutions and Regionals enrolled at one Four-year institution within 15 miles of FDTC, while 65% of the transferred students applied and were accepted at institutions geographically located within 90 to 150 miles of Florence. The information on transfers conveyed from the SC higher education system for the Fall semester of 2005 also indicates that the total number of FDTC transfer students for which GPA's were reported, achieved a slightly greater GPA, on average, than the First-time native students at the Senior Institutions to which they transferred. Nonetheless, it may be noted that the total number of FDTC transfer students reported as having earned a GPA in the first semester with respect to the total number of First-time native students at the combined colleges is significantly smaller.

FDTC will continue to examine the information provided and analyze how it may be used effectively in conjunction with the College's policies and practices to continue to increase academic success for students transferring to SC four-year institutions.

Majors and Concentrations 2006

The following academic degree programs will be considered in the FDTC cycle of assessment for the CHE Institutional Effectiveness Process:

• Health Information Management
• Medical Laboratory Technology
• Radiologic Technology
• Respiratory Care
• Associate in Science & Art Degree
• Machine Tool Technology
• Legal Assistant Paralegal
• Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning Technology
• Surgical Technology

The goal of the Health Information Management (HIM) Program is to provide quality HIM graduates in response to the educational, economic, and area healthcare delivery system needs. The department's 2005-2006 objectives, which can be directly linked to the FDTC's Learning Environment goal, included increasing enrollment in the HIM degree program and in the Medical Coding and Medical Transcription Certificate programs. Additionally, they have developed strategies to maintain an 85% graduation rate in the Medical Coding program as well as the 80% graduation rate in the HIM degree program.

The department increased the HIM enrollment from Fall 2004 to Fall 2005 by 50% and department members, for the first time, have created a waiting list for the HIM program for Fall 2006. The department has determined to continue the recruiting strategies such as working to raise the awareness of opportunities in the Health Information Management profession in high schools and creating a more effective presentation of such opportunities to students incoming to the college for 2006-2007. In addition, the department endeavored to enroll 10 students in the new HIM-Medical Transcription Certificate program students for Fall 2005. They will continue to work to meet their goal for a class of 10 students for 2006-07.

The department also strove to increase graduation rates for the departmental programs. The Medical Coding graduate job placement rate was targeted to increase by 18% (from 67% to 85%) by February 2006. This goal was met and exceeded as a placement rate of 100% was achieved. Further, strategies to continue to maintain 80% or greater graduation rate and placement rate of all HIM curriculum students entering the college in 2005 are being developed. Department members have created a new methodology for individual student evaluations of progress to include mid-term evaluations, and to address all issues that may prevent student advancement in the program. The department has, in addition to departmental assistance, created a tutoring module for all HIM courses that is available to HIM students through alternate college resources.