President's Post #153: Fall 2019 Communications Meetings

On November 13, 2019, President Mercer joined members of the administration, faculty and staff for Communications Meetings. A summary of those meetings follows:

Dr. Stefan Becker, Provost and VP of Academic Affairs, welcomed the group.

Canvas: New Learning Management System

Provost Becker shared that Canvas will replace Moodle as the College’s learning management system (LMS). He noted the findings and recommendations from the Task Force for Online and Hybrid Learning, the LMS Task Force, and the Instructional Design Center.

The Provost advised that faculty can begin building their courses now in the Canvas sandbox and the Instructional Design Center is available to provide training and assistance. In addition, the gradebook is a wonderful new feature in Canvas and faculty are encouraged to use it. Canvas can begin being used in winter and spring 2020, Moodle will be retired in summer 2020.

Provost Becker noted that, at the heart of student success and engagement, is the experience that students have in the classroom. This experience is defined by how instructors connect with students, the nature and quality of assignments, the opportunities for dynamic feedback, and the organization of course material. A strong LMS helps shape this experience and replacing our LMS helps advance Fulfilling Our Promise Objective 3.1: To facilitate curricular innovation and to ensure that curriculum remains relevant, founded in the liberal arts, attuned to students’ needs, and responsive to the economic environment; and Objective 3.3: To optimize technology and software to automate functions and expand the capacity of existing systems for reporting and assessment.

Canvas also fosters innovation by enabling a number of different options for content delivery, assignment development, and research exploration. The system features the ability for instructors to develop modules with a variety of tools and apps designed for communication and collaboration.

Academic Masterplan

Provost Becker shared that an Academic Masterplan is under development. The goal of the plan is to provide concrete curricular direction and objectives for the next 5 years. It must take into account the interests and needs of Ramapo’s diverse faculty and students, now and in the immediate future, and it must feature the evaluation of current programs and consider the development of new programs.

Provost Becker commended the many new curricular initiatives that have been brought forward. He highlighted several new programs that launched in fall 2019, are planned for fall 2020, and several that are still in development.

Provost Becker went on to report that curricular development and program review go hand in hand in advancing our Strategic Plan: Fulfilling Our Promise. He highlighted specifically, that these initiatives advance Objective 3.1: To facilitate curricular innovation and to ensure that curriculum remains relevant, founded in the liberal arts, attuned to students’ needs, and responsive to the economic environment, and Outcome 3a: New academic programs are evaluated and offered, as appropriate. He added that Dashboard 2021 also tracks program review in Indicator 36.

Enrollment Update

Chris Romano, Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, advised that the College received the highest number of applicants for the Fall 2019 class and enrolled 1,030 students, which exceeded our goal. The goal for next year is to grow modestly and bring in 1,050 students.

VP Romano thanked Peter Rice for his efforts in recruiting the Class of 2023. He commended him as the face of Ramapo Admissions from 2008-2019 and wished him the best in his new role with Institutional Advancement.

VP Romano noted that the College’s recruitment and retention activities are driven by Fulfilling Our Promise. He noted specifically that strategic enrollment management practices drive Outcome 1a: Strategic management of student enrollment in line with the College mission, program capacities, and budget and demographic projections. He noted that 20 of NJ’s 21 counties are represented in the Class of 2023. The College continues to enroll a strong percentage of students from Bergen County which is, in fact, among the most heavily recruited counties in the country. The College also welcomed students from NY, CT, PA, KY, MO, NC, and NH. In addition, international students join Ramapo from Belgium, China, Georgia, Nepal, South Korea, and Spain.

Also driven by Fulfilling Our Promise and tracked in Dashboard 2021, VP Romano advised that the College has also made real strides in enrolling a diverse student body. VP Romano thanked the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Compliance for its support at Open Houses and other recruitment events.

VP Romano went on to note the top ten majors at Ramapo are: Music, Marketing, Communication Arts, Accounting, Elementary Education, Psychology, Computer Science, Biology, Nursing, and Undeclared. He noted that Elementary Education is a new major and has seen considerable enrollment. This marriage between program development and enrollment is noteworthy and is tracked in Dashboard 2021 via Indicator 37: Total number of new major programs/new transfer, freshmen, or graduate students enrolled per year in major programs established since Fall 2017. Growth in undeclared students, he added, is a positive sign for Ramapo because we have a very successful track record of advising and assisting these students in a small class environment toward major programs. Undeclared students benefit from faculty mentoring and the College’s low student: faculty ratio.

