This past year has seen a number of changes within the QEC and the QEP. Ryan Thompson succeeded Kelly Ormsby as the QEP coordinator in December of 2007, and several committee members stepped down in the spring of 2008. Within the QEP, there was a shift in focus from Developmental Learning to General Education. This coincided with a campus wide review of our General Education programs under the Academic Audit and contributed greatly to the discussion and reflection the QEP hopes to foster on campus.
            The Academic Audit’s correlation to QEP goals was included in the fall 2007 In-service presentation. Kelly Ormsby also discussed highlights from the first set of FSSE results, comparing faculty perceptions of student engagement with the feedback students provided in the 2007 CCSSE. Using an idea from conferences attended, this In-service also utilized a poster session where various faculty and staff presented best practices in student engagement. The QEC met to review plans for the year, approve funding of travel requests, line up content for the spring newsletter, and discuss membership changes.  The annual Faculty-staff Survey was also conducted.
            During the spring of 2008, the QEC met twice to prepare for the annual QEP picnic and the fall newsletter, to discuss new QEC members and the Performance Funding report, and to begin planning for the SACS review and the new Five Year Plan. During the spring 2008 In-service, Ryan Thompson and Marcia Owens gave short overviews of the use of surveys, rubrics, and IAP’s to improve documentation of our efforts for SACS, the Academic Audit, and Performance Funding to the faculty. During the spring, the QEC again conducted the CCSSE and FSSE surveys to measure past performance and identify areas for improvement.
            The QEC funded a number of opportunities for faculty to attend conferences this past year. Mark Higgins, Scott Redmond, and Jane Hasting went to TYCAT. In November, John Squires, Dave Guardiani, and Karen Wyrick presented the results of their math class redesigns at AMATYC in Minneapolis and CIT in Nashville. In December, President Hite and Ryan Thompson were able to attend the annual SACS-COC Conference held in New Orleans to learn what others are doing to improve the quality of education on their campuses. In March, Ryan Thompson and Abigail Carter attended the Teaching Matters conference at Gordon College and learned about some of the effective teaching approaches used by other faculty. In May, the QEC held the second annual QEP picnic with very good participation by the students. Student Services provided students with registration information and the QEC was able to collect over 150 student responses to questions about positive educational influences they had while on campus.
            There are three recommended changes among the membership of the QEC.  Dr. Culbreth has been consulted about replacing Ann Cunningham and Susan Webb Curtis with somebody else from Business and Technology and the new Athens Campus director. We also need someone from the Nursing department to serve on the QEC. These appointments are very important as we begin the process of creating a new Five Year Plan for Cleveland State.