River Cities Business Journal: Education

Special to the River Cities Business Journal

With students on four distant campuses across a 13,000-square-mile service area, Mohave Community College considers it crucial that all students receive the same high-quality instruction, regardless of the campus where they attend classes.

To meet MCC's academic standards and to satisfy MCC's articulation agreements with its 12 university partners, every student in a given class, regardless of instructor or campus, must benefit from the exact same curriculum and learning opportunity.

Procedures that help to ensure that outcome for MCC's 14,100 students (unduplicated headcount) include course packaging, program review, curriculum analysis, course/instructor evaluations and learning assessments.

“Community colleges are no longer an entity unto themselves,” MCC Chancellor Michael Kearns said. “We need to fully prepare our students to move right into the work place or into upperclassman status at a university, so we must offer a solid and consistent education to the students while they are here.”

Course packaging

The standards for all courses are set by the faculty and reviewed by a curriculum committee comprised of division chairs, campus CEOs, student services directors and the registrar. One course package is developed for each class offered, and all instructors on all campuses must follow the outline. An instructor can teach more than the package contains but not less.

Each class on each campus uses the same books, and often the tests are the same. There may be some variances, according to RuthAnn Wilson, MCC's dean for institutional effectiveness. Tests in programs such as nursing are identical, but computer and business classes may vary a bit depending on what additional information was taught, she said.

“Uniformity is imperative to assure that all MCC students meet the requirements of our partner universities,” she said.

Program review

At the end of the fall and spring semesters, starting at the lowest level course, all courses are examined within their overall programs. All facets, including success rate, the number of students involved, the cost effectiveness of the various classes and the number of program graduates are examined.

MCC utilizes “The Instructional Efficiency and Effectiveness Program Review Model,” copyrighted by Dr. Thomas C. Henry, MCC chancellor emeritus, and recognized nationally last year with a Bellwether Award from the Community College Futures Assembly.

The model focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of programs, clarifying the value of a program to the institution and identifying issues associated with program costs. The model provides the institution with a method for objective decision making. It provides a framework to fully assess pricing based on the results and allows near- and long-term income planning based upon income and expenses. It also provides a defensible, analytical framework through which institutions can define and manage more accessible education.

A multi-year model can reveal a trend that indicates whether the program merits increased funding, maintaining current funding, decreased funding or program discontinuation.

Curriculum committee

The curriculum committee looks at all existing programs and at any proposed new programs. New program ideas may come to the committee as suggestions from the community, as was MCC's dental programs; from contacts made by MCC's Continuing Education personnel with area businesses, as was MCC's culinary arts program; or the need may be evident from help-wanted ads, which were the impetus for many of MCC's construction trades programs and the pharmacy technician program.

“After a program is proposed, research starts,” Wilson said. “We look at the level of income possible, the job demand in new and replacement jobs over 10 years, the cost and benefit to MCC and its students; and we look at licensing issues, legal requirements and equipment needs.”

Next step is to come up with the curriculum, and Wilson said that is done by looking at other community colleges with successful programs in the same field.

“We talk to them about the pluses and minuses of the program,” she said. “If all looks good, the program is developed after approval of the MCC Board of Governors.”

Existing programs are under review every five years, but they are monitored constantly for the number of students enrolled, the number of students completing the programs and the number of graduates obtaining related jobs. When that analysis is complete, the program - or various classes within the program - may be reworked or redesigned to keep up with changes in the market or within the industry. The committee also decides if a change in software or equipment may be needed.

Course/Instructor evaluations

Students in all classes do evaluations of their courses and instructors at the end of the spring and fall semesters. A formal questionnaire is given to all students in credit classes, in Leisure Studies (non-credit) classes and in Continuing Education (CE) courses. Businesses that utilize CE instruction are also asked if the classes met expectations for their employees.

“We are very serious about the assessments and we make that clear,” Wilson said. “About 95 percent of the questionnaires are returned, and if there is a large withdrawal rate in a certain class, the students who dropped out are also queried.”

The questionnaires are summarized in a report and a copy is sent to the instructor, a copy goes into the personnel file and a copy goes to the program director and/or division chair.

Learning assessments

Assessment of student learning is an integral and ongoing component in MCC's effort to improve and strengthen instruction so it more effectively meets student needs.

MCC maintains an active process for assessing the effectiveness of its instructional efforts.

The outcomes assessment team has identified measures appropriate for monitoring student learning in a community college environment.

The plan for MCC includes a variety of assessment activities at many levels.

The primary tools for assessment, Wilson said, are program reviews that include evaluation of student performance on various required activities, course assessments that include instructors evaluating their own courses and evaluating how well the course objectives met the program goals and objectives.

Secondary assessments include reviews of general education requirements for associate of arts and associate of science students, survey results from graduating students, returning students, transfer students, new students and employers, the program review model addressed earlier and other various assessment programs.

“It is a complicated process, but all the spokes are on the wheel,” said Chuck Spotts, MCC's vice chancellor for instruction and student services. “We want the best for our students and establishing these quality control systems assures that every MCC student has the same opportunity for success in whatever they do next. This attention to quality and consistency has not only benefited our graduates entering the workforce and universities, it has increased confidence in the quality of education at MCC and translated to increases in enrollment and the number of graduates.”

Registration for spring classes at MCC reopens on Jan. 2 and runs through the first week of classes which begin Jan. 28.

More information about programs of study at Mohave Community College is available on the college's Web site at www.mohave.edu.