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Professional Development Conference
Click here to be directed to the Professional Development Conference registration page.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Three full day educational workshops will be presented on Sunday. Please note there are additional fees to attend the Sunday workshops.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Click here to be directed to the registration page.
Sunday, October 5th Workshop Descriptions
Finding Your Leadership Style
Leadership in any organization is a key component to the success of that organization. College leaders must be able to articulate the vision, set the tone, and champion the goals of their institution while at the same time challenging their institution to achieve greatness and instilling powerful motivation and positive attitudes in those around them. Effective leaders bring about success not through the exercise of the power inherent in their position but through their own actions, self knowledge and willingness to know others, and through the building of positive relationships. Finding Your Leadership Style will help leaders to learn and know more about themselves and identify their own leadership style and how that style relates and interacts with others as a means of enhancing school success. This session will require attendees to purchase seminar materials that will cost $50.00 and engage in some personal-inventory preparation prior to the session.
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ACCSCT Monograph Series: A Study in Best Practices
As higher education continues to expand and diversify, it has become apparent that now, more than ever, postsecondary school leaders need better tools to achieve their strategic goals. ACCSCT has developed a series of workshops, the ACCSCT Monograph Workshops, on topics critical to institutional and student success. These workshops are designed to provide critical guidance on some of the more technical areas of ACCSCT accreditation in an effort to assist institutions to achieve institutional success and to ensure that students are well prepared to enter the workforce. Topics include faculty development planning, learning resource systems, program advisory committees, and institutional assessment and improvement plans.
This session will provide a forum to discuss the key elements that are critical in any faculty development plan, and will provide practical guidance on how to use the faculty development planning process to meet external demands and internal needs for continuous performance improvement.
In this session, participants will discuss specific techniques used to maximize the effectiveness of Program Advisory Committees (PACs), including identifying best practices to help institutions establish and operate a PAC, recruit top talent for the PAC, and develop strategies to evaluate the effectiveness of the PAC.
This session will focus on why your institution needs a systematic assessment and improvement process, and will provide participants with practical guidance on developing and implementing an effective plan, involving faculty and staff in a meaningful fashion, and assessing the performance of the plan.
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Going Degree Granting: A Guide for Submitting Degree Applications to ACCSCT and General Education: Design and Assessment
This seminar, presented by experienced ACCSCT staff, is designed to provide an in-depth presentation on ACCSCT degree standards, program requirements, the degree program application and application process. In an effort to help ACCSCT- accredited schools understand
the Commission’s expectations for institutions seeking to go degree granting, this session will provide insight into the necessary components for successful degree program applications.
General Education is a key component in a degree program and is the essential element that distinguishes degree programs from nondegree programs. As a complement to the Going Degree Granting seminar, General Education: Design and Assessment will discuss and review: the important role that general education plays in a degree program; objectives for general education courses; course and program design methods to include integration with technical courses; and methods for assessing whether students are achieving course objectives.
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Monday, October 6th Breakout Session Descriptions
Using Data for Assessment Purposes
By its very nature, ACCSCT accreditation requires institutions to collect data related to their performance. While ACCSCT uses this data to identify national trends amongst its accredited institutions, these and other data can be used at the institutional level to identify trends amongst students and as a means to enhance institutional performance. Using Data for Assessment Purposes will review data reporting and gathering methods and show how to use these data for the purposes of assessing institutional and student performance.
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Emerging Issues in Distance Education: The Next Generation of Student-Learners
The higher education community continues to grapple with the ever-changing nature of distance education. Now, more than ever, with the advent of a new generation of millennial learners that have grown up in a digital age, there exists an explicit expectation of a student-centered learning environment. For many institutions, distance education provides the bridge between traditional higher education methodology, and this next generation of student-learners. This panel discussion will provide a unique perspective on current trends and emerging issues in on-line learning, including: developing an online community, implementing a student centered approach on-line, and connecting with “digital natives” via technology.
