COF STRATEGIC PLAN FOR ACADEMIC COLLABORATION

Background

(Environment and current position)

Vision for the future

The Colleges of the Fenway is and will be:

•          A think-tank.  A place to bring together faculty and academic administrators, brainstorm new approaches, share ideas.
•          A place to take risks; be creative, try out approaches that one is unable to take within a particular individual institution for political or financial reasons.
•          A place to share resources rather than duplicate every office and effort on each campus.  It may be that a service or discipline offered jointly has more depth and breadth than one college could afford.
•       Capitalizing on success of current joint efforts, and institutionalizing those that warrant sustained support.
•          Creating flexible partnerships that capitalize on institutional strengths and can disband and reconfigure as new ideas and opportunities emerge.
•          Bringing visibility to the Colleges of the Fenway.
•          Broadening resources for faculty, and students.
•          Enhancing faculty opportunities and improve recruitment of faculty and students.

Plan for Getting There

Through discussion and careful assessment of the needs of the colleges and the opportunities presented by the collaboration, the Chief Academic Officers have identified three areas for focusing academic collaboration over the next three years.

•          Collaborative Programs 
•          Academic Technology
•          Institutionalizing Shared Resources

Collaborative Programs

One of the foremost goals of this plan is to find ways to draw faculty into the process, for successful collaboration can only occur if they are full participants.  This past year has provided us with several examples of successful models that have provided faculty with incentives to participate in the collaboration.  Building upon these models will serve as a key component of furthering the collaboration.  The success of the academic technology workshops, the Davis symposium and the department chairs' conference point to the many ways the faculty from the schools can learn from each other.  Many at the department chairs workshop benefited as much from the opportunity to talk with their colleagues about shared challenges as they did from the presentations.  This plan calls for a strong focus on faculty development with the following components:  

COF Conference for Teaching and Learning

The Chief Academic Officers believe that annual conference for teaching and learning is the next step in promoting faculty development. A one-day conference hosted each year at a different school will be effective and inexpensive. The conference will have a different focused theme each year, geared towards specific academic disciplines, and panels led by faculty from different COF schools which explore new ideas of best practices at each of the schools.   Other consortia have been very successful with this model as it has brought together faculty from related disciplines and provided a context for developing relationships, while providing opportunities to focus on pedagogy.  $10,000 has been included in the COF budget to fund this program.    

COF/ProArts Consortium Department Chairs and Program Coordinators Workshop

This spring COF department chairs participated in a 1 1/2-day workshop with their colleagues from the ProArts Consortium.  The workshop was planned in conjunction with the American Council on Education’s programs for department chairs and brought several “experts” in the field to Boston.  The overwhelming recommendation from participants was that this program continue, tapping into local experts as well as national presenters.  Many on the current planning committee are interested in continuing their efforts. They recommend that this become an annual event eventually moving to the fall semester and include a specific session for newly appointed department chairs.  The Chief Academic Officers support this recommendation and have tentatively scheduled this program for February2001.  Simmons College has volunteered to host the workshop.   

Davis Mini-Grants

The initial funding from the Davis Educational Foundation has been instrumental in providing an incentive to faculty to collaborate.  During the course of the fall semester the Chief Academic Officers will be meeting with each of the mini-grant teams to review their projects and determine which initiatives should be pushed forward and if warranted, formally institutionalized.  In addition, we have received a second grant to continue the faculty mini-grant program.  These grants have brought a sense of excitement to the faculty and have encouraged new and innovative thinking about curriculum and collaboration.  MassArt is a new member of the consortium and the grant program will play a pivotal role in bringing their faculty into the collaboration.   

Faculty Seminars/Colloquia

One of the keys to furthering academic collaboration is building the relationships and trust among the individual faculty.  While the faculty development opportunities we have identified will begin this process, a systematic and faculty driven approach is also needed.  The Chief Academic Officers recommend that funds be designated for faculty seminars and available through a specific petition process.  Possible uses include faculty in a particular discipline coming together to share their research on a regular basis, faculty who share a common interest across disciplines meeting to discuss scholarship or common concerns, or faculty bringing together students to share their research with each other.  The following criteria are under consideration for structuring the program: the group requesting funding has to represent at least three institutions; funds can pay for refreshments, not meals; funds will not pay honoraria to COF faculty; funds could pay small honoraria to bring in outside speakers.  It is envisioned that these seminars could serve as start-ups for future joint programs.  It is important that the faculty have a role in defining how they could best use these funds.  A portion of these funds will be allocated for supporting joint speakers when at least three institutions have already contributed to a planned event.  The Chief Academic Officers Group will review fund requests and a limit will be placed on the amount that can be requested. $15,000 has been allocated in the COF budget to fund this initiative.    

