Eastern Michigan
University
Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197
1992 Institutional Rejoinder
Office of the Dean
College of Education
EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197
Dr. Donna M. Gollnick, Vice President
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
2010 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20036-1023
Dear Dr. Gollnick:
This is to acknowledge receipt of the NCATE Board of Examiners report of the visitation to Eastern Michigan University that occurred in November, 1992. Please consider this document as the official Institutional Rejoinder to that report.
This is to express appreciation to the Board of Examiners team for a thorough and essentially accurate assessment of our professional education programming. Although I have been involved substantially both at the institutional level in preparing for a team visit and in visiting other institutions as a member of the Board of Examiners, I still marvel at the ability of a small group of able and well-trained people to come to an understanding of a large and complex institution in a short period of time.
Please forward this to the appropriate structures within the Unit Accreditation Board for further consideration in the context of other documents you have from and about Eastern Michigan University.
Sincerely yours,
Jerry H. Robbins,
Dean
xc: Dr. Ronald W. Collins,
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dr. Philip Rusche, chair, BOE team
V-B Resources (Basic and Advanced)
Resources are available in the areas of personnel, funding, physical facilities, library, equipment, materials, and supplies that allow the professional education unit to fulfill its mission and offer quality programs.
Weaknesses
1. Library space and holdings are limited.
Information concerning library holdings is provided on pp. 270-