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Transfer of Credit: Putting the Student First
Transfer of credit issues continue to be hotly debated across the country. Institutional autonomy, college mission, academic integrity, source of accreditation, and institution type are only a few of the objections used to encumber the evaluation and award process for credits previously earned. See how the state of Minnesota, using a “student first” approach, has found success in removing transfer of credit barriers between state and private institutions.
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| Creating Student Ambassadors: Best Practices-- in Service to Students |
This presentation will provide participants with a model of customer service excellence and will demonstrate how adopting an attitude of service can support student success. The model is based on consistently building connections between students and school personnel. Best practices for implementation will be discussed.
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Preparing Electronic Submissions for Commission Consideration
This session is designed to provide participants with an overview of preparing electronic materials for submission to ACCSCT. Participants will learn about the Commission’s requirements for the presentation of materials in an electronic format, as well as techniques for working with PDF documents. The session will include the basics of designing PDF documents, using tools such as bookmarks and links, and will provide suggestions for incorporating more advanced elements to make the most of your electronic presentations. This particular session is designed for those responsible for completing the Commission’s electronic documents or applications.
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Funding the Gap: Improving Access for Students
One aspect of serving students is ensuring that they have the resources necessary to complete their education. This became more challenging this year as lenders began to rethink their commitment to providing loans, particularly to high risk student borrowers. The inflexibility of the 90/10 regulations made direct lending by institutions, in many instances, unworkable. Experts will revisit the impact of complex regulations and the complicated journey toward ensuring access for students.
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Preparing For The On-Site Evaluation and Response
Effective preparation for an on-site evaluation facilitates an efficient review of your institution, contributes to anxiety-reduction, and enhances your ability to concentrate on ensuring a successful on-site evaluation process. This session will cover a detailed preparation checklist that will provide a guide for ensuring your institution is ready for review, including helpful strategies for documentation preparation, file and record maintenance, overall organization of materials, and communication and interaction ‘best practices’ with the on-site evaluation team. Participants will also learn about preparing effective responses to team findings, including strategies for presenting clear and comprehensive documentation to demonstrate compliance with accrediting standards.
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Monograph Series Session: Learning Resource System
This session will explore why learning resource systems are important, and will provide practical guidance on how to establish, implement, and integrate a customized learning resource system that will enhance the student educational experience. Participants will also learn how to identify faculty and student needs, and how to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning resource system.
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Higher Education Act Reauthorization: A Retrospective
The process of reauthorizing Higher Education Act has been described by certain key congressmen as a “road to reform.” That road has been riddled with controversy and even now as higher education associations assess the impact of the new law, they remain divided about whether its more controversial provisions focused on accreditation, greater accountability and transparency to the public and more reporting by colleges will advance the goal of improving higher education. Join in the discussion as we consider the impact of these new provisions.
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Making Meaning from Self-Evaluation
Self-evaluation is an essential and primary part of the accreditation process. The effective design, implementation, and administration of this process are important not just for the purpose of completing the requirements of accreditation, but as a useful tool in institutional assessment, improvement and success. Making Meaning from Self-Evaluation will discuss process design strategies and ways to turn institutional discoveries into institutional practice as a means to improve institutional and student success.
Tuesday, October 7th Breakout Session Descriptions
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You Did What? Living and Working with the Many Generations
There are five living generations in today’s workplace. This provides us with a lifelong span of experiences and of confusions! How the generations are similar, different, and mostly how they relate to one another is a primary concern of today’s employers and today’s teachers both in terms of one-on-one as well as throughout any organization. Please join us for a fast paced, informative, substantive, and fun view of what is in your school and workplace and what you can do about it.
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Accreditation and State Governments
Accreditation has been an important focus of discussions concerning federal higher education policy, but it has also surfaced as state governments have considered the role accreditation plays within the framework of state higher education oversight. Legislative advocates will discuss recent trends and patterns in state legislation in which accreditation has surfaced as an issue, including distinctions between regional and national accreditation, transfer of credit and articulation, the role of CHEA, and recent proactive strategies to bring more and better information about accreditation to state governments in FL, TX, TN, CA and the Pacific Northwest. What’s going on in your state?
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