Joint Academic Initiatives

As many other consortiums with an academic focus have found, the benefits of joint academic programs are significant.  Pooling resources from two or more campuses can form a program or course that cannot be created on one campus alone.  Combined faculties produce a stronger more diverse curriculum.  The costs for the program or course are shared, each institution hiring part of the faculty with the costs of operation, accreditation, and professional membership split among the group.  The paradigm of cooperation generates a creative mind-set in which faculty are likely to develop a strong relationship and maintain a positive attitude seeking proactive solutions for the challenges that arise. (Strandness, 1999)  At the same time there are many challenges to moving in this direction, as it comes closer to touching the heart of each of our schools.  In order to move forward in this area we need to engage in extensive planning beginning with the building of relationships and trust among those faculty and administrators in the targeted areas.  We are confident that many new ideas will emerge once faculty come together and are given the opportunity and incentives to collaborate.   It is certainly easier to look at potential new programs on an inter-institutional cooperative basis than to merge two existing departments. The Chief Academic Officers recommend that the first steps in this area be a commitment to reviewing all institutional requests for new academic programs in light of the collaboration and to assess existing areas of academic collaboration.  An individual school should approve no new academic program without a careful review to see if it could be achieved collaboratively, and an assessment of what resources the other schools have to offer.   Once a few new joint academic programs are in place, it will be easier to look at existing programs.  As academic administrators at each of the schools plan for the future, the opportunity to develop joint programs and majors needs to be part of their environmental scan.  At the same time, a few joint academic programs currently exist between pairs of COF schools.  It is time to assess these programs, determining whether they are living up to their potential and identifying what other opportunities may exist.  An emphasis will be placed on developing joint courses and programs in the new Davis Mini-Grant RFP.  

Faculty Scholars Program

The goal of the Faculty Scholars Program (FSP) is to provide an opportunity for highly motivated students to develop innovative courses of study that maximize the collective resources of the Colleges of the Fenway.  A planning committee of faculty and administrators will be convened in the Fall 2000 to develop this program.   Center for Innovation in Technology, Education, Art, Communication and Health

(CI/TEACH)

  By capitalizing on our core academic strengths, the Chief Academic Officers propose the establishment of a center for innovative collaboration among the faculties and professional staffs of the six member institutions. The Center for Innovation in Technology, Education, Art, Communication and Health-or CI/TEACH-would be a think-tank that would serve as an incubator and clearinghouse for collaborative programs in areas such as the following:

•          environmental engineering (toxicology, public health, technology, design)
•          industrial design (architecture, art, technology)
•          medical design (health, architecture, art, technology)
•          alternative healing practices (health, education, cultural studies)
•          health literacy (health, education, communication, technology)
•          drug development, regulation and marketing (health, management, communication, design)
•          women's studies (all disciplines)
•          graphic design (all disciplines)
•          teacher preparation and re-certification (all disciplines)
•          gerontology studies (all disciplines)
•          COF Honors Program

Collaborative Grants

Academic collaborations and consortiums across the country are currently seeing strong support from both private and government funding agencies.  The challenge COF faces is to get the appropriate group of faculty and/or administrators together to develop these grant applications.  The goal is to develop an ongoing system for identifying and engaging groups of faculty interested in a particular area, and providing them with support in soliciting grants.  The Chief Academic Officers recommend that the grants/development officers collaborate on a monthly listing of grants available, and that the schools develop a system for notifying faculty about grant opportunities and identifying faculty who might work on a particular project together.  We envision informal meetings, coordinated by the COF office, inviting potential collaborators on specific RFPs to brainstorm potential responses.   The corollary to this is to provide support for informal groups of faculty to come together to identify shared interests and ideas for scholarship and then enlist the grants officers assistance in identifying funding sources as initiatives emerge. During the review of Davis Mini-Grant projects, the Chief Academic Officers will be identifying those initiatives that merit institutionalization and/or further financial support from other outside funders.  They will be looking to the grants' officers to support these faculty in moving forward.  In conjunction, it is important that the corporation and foundation officers develop an ongoing and trusting communications network in order to avoid misunderstanding around competition for grants.   This will require giving them clear direction that they are to support collaborative efforts and develop a means of regular communication and relationship building. 

