New Programs Effective for 2011-2012

In the 2010-2011 academic year, the Faculty Senate Academic Affairs Committee approved four new minors, effective with the 2011-2012 catalog.  

In the College of Business and Technology, the Department of Marketing and Management Information Systems now offers both a Business Intelligence and Business Analytics Minor and a Supply Chain Management Minor.  

In the College of Education, the Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Leisure Studies now offers a Coaching Minor.  

In the College of Fine Arts and Humanities, the Department of Communication created the new Content Development Minor in conjunction with the restructuring of several of their programs. 

Additionally, the Department of Marketing and Management Information Systems is now offering a Supply Chain Management Emphasis of the Business Administration Comprehensive Bachelor of Science. 

Information regarding all programs is published in the 2011-2012 Undergraduate Catalog.  

Division of Student Affairs Welcomes New Personnel

During the Spring 2011 semester, many people across campus committed time and energy to serve on one or more search committees for the Division of Student Affairs. As a result of these successful searches, I'm pleased to announce the following appointments in the Division of Student Affairs:

C. Tony Earls, Ph.D. has been appointed Associate Dean, Division of Student Affairs & Director, Office of Residence Life. Dr. Earls comes to us from the University of Wyoming where he has served as the Associate Director, Residence Life & Dining Services since 2002, as well as an adjunct instructor in the Philosophy and American Studies departments. Prior to his appointment at the University of Wyoming, Dr. Earls was the Coordinator of Residence Life at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and was also an adjunct instructor in SIU-Carbondale's Philosophy Department. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from SIU-Carbondale, as well as an M.P.A. in Public Administration, M.A. in Philosophy, and a B.A. in Philosophy and Psychology all from the University of Memphis. Dr. Earls will become part of the UNK family effective Friday, July 1, 2011.

Many thanks to Mary Daake's leadership as the chair of the search committee, and the following members who gave of their time:

Dave Luker has been appointed Director, Academic Success effective Wednesday, July 6, 2011. Dave comes to us from Metro State College of Denver where he has worked in Student Support Service (TRiO) for the last five years, most recently as Interim Project Director. Prior to serving in various roles in Student Support Services, he held positions at the University of Denver in the Learning Effectiveness (LEP) program. Prior to working in higher education, Dave was a special education teacher both domestically and abroad. Dave holds a Masters of Arts in Science Education from the University of Colorado Denver; Special Education/Learning Handicapped Credential from San Francisco State University; California Teaching Credentials: Life Science, English, Social Science from San Francisco State University; and, a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from the University of Colorado.

I greatly appreciate Dr. Peter Longo's leadership as chair of the search committee, and the following members who gave of their time:

Erin Christensen has been appointed Assistant Director, Greek Affairs effective Friday, July 1, 2011. Most recently, Erin has served as Transfer Admissions Counselor with Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla. She was a Graduate Assistant in Greek and Residential Life at Northwest Missouri State University and received her Master of Science Degree in Higher Educational Leadership in 2010. She is a member of Delta Zeta Sorority and served as Vice President of Membership during her undergraduate career.

Dusty Newton served as search committee chair, and I greatly appreciate his leadership, as well as the following members who gave of their time:

Monica Mueller has been appointed Assistant Director, Office of Multicultural Affairs. As many of you are aware, Monica received her bachelors of science degree in Speech Language Pathology from UNK. She served as the graduate assistant in OMA for the last three years and was awarded a masters degree in College Student Personnel during the May 2011 commencement ceremony. She also was the recipient of the Division of Student Affairs Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award, and awarded the Student Affairs Student of the Year by the Department of Counseling & School Psychology. Monica will be joining our Student Affairs family on a full-time basis effective Monday, July 11, 2011.

Many thanks to Roz Sheldon's leadership as chair of the search committee, as well as the following members who gave of their time:

As our newest UNK family members arrive, please provide them the same warm Kearney welcome you provided to those of us who were new this past year.

- Joseph A. Oravecz, Dean for Student Affairs

Staffing Changes in Office of Institutional Research This Summer

Megan Fryda has been appointed Assistant Director, Institutional Research. Megan is a long-time member of the UNK community. She completed her Master's degree at UNK in Instructional Technology with Emphasis in Multimedia Development, graduating in 2006. She started her career at UNK working in Distance Education as a Video Engineer. She moved to Information Technology Services in 2007 as a Programmer Analyst, working with the rest of the team in ITS to make significant contributions to the implementation of the new PeopleSoft student information system. Megan moves to Institutional Research, effective July 18.

Many thanks to Tami Plugge, who chaired the search committee, as well as the following members who gave of their time:

Lisa Neal has been an Assistant Director in Institutional Research since April of 2007. Beginning in August of 2011, Lisa’s position becomes an academic year appointment.