He closed by highlighting important admissions dates and elements of the changed competitive landscape of recruitment in light of the repeal of NACAC ethical guidelines. Significant dates include: November 1 for early Admissions; December 15 for Early Action, Priority Deadline, Nursing and Biology; February 1 for new student deadline; March 1 for Generic Transfer Nursing Applications; May 1 for all Adult, Transfer, and Re-Admit Applications. In addition, he reviewed the following fall 2020 graduate admissions dates adding that 4+1 programs in graduate studies are yielding strong enrollment.

Middle States Self Study

Dr. Stephanie Sarabia and Dr. David Nast, Middle States Steering Committee Co-chairs, and Dr. Michael Unger, Director of Assessment, provided an update on Middle States. Our evaluation team chair, Dr. Ron Nowaczyk, President of Frostburg State University, visited campus earlier this month and provided constructive feedback. He stressed the following:

• the self-study report is very well-written,
• Dashboard 2021 should be the college’s signature element.
• Middle States is looking for trend data and systematic, direct assessment being used to inform decision making across campus

Employees across campus are encouraged to tell their stories of using data to inform decisions/ improvements. These stories can be submitted online and may generally apply to decisions made on issues such as general education, the student experience, and administrative assessment.

Submit Your Story Here: https://www.ramapo.edu/self-study

Dr. Unger provided an overview of the General Education program noting that the program was significantly redesigned around keystone courses, and keystone and distribution categories.

He shared an example of assessment and trend data relevant to GE noting that such trend data has informed decisions on curriculum development and delivery ultimately leading to measured improvements in student learning.

Dashboard 2021

Dr. Dorothy Echols Tobe, Chief Planning Officer, presented on Dashboard 2021. She described Dashboard 2021 as a visual mapping of the College’s Strategic Plan: Fulfilling Our Promise. It includes 63 indicators that are mapped to the goals, objectives, and outcomes in the Plan. She reiterated with attendees the format of the Dashboard noting that the inverted pyramid links the goals to indicators and tracks them year over year. She noted that the indicators are updated as data becomes available and notices of those updates run in the Daily Digest and elsewhere.

Awareness across campus of our progress under Fulfilling Our Promise is imperative to our shared success and to our accreditation. We should be looking at these indicators and using these indicators to inform our unit planning, allocation of resources, and other decisions, she said. She also advised that Dashboard 2021 is posted on the Strategic Plan website and is linked to from the websites for Institutional Research, Institutional Effectiveness, and in SPOL.

Visit Dashboard 2021 Now

Dr. Echols Tobe went on to highlight a few examples from the Dashboard noting that the source of the indicator data is cited in each indicator. Those sources are varied and include National Survey of Student Engagement, Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, the College FactBook, Audited Financial Statements, etc.

Capital Update

Kirsten Loewrigkeit, Vice President for Administration and Finance, provided the Capital Update. She noted that the 2013 Campus Facilities Master Plan is consistent with our Strategic Plan goals but does merit a refresh just as our Strategic Plan was refreshed in 2018.

VP Loewrigkeit encouraged the audience to listen to the sound of construction nearby noting that it is the sound of progress on the Library renovation and the new Learning Commons.

Loewrigkeit also described the Lodge Court Renovation noting that it was advanced two years ago and is in keeping with providing student-centered areas on campus.

Announcements

Dr. Peter P. Mercer, President, thanked the presenters. He shared that Ramapo was recognized in the top 3 in New Jersey for job placement success of its graduates by Zippia.Com. He stressed the importance of this type of recognition in a competitive market.

President Mercer also commended our student athletes, advising that the Men’s Cross Country Team recently won the NJAC Championship and the Women’s Volleyball Team won the ECAC Tournament Bid.

He also announced that “Confronting the Climate Crisis: Ramapo’s Reckoning with Reality,” will be on Wednesday, November 20th from 9AM to 3PM, provisionally, in Trustees Pavilion 2 & 3.

Q&A

11.13.19 Full Slide Deck

Categories: Uncategorized