Cross Registration

There needs to be a recommitment to the shared academic calendar from the highest level at all the institutions in order for the basic foundation of the collaboration, cross registration, to realize the potential it offers students.   In addition, the time has come to codify academic policies and grading as they relate to cross registration.  Over the course of the first four years of COF, several areas of difference in relation to grading, academic policy, and scheduling have emerged.  While some of these may be mere nuisances that each school needs to make an effort to overcome, others have the potential to be seen as major stumbling blocks to cross registration for those who have to manage them.  It is time to carefully review the issues that have arisen and put more formal guidelines in place where appropriate.  We also need to review the information that is shared with faculty and make sure that they are aware of the policies and agreements among the institutions.  

Academic Calendar

The Chief Academic Officers recommend that all schools agree that classes will start each semester within five academic days of each other, and that the home institution will accommodate cross-registered students who have any end or beginning of the semester extended housing needs.  The Chief Academic Officers are looking to the presidents to endorse this recommendation through a written agreement that is sent to the parties responsible for developing the academic calendar at each school.  

Academic Policies and Grading

The Chief Academic Officers will review all academic and grading policy issues that have arisen during the last four years.  Once all are codified, the Chief Academic Officers will charge the registrars to develop a cross-registration handbook which outlines all the academic policies and grading policies impacted by cross registration.    Appropriate versions of this handbook will be distributed to faculty each fall.

Academic Technology

There are a number of current initiatives within the Colleges of the Fenway intended to better utilize future technologies for the academic environment, including committees on information technology and distance learning.  However, except for those specific initiatives that have been supported through the Davis Mini-Grant process, most of those participating in these larger COF efforts have not included faculty.  As a result, successes of these committees have been marginal, and to some extent ignored by the faculty.  The COF Faculty Information Technology Taskforce is a short-term project to bring a new level of COF faculty participation and provide a more visible example of what a successful collaboration among the COF faculty can bring to the academic environment.   The long-term goal is to capitalize on the role technology can play in helping the schools to achieve all of the goals related to academic collaboration, including facilitating curricular development, scholarly activities, grant writing, faculty professional development, and academic departmental collaboration.  In order to do this, we propose to: involve faculty in an on-going discussion regarding information technology and the impact this has on pedagogy, learning resources, and curriculum development; create initiatives that further develop the level of faculty competencies in the academic and administrative uses of information technology in the learning environment; seek opportunities to standardize basic instructional software tools, mediated resources and electronic communications to facilitate links among the COF faculties and students; and build on previous IT initiatives or studies begun through the Davis Foundation and COF IT and Distance Learning Committees.

COF Faculty Information Technology Taskforce

We recommend the creation of a faculty task force comprised of one representative from each college and co-chaired by one CAO to assist in the COF IT network strategic planning initiatives. This task force would survey faculty (full and adjuncts) regarding current and projected needs for technology to enhance current pedagogy, support academic research, and enable students to gain more from their learning experience.  The task force will then identify a common web instructional software tool that is convenient to use by faculty and students, and can be supported and maintained by the six colleges in a collaborative way.  The system will at minimum allow faculty to distribute syllabi, provide bulletin board options, chat rooms for instructional discussions, and other amenities to help facilitate learning such as e-mail and the use of attachments.  Upon completion of their work, the task force would then conduct a series of panel discussions at each of the colleges during the following spring semester to report on their work and lead discussions related to the impact of technology in the classroom.  Proceedings from these discussions could then be published on the COF web site.    The faculty members involved will receive release time to begin this work in the fall of 2000, which will allow them to complete their work by the end of the fall semester.  This could be funded in part from the Davis Mini-Grant program.   Subject to the approval of the COF Presidents on the COF networking initiative, then this same task force could re-convene to determine the training needs of faculty, including on-going help desk requirements to implement the selected web software.  

Faculty Technology Workshops

In May 1999, the IT directors sponsored a faculty technology workshop at Simmons.  Featuring presentations by current faculty on integration of technology into the classroom, the 100 participants gave the program high ratings and made several suggestions for future programs.  Moving forward, the Chief Academic Officers plan to identify one or two days at the beginning of the fall semester for an annual faculty technology workshop.  The focus of the program will range from basic training, to applications within specific disciplines.  The Chief Academic Officers will work with the COF IT Committee to identify topics or themes for each workshop, and the IT committee will coordinate the development and delivery of the presentations.   While the primary goal of the program is to educate faculty about academic technology and provide them with some hands-on examples of how their colleagues are using these tools, a secondary goal is to link faculty with others within the COF who can serve as resources and collaborators in integrating technology into the curriculum of all the schools.

Davis Mini-Grant Projects

Several of the Faculty Mini-Grant projects funded with the first grant from the Davis Educational Foundation focused on utilizing technology to support academic initiatives.  Many of these were quite successful in what they accomplished.  The Chief Academic Officers will specifically review the projects related to academic technology and work with the faculty to institutionalize those that are appropriate, and/or find additional funding to further develop the project. 