- written in collaboration with Kathy Livingston, Director of Institutional Research

Progress toward Meeting Strategic Enrollment Goals at UNK
Summer 2011

Strategic Enrollment Planning at UNK Timeline

• Strategic Enrollment Planning was initiated in August 2008 in partnership with Noel-Levitz.
• The Enrollment Management Council was officially convened by the Chancellor in October 2008.  Charged with leading the creation and implementation of a Strategic Enrollment Plan that is mission driven and closely aligned with the UNK strategic plan and the NU Frameworks document.  The council consists of 17 members from across the campus from both Student Affairs and Academic Affairs.
• June 2009 EMC presents the UNK Strategic Enrollment Plan to the Cabinet.  Two key components: A set of Five-Year Strategic Enrollment Goals for UNK & 19 well defined Action Plans that lead our “work” in building our enrollment.
• August 2009 Implementation of the Strategic Enrollment Plan begins.
• July 2010 the Chair of the EMC establishes the UNK EMC Steering Committee.

*Progress toward meeting our Five Year Enrollment Goals as of Fall 2010  

*2008 is our Benchmark year…..Fall 2013 is the target for reaching our SEP Goals 

Plausible Explanations for Goal Progress or Decline

1. UNK is working smarter and with better focus by purchasing and pursuing student prospects at the undergraduate level with attributes that make them much more likely to enroll at UNK and be successful.  Targeted marketing using Facebook and a much improved webpage.   Students also cite our improved facilities (residence halls) 6,753 is our highest total enrollment since 1999. At the Graduate level expanded programming in Online Education format has been very successful.
2. (See above) and the use of coaches in a more intentional way to drive students from Colorado primarily into our recruitment funnel.
3. Struggling to regain momentum due to World economy collapse; graduating large classes of international students; but have two years of enrollment growth for new first time international students.
4. Same as  1&2 above
5. Building better relationships with community colleges, sharing data and receiving graduate lists from the Community colleges for free
6. The EMC Steering Committee believes this is due to Online Worldwide constraints and requirements for collaboration and increases in tuition required by OWW…….
7. Juan Guzman, Dusty Newton and increases in college age Hispanic students in GI and Lex who are drawn to UNK because of proximity and events run by Multicultural and Admissions office.  We have also had success in Colorado, Omaha and Lincoln and have seen increases in our African American student numbers as well as Hispanic numbers.
8. Our work with NL and the use of Retention RT……ultimately we are much more proactive in reaching out to at risk students, who we can identify with Retention RT data.  Mary Daake & Amy Rundstrum are proactively contacting these students before they receive early warning referrals…not sure about the dip, but at 81.8% we are still well above our average of 79% from the previous three years.   More work needs to be done in this area….i.e. we need a comprehensive UNK Retention plan
9. Not sure if the EMC can claim any real effect here, whether good or bad…. But anecdotally one thing that may be hurting us a bit here is the economy and students waiting to enter the workforce and adding additional majors and minors… 

*Freshmen Student Academic Quality Indicators of Note from Fall 2010

• Average ACT for Freshmen Class 22.6 (highest ever in UNK History)
• 165 New Honors Freshmen in 2010 versus 145 Fall 2009
• Fall 2010 marked our highest Merit scholarship yield in recent school history (Overall 50% of offers were accepted and the students enrolled)  

*By using focused & targeted recruitment practices we are getting better quality students in the funnel and by modifying our Merit scholarship criteria we are improving yields….Also we believe our emphasis on undergraduate research opportunities with real live professors is playing well with “smart” kids.

Reasons to be Optimistic about Fall 2011

• Transfer Student admitted numbers are up 30% over 2010.
• Freshmen Admitted numbers are up 5% over last year and Housing applications are up over last year at this time.
• Preregistration for Fall 2011 for all currently enrolled UNK students shows an increase over this same time last year of 235 students…….This bodes well for retention rates, tuition revenue and head count…..  We believe the increase does have something to do with faculty and students’ improved familiarity with myBlue and the ability to use the new degree audit….We think we were hampered last year with the new system in a number of ways…

Going Forward: A General Assessment of the Action Plans that Drive the UNK Strategic Enrollment Plan by the EMC Steering Committee

June 2011 marks the end of the third year of Strategic Enrollment Planning for UNK.......   As you may remember the EMC presented the UNK Strategic Enrollment Plan to the Cabinet in June of 2009 and has worked diligently with faculty, administrators and staff across campus over the last two years to improve both the quality and quantity of the students at UNK.  We have employed a number of strategies most of which are outlined in the 19+ Action Plans that we developed back in 2009.  Overall, the results have been positive and our work has led to a brighter future for UNK. 

