English proficiency policies under review

UNL is reviewing its policies on English language proficiency requirements for undergraduate admissions. The policies have not been reviewed or updated for a number of years. UNL has invited two consultants from the Educational Testing Service, which administers the widely used Test of English as a Foreign Language, to lead a workshop March 5.

Eileen Tyson and Terry Axe will present English Proficiency and the TOEFL, from 10-11:30 a.m. March 5 in the Nebraska Union. The session is designed to help faculty review UNL's undergraduate admissions TOEFL cut scores for non-native speakers of English. It will focus on the exam, what it tests, what data it yields, what section and aggregate scores suggest, common institutional practices and cut scores for undergraduates, and data from UNL students who have recently taken the TOEFL. The workshop is free and open to all interested members of the UNL community.

David Wilson, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, said that students who apply to UNL and indicate they are non-native speakers of English must demonstrate English proficiency; two options are the TOEFL or the International English Language Testing System exam. Once students arrive at UNL, they take a second exam offered by UNL that is used to determine an appropriate placement in English 150/151 (composition).

Currently, about 2.7 percent of UNL's undergraduates are international students and there is a push to increase that percentage. Carmen Varejcka-McGee, assistant director of admissions, said the percentage of international undergraduates enrolled at UNL's peer institutions is between five and eight percent.

As part of the review process, UNL officials visited the University of Kansas to discuss that institution's proficiency requirements, see KU's Applied English Center, and chat with representatives of KU's admissions, registration and records and athletics departments. Concurrently, UNL engaged The Advisory Board, a consultancy, to look at common best practices at other institutions.

Using information gleaned from KU and The Advisory Board's findings, UNL officials are mulling several recommendations, Wilson said.

• In collaboration with the Department of English, UNL is moving advanced-level English proficiency courses to tuition-based, for-credit status. Currently all levels of English proficiency courses are fee-based and non-credit. The department is drawing up course proposals that will go through the standard course approval process, he said.
• Under the new system, UNL would only use TOEFL or IELTS scores to place students into appropriate English courses. The unique UNL exam would no longer be used for this purpose; students would no longer be doubly tested.
• UNL would change the manner in which students demonstrate English proficiency. Currently, UNL accepts TOEFL, IELTS, the UNL placement exam, and section scores of the ACT or SAT. Under the proposed changes, UNL would no longer use the ACT or SAT scores. Instead, as evidence of English proficiency, UNL would accept a student's graduation from a high school where the curriculum is taught in English, or two years of acceptable course work at a college or university where English is the primary language.
• Also on the table would be a proposal to offer conditional admission to student-athletes who meet all admission requirements other than English proficiency just as UNL currently does for other student applicants.

Among topics to be explored at the March 5 workshop is how UNL uses the TOEFL exam. Wilson said that currently, UNL uses the aggregate score, but that means the university ignores other data, such as subsection scores,that may indicate student proficiency in specific areas like reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

Wilson said another goal for the workshop would be for all UNL colleges to agree to a common cut score; currently some colleges/programs require a higher score than others.

The plan has been reviewed by the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and the Academic Planning Committee and the final shape of the plan will respond to those conversations.

If adopted, the changes would take effect for the class entering Fall 2010.

ACE begins developing outcomes assessment processes

Hallmarks of ACE are its focus on learning outcomes and the promise that UNL would be able to show that its students are meeting those outcomes. To assure the second, UNL is developing assessment tools to help faculty gauge how well programs are meeting those promised objectives.

The job now is to begin to provide details on the university's expectations for assessment and how to fulfill them, said Jessica Jonson, UNL's director of institutional assessment.

Jonson and the university-wide Assessment Committee are laying out the structure for colleges, departments and faculty to meet assessment goals. Each group, she notes, has different needs, yet all must mesh seamlessly. For example, the College of Arts and Sciences is a big provider of ACE courses, and the College of Engineering is more of a user, Jonson said. But Engineering does have ACE capstone courses.

So each college has different things to plan for and think about, she said.

The assessment committee has set up a timetable with five-year assessment cycles for each of the 10 ACE outcomes, she said. It is developing reporting guidelines and templates. But how programs are assessed and the analysis of data are still a conversation in process, Jonson said.

Those faculty conversations are important pieces of the process, said Nancy Mitchell, interim ACE director. The conversation about the program's success leads faculty to think about their own courses and how they fit into the overall big picture.

