Texas Higher Education Case Study

This letter is sent in response to your announcement of a search for an Associate Dean for Engagement and General Education at Clemson University. The announcement of this search drew my attention because I am familiar with Clemson, and I believe my background and experience provide an excellent fit with the credentials you seek. I have a keen interest in advancing Clemson’s vision of being “one of the nation’s top 20 public universities,” and I believe I can make a positive contribution in support of this vision. You will find a curriculum vita included for your consideration, but I would like to highlight some of my experiences that make me uniquely qualified for this position.

During my almost 30-year career, I have gained substantial
experience in the areas of student engagement and success. I was also a member of the committee that developed and implemented Stephen F. Austin’s (SFA) Quality Enhancement Plan which is focused on promoting and spreading the use of high-impact practices by faculty through faculty learning communities and development opportunities. As Director of the Office of Student Learning and Institutional Assessment (OSLIA) at SFA, I was responsible for overseeing the assessment of the QEP. I serve on SFA’s Re-Imagining the First Year of College (RFYC) Leadership Team. RFYC is a national project of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities that is funded with grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and USA Funds. This project seeks to develop comprehensive, institutional transformation that redesigns the first year of college and creates sustainable change for student success. The project aims at ensuring success for all students, particularly those who have historically been underserved by higher education. SFA is one of 43 institutions nationwide chosen to participate in this project. SFA’s RFYC Leadership Team has spent significant time in intensive research investigating proven best practices in student success. Out of this research the leadership team has identified specific student success initiatives that will be implemented and closely evaluated for success over the next three years. I am also the Vice Chair of LEAP Texas, and played an integral role in the founding of the organization. LEAP Texas is a coalition of more than 60 Texas public and private higher education institutions that seeks to provide a strong educational foundation for an increasingly diverse student body, one that prepares them for work and citizenship in the twenty-first century. Also, LEAP Texas is an official partner of the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ national initiative, Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP). Through the efforts of LEAP Texas, Texas was recently named as one of five states to participate in a $1,200,000 grant from the Lumina Foundation. The grant is being used to develop open-source electronic resource hubs, meeting venues, and to organize learning communities of faculty to promote educational redesign and assessment of learning outcomes. As part of this grant, I have been named a LEAP Texas Assessment Fellow, and I am working with the other Assessment Fellow on the Texas Assessment Collaborative (TAC). TAC is a project to involve Texas institutions in the assessment of student work from around the state to better understand how our students are performing on the objectives of the Texas Core Curriculum.

I also have substantial experience in the management, review, and revision of general education programs.
As a member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Undergraduate Education Advisory Committee (UEAC) I worked closely with other committee members to complete the first major revision of the Texas Core Curriculum in over 30 years. The Texas Core is the common general education core curriculum required of all Texas public colleges and universities. The UEAC carefully studied the needs of employers in the state and nation, national trends in core curriculum structure and development, and key performance indicators of student learning and success to develop its recommendation. The revision of the Texas Core Curriculum completed by the UEAC included learning outcomes which were generally aligned with the American Association of College and Universities (AAC&U) Essential Learning Outcomes, clearly defined foundational component areas, a map of the core curriculum objectives to the foundational component areas, an allocation of semester credit hours by foundational component area, an assessment reporting process that is aligned to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges reporting process, and a timeline for the development and approval of the revised core curriculum at each Texas public
institution.

At SFA, I served as a member of the committee tasked with implementing the new Texas Core Curriculum at the institution, the University Core Advisory Committee. In compliance with the THECB rules, the committee develop guidelines and procedures for determining which courses would be included in the general education core at SFA, solicited applications from academic departments for courses to be included in the core, reviewed the submitted applications for compliance with the SFA guidelines and THECB rules, and then selected courses to be included in the general education core at SFA. Serving as Chair of the Core Curriculum Assessment Committee at SFA, I worked with members of the committee to oversee the assessment of the university core curriculum, and led the committee in developing and implementing plans for assessment of the new Texas Core. This core assessment plan involved the administration of standardized tests, authentic assessment through the assessment of student work using rubrics adapted by teams of SFA faculty from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) VALUE Rubrics, and student opinion surveys.

Additionally, I serve as the Vice Chair of LEAP Texas and played an integral role in the founding of the organization. LEAP Texas is a coalition of more than 60 Texas public and private higher education institutions that seeks to provide a strong educational foundation for an increasingly diverse student body, and leverage the new Texas Core Curriculum for the overall improvement in undergraduate education. LEAP Texas is also an official partner of the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ national LEAP Initiative. Through the efforts of LEAP Texas, Texas was recently named one of five states participating in a $1,200,000 grant from the Lumina Foundation. The grant is being used to develop open-source electronic resource hubs, meeting venues, and to organize learning communities of faculty to promote educational redesign and assessment of learning outcomes. As part of this grant, I have been named one of two LEAP Texas Assessment Fellows. We are working to develop the Texas Assessment Collaborative, which will involve teams of faculty in assessing of samples of student work from two-year and four-year Texas institutions using the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics.

In relation to faculty development programming, a major area of study in my doctoral program was instructional communication.
This area of study focuses on identifying classroom communication variables that enhance student success, and training faculty in the use of communication skills and instructional strategies that promote student learning. My background in instructional communication will provide a strong basis for working collaboratively with other units in planning faculty development programs and providing individual support to faculty. As the Director of the OSLIA at SFA, I was responsible for developing and presenting numerous faculty and staff training sessions and workshops dealing with a variety of topics associated with assessment and accreditation. I have also made annual presentations on the SFA core curriculum and assessment as part of the new faculty orientation program, and the importance of communication in the classroom for the new graduate assistant orientation at SFA. I was also a member of the committee that developed and implemented SFA’s Quality Enhancement Plan which is focused on promoting and spreading the use of high-impact practices by faculty through faculty learning communities and faculty development
opportunities.

My experience also includes substantial experience in curriculum management. I have taken leadership in comprehensive program reviews at three universities. While at Olivet Nazarene University, I served as an active member of several university program review committees charged with evaluating the effectiveness of various degree programs, and led the review of one high profile program. I worked closely with the Associate Provost to revise the academic program review process at SFA. As Chair of the Liberal and Applied Arts College Council at SFA, I oversaw the college level approval of curricular changes. I also served as an active member of the Graduate Council, which is charged with approval of graduate curricular changes, and as an active member of the Undergraduate Council, which is responsible for reviewing and making recommendations concerning proposed changes in the undergraduate curriculum at SFA.

Additionally, I have an established record of excellence in teaching and research. At Lamar University I received the highest teaching award given to junior faculty and teaching bonus awards each year I was eligible. In 2004, I received the Teaching Excellence Award from my college at SFA. In spite of a heavy teaching load and service commitment, I have maintained a consistent research program. My paper, A Plea for Vindication: Jim Wright’s Speech of Resignation, was recognized as a top paper by the Rhetorical and Public Address Division of the Southern States Communication Association, and I received funding from the Lilly Foundation for my research on news coverage of the U.S./Soviet summits during the Reagan presidency. I was also invited to join a group of internationally recognized scholars in contributing to the Encyclopedia of Political Communication. The presentation on the core curriculum assessment process at SFA by the OSLIA staff was recently nominated as top presentation at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Texas Association for Institutional Research.

I believe my experience, collaborative leadership style, skills, and knowledge will allow me to make a significant contribution to Clemson as the Associate Dean for Engagement and General Education. I would like to meet with you and discuss my qualifications and the position. If you need additional information, please feel free to call me at my office [phone], my home [phone], or my cell phone [phone]. You can also reach me at my e-mail address: [e-mail].