However, after two years in the implementation mode we believe it's time to review our original strategies and Action Plans to determine what is working and what is not.  Many of the Action Plans included additional costs that were not funded by the Cabinet and those responsible for those Action Plans were asked to do the best they could without additional funding.  The Chancellor did however, provide an additional $75,000 per year in funding to run Action Plans controlled by Dusty meant to improve undergraduate enrollment. 
The following is a brief review and assessment of the work conducted as a result of the original Action Plans developed by the Enrollment Management Council in 2009.

1. Expand Dual Enrollment Programs:  Very little improvement with this most important Action Plan.  Departments seem to be uninterested in developing these programs with local high schools.  Chemistry and Modern Language departments are participating
2. Utilize faculty, staff, and students in recruitment: A worthy goal; but so far People soft has stopped this effort to place EMAS on every Department Chair’s desktop.  Would like to use Talisma if purchased.
3. Increase community college transfer enrollments:  Work here has had minimum effect so far, but we expect good progress for Fall 2011.
4. Expand Online Offerings:  Several departments have responded well to this initiative with several new online programs being offered.  However, restrictions employed by OWW have slowed recent expansion.
5. Increase Minority Student Enrollment:  This Action Plan has been successful and relates to the SEP goal of increasing student body racial and ethnic diversity to 9% .
6. Expand recruitment efforts:  This Action Plan relates to our goal of expanding the out of state representation of our student body to 15.5%.  We had a tremendous increase in nonresident students for 2010.   Our newest initiative however; was not successful the Target Colorado Recruitment Initiative was not popular.  At this time only 29 Colorado students have been admitted that qualify.  Our goal was to admit and successfully have on campus 50 Colorado students for Fall 2011.  We believe this effort needs to be discontinued for 2012.
7. Increase first-year student enrollments: After a drop in 2009, we rebounded with an increase to 1,124 in the Fall of 2010.  An important Action Plan that greatly impacts revenue.
8. Recruit students with strong academic credentials: Generally, this has been successful with good increases in the number of Honor students attending UNK
9. Use scholarships competitively to attract top students:  One of the more successful Action Plans.  Scholarship yields have improved allowing us to be successful in improving the average ACT of our incoming freshmen, which hopefully improves retention and graduation rates.  Reaching upper limits of Remissions budget.  Need to consider increasing requirements for Regents Scholarship.
10. Publish enrollment reports to campus community:  Reports are being prepared and distributed to Deans.  However, there still seems to be very little awareness about the reports or their importance.  Need to find ways to get the reports to faculty and staff across campus.
11. Increase graduate enrollments: Generally graduate enrollments have been up; but took a dip in Fall 2010.  Action plan calls for the development of a comprehensive graduate recruitment plan.  Will work with Kenya Taylor and Graduate Council.
12. Improve freshmen and transfer student inquiries:  Solid gains have been achieved in this area.  80% increase in prospective names purchased and an increase of 8% in freshmen inquiries over 2009.
13. Utilize the web to recruit student:  A very important Action Plan.  EMC needs to work closely with new Web master.
14. Increase the number of prospective students who visit UNK: Campus visit numbers have increased by 12% (2009 to 2010).  Need to continue to fund this Action plan
15. Increase International student enrollment:  Much work has been completed by Dallas Kenny.  The committee believes that it will be very difficult to achieve the SEP goal of 15% and would like to work with the Cabinet and Dr. Kenny to modify the goal to match the newly established “dash board” indicator when announced by the Regents.
16.  
• 16.1 Improve the financial literacy of UNK students: Plan needs to be completed
• 16.2 Establish Learning Communities: Needs to be evaluated and funded to be established and successful
• 16.3 Create a comprehensive, coordinated freshman success program:  Much work completed for Fall 2011
• 16.4 Develop the Fall Orientation:  A campus wide committee has planned and will work to coordinate SAE, Freshmen Orientation and First Year Experience for 2011
• 16.5 Provide an enhanced first-year experience: Status Report:  Still in planning and development 
17. Develop a transfer student success program: Not completed; but an important component of a successful Retention plan for UNK.
18. Utilize NSSE scores to monitor student engagement:  Do not believe there is an annual need for this Action Plan.
19. Improve Academic Advising:  NL has agreed to run Retention RT for us in 2011.  Eventually we will need to develop our own system to identify at risk students early and make contacts before they begin to struggle. 

Top Strategic Enrollment Needs for UNK 2011-2012

• Development of a Comprehensive Retention Plan for UNK
• Overall Improvement in Faculty/Staff Awareness and Participation in Recruitment and Retention activities
• Development of an Incentive Plan to motivate undergraduate departments to participate in the Dual Enrollment Program. 