Institutionalizing Shared Resources

  Sharing of Academic/Administrative Resources   There are two areas that come to immediate attention as opportunities to enhance services and share costs through some form of shared offices: Academic Support Services /Disability Services and part-time faculty. The Chief Academic Officers already consult with each other when looking to fill part-time positions.  In order to assess the real opportunities in this area, we need to review all part-time faculty positions to identify areas of overlap.  In addition, each school needs to identify who their strongest part-time faculty are; these could be the faculty that the schools want to make a stronger commitment to through a shared contract.  Concurrently, the Chief Academic Officers will develop a template for shared faculty contracts.    Academic Support Services/Disability Services is an area in which each of the colleges sees a need for assessment and possible enhancement.  This makes it an ideal initial candidate for consideration as an opportunity to develop shared delivery services.  The first step will be to conduct a needs assessment in order to determine the current needs and services offered at each school, and identify the areas of convergence.  From there we can research other operations of this nature and develop a proposal for creating a new-shared entity.  This is an area that may lend itself to seeking outside support as a pilot program.  There are several other areas where shared services and resources are worth considering, (career planning, sponsored programs, etc.) however it is important to focus on one area and be successful before moving into other areas.  

Closing

While this plan is ambitious, it takes into account the significant potential that this collaboration offers.  Over the course of the meetings and conversations between the Chief Academic Officers, many innovative ideas for new academic programs emerged.  The challenge is separating the wheat from the shaft.  It is hoped that a new round of Davis Foundation funding for Faculty Mini-Grants will bring some of these ideas to fruition and raise new ones.  The plan outlined here is designed to support and enhance that which has been started through the initial round of Davis Grants and through the slowly growing relationships between the faculties of the schools.   Energy, creativity, and excellence are resources that we have on each of the campuses.  This plan is designed to capitalize and support this potential.  

Timeline for Implementation of Strategic Plan

  Year One

•          Strategic Plan to presidents
•          Site visit from Davis Educational Foundation Trustees  
•           Identify faculty for COF Faculty IT Taskforce  
•      Select dates for Faculty Technology Workshop
•           Solicit comprehensive list of academic and grading policy concerns from

•          Develop guidelines for Faculty Seminars/Colloquia Fund
•          Pursue possibility of ACE Fellow to work on Strategic Plan

•          Convene COF Faculty IT Taskforce
•          COF Conference on Teaching and Learning planning committee appointed
•          Department Chairs and Program Coordinators Workshop planning committee appointed.
•          Formal Review of 1^st Davis Mini-grant projects begins
•          Set-up and announce Faculty Seminars/Colloquia Fund
•          Publicize Second Davis Mini-Grant RFP *
•          Select themes for Faculty Technology Workshop
•          Convene grants officers; develop protocol for sharing grant information with faculty
•          Outline of plan for needs/current conditions assessment for academic support services and disability services
•          Convene Faculty Scholars Program planning committee

•          Cross Registration handbook completed
•          First Annual COF Conference on Teaching and Learning
•          Review and select David Mini-Grant proposals
•          Begin implementing recommendations from report from COF Faculty IT
•      Taskforce
•          Template for joint part-time faculty contracts completed
•          Inventory of all part-time faculty positions completed
•          Second Annual COF/ProArts Consortium Department Chairs and

•          COF Faculty Technology Workshop
•          Create CI/TEACH board of directors and secure funding

•          Continue to implement Davis Mini-grant program (if awarded)
•          Third Annual COF/ProArts Consortium Department Chairs and Program Coordinators
•          Workshop (moves to fall semester).
•          Implementation of joint part-time positions begun
•         Assessment for shared academic support services and disability
•          Services completed
•          Appoint CI/TEACH co-directors and develop concrete implementation plan
•          Assess current joint academic programs
•          Develop agreement to review all proposals for new academic programs
•          COF Faculty Technology Workshop moves to fall

•          Second Davis Symposium*
•         Second Annual COF Conference on Teaching and Learning
•          Implementation plan for shared academic support services and disability services completed.              

•          Implementation of programs and initiatives
•          Annual COF/ProArts Consortium Department Chairs and Program Coordinators Workshop
•          Shared COF Office for Academic and Disability Support Services
•          Assessment of status of plan and revisions for the future
•          Implement CI/TEACH plan
•          COF Faculty Technology Workshop

•          Third Annual COF Conference on Teaching and Learning
•          Assess and develop plan for moving forward from here.