What assessment won't be used for is general evaluation of an individual teacher's effectiveness. Data from individual courses in programs will be aggregated and analyzed to see how well the entire program fulfills its promises, said David Wilson, associate vice chancellor for Academic Affairs. Wilson played a leadership role in the development of ACE.

Mitchell used her own program, advertising, as an example. The program's capstone course, advertising and public relations campaigns, helps faculty to pinpoint patterns of program weakness so other courses can be tweaked to address those concerns.

The real value of the assessment component of ACE is that it shows what can happen when you deliver on outcomes-based promises, Mitchell said. Faculty can talk about things that are important to student learning in ways that they didn't engage in before. And then they can see if they actually are delivering the outcome and work toward improving student learning.

Chris Gallagher, associate professor of English, is heading up a grant-funded cross-disciplinary project that will design an assessment model that could be used by others at UNL, and perhaps at other universities.

Gallagher said it's important to remember that assessment measures look at a broad sample of student work to determine a program's effectiveness and to address areas of concern. Assessment measures also validate areas of success and to determine how well ACE is meeting its outcome promises.

Assessment affirms the good just as much as it roots out the stuff that needs to be better. It's not so much shining a spotlight on the scary stuff, he said.

Said Mitchell: We hope that we can look at the other ACE outcomes and do a similar process like Chris is doing, so it will incrementally grow.

Jonson defines success as being patient enough to allow the process to evolve into a meaningful tool useful at all levels - from the instructor to the college. We need to let the process evolve so we're not forcing something artificial, she said.

For more on ACE assessment efforts, go to: http://www.unl.edu/ous/ace/assessmentplanning.shtml.

For details about two workshops that explore assessment, please see our Workshops section below.

ITLE announces winning proposals

Two proposals won funding in Round Five of UNL's Initiative for Teaching and Learning Excellence. They are a project to fund a summer study abroad visual literacy course in Japan and a project to create a capstone course for English majors. Projects nominated for ITLE 5 were to help students meet the requirements for four of the 10 outcomes under the new Achievement-Centered Education program. UNL's new general education program, ACE, begins with the 2009-10 school year.

Dana Fritz, associate professor of Art, is coordinator of the Japanese Visual Culture in Context project. Co-directing is Frauke Hachtmann, associate professor of Journalism and Mass Communications. Both have long been associated with UNL's Visual Literacy program.

Visual literacy is the ability to read, interpret and evaluate images for meaning and context. Many consider it to be an essential skill for the 21st century.

Fritz and Hachtmann's project would involve up to 30 students in the study abroad course. After an introduction to Japanese visual culture, students would travel to Japan to visit advertising agencies, museums, cultural institutions and other opportunities to learn to understand a culture through visual analysis.

The project will help students meet ACE student learning outcomes 2 (communication competence) and 9 (global awareness/human diversity).

The $13,000 grant, funded by the University of Nebraska Foundation, will support planning during 2009. The course will be offered in summer 2010.

Melissa Homestead, chair of the Department of English assessment committee, is heading the second funded project Creating a New Capstone Course for English Majors. Co-coordinator is Susan Belasco, chair of undergraduate studies for the Department of English.

The project proposes to create the capstone course for the approximately 100 students who earn degrees in English each year. The course would allow students to fulfill ACE outcome 10, which requires creation of a scholarly product integrating ACE and the major field of study.

The $20,000 grant will allow the department to create a new capstone seminar that would allow students in all the department's concentrations to share the same classroom environment under the direction of a single teacher to create scholarly portfolio. The portfolio would require students to reflect on the body of work they have created and also include new scholarly or creative products. A byproduct of the course would be that representative samples of student portfolios could be used by the department for programmatic assessment purposes.

The department proposes to name six faculty to a faculty inquiry group to research and design a draft course proposal. The group would also create a resource book for future instructors. The proposed course would follow all existing course development and approval processes before being first offered in Fall 2011.

For more information about the Initiative for Teaching and Learning Excellence, see our ITLE web page.

University looking at ways to recruit, retain diverse faculty

UNL is adopting a policy called "Best Practices to Recruit and Retain Diverse Faculty." This policy is congruent with the university's core values and with long-held policies approved by the NU Board of Regents.

A national consultant, THE ADVISORY BOARD, at the direction of UNL's Senior Administrative Team, analyzed successful strategies employed by a number of universities, and submitted a report in May. Several groups have vetted the report, and the Senior Administrative Team also reviewed it. The report will be used by the academic leadership of the university to develop action plans and implement strategies to further diversify the faculty.

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