- Ed Scantling, Dean of the College of Education and Chair of the UNK Enrollment Management Council

Library - In Brief Online  

Archives Unbound delivers historical primary source content online 

Written by Jon Ritterbush, Electronic Resources Librarian
ritterbushjr@unk.edu 

The Calvin T. Ryan Library is pleased to announce the addition of Archives Unbound, a digital archive providing access to primary source material in four collections: 

• American Indian Correspondence: Presbyterian Historical Society Collection of Missionaries Letters, 1833-1893
  Contains 40,000+ pages of letters to and from the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. These letters describe native peoples and cultures, tribal factionalism, relations with the U.S. government and the many problems and achievements of their missionary work. 
• The Civil War in Words and Deeds
  Contains 144,000+ pages of regimental histories and personal narratives, chronicling life during the American Civil War. 
• Overland Journeys: Travels in the West, 1800-1880
  Contains 71,000 + pages from the microfilm collections “Travels in the West and Southwest” and the “Plains & Rockies;” this digital collection provides a unique view on the exploration and settlement of the Great Plains and Western United States. 
• The War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824
  Contains 7,500+ pages of letters to and from the U.S. War Department, including correspondence from Indian superintendents and agents, territorial and state governors, military commanders, Indians, missionaries, and other public and private individuals. 

These digital collections may be searched individually at the links above, or simultaneously from the main link for Archive Unbound.  These links are accessible from the library’s “Articles & E-Resources” webpage under the alphabetical links and under the subjects of “History (U.S.)” and “Primary Sources.” 

The purchase of these digital collections was made possible with funding from the College of Natural and Social Sciences.  

Music and Performing Arts Hosts Summer Camps

This summer, the Department of Music and Performing Arts hosted the following activities:  

The three camps have a total of 290 high school students enrolled. Seven faculty members from the department are involved, along with ten alumni and nine current students assisting. The band camp features guest clinician Tad Carpenter (Yamaha Corp., California), and the vocal camp features Gene Wagner from Sioux City, IA.

 - written in collaboration with Valerie Cisler, Chair of Music and Performing Arts 

UNK Athletics Hosts Multiple Summer Sports Camps

The Athletics department offered the following sports camps during the summer months:

- Peter Vazvac, UNK Sports Information Director 

Recognition   

2011-2012 Department Chairs

- Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs

Items to Note for Faculty and Faculty Committees

• Academic Affairs Committee 
  The link to the CAP ("Course Approval Process") information is located on the Academic Affairs Committee page. CAP is the electronic approval system that allows department chairs to initiate course proposals (create, alter, inactivate, or discontinue). Worksheets for both the creation of new courses and the alteration of existing courses are available on the CAP web site for faculty members to use as they gather the information department chairs will need to submit requests. Department chairs initiate program proposals (create, alter, or discontinue) using a paper form, which is available on the Academic Affairs Committee page, along with instructions.
  
  The schedule of Academic Affairs deadlines for the 2011-2012 academic year is available on the Academic Affairs Committee page. The page also contains a committee roster and a link to the approved Academic Affairs minutes. Department or program chairs needing to make curricular changes should be aware of these deadlines and instructions.
   
• Faculty Handbook 
  The online Faculty Handbook contains the most current policy information. The purpose of the handbook is to gather the documents and policies that inform and guide critical decisions, including the Collective Bargaining Agreement (2011-2013). 
   
• Faculty Senate
  To keep faculty informed and in the spirit of shared governance, the Faculty Senate website contains links to the senate roster, meeting agendas and packets, meeting minutes of both the Faculty Senate and the Faculty Senate committees, and the Faculty Senate Constitution and Bylaws.
   
• General Studies 
  The General Studies web site contains a description of the new General Studies Program effective for students entering UNK in the Fall of 2010. The site contains a list of the approved General Studies courses effective for the 2011-2012 academic year, a list of all of the approved Portal and Capstone topics, as well as lists of the Portals and Capstones offerings for the current semester. 
   
• Graduate Council 
  The Graduate Council webpage contains information regarding changes to graduate courses or programs, as well as a list of the 2011 Graduate Program Committees.  
   
• WI/CD Committee 
  The WI/CD Committee has posted a the deadline for the first meeting of the fall semester on the WI/CD Committee page. The page also contains instructions for applying for WI or CD designation, as well as a committee roster, agendas, and minutes. These resources are provided for those wishing to offer courses as WI or CD.   

 Calendar of Events within the Academic and Student Affairs Division

Edited by Kim Elliott, Coordinator of Academic Publications 

A Publication of the
Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs
University of Nebraska at Kearney
905 West 25th Street
Kearney, NE 68849
Phone: (308)865-8209 

For questions or submissions,
contact the Coordinator of Academic Publications at 8935 or academicpublications@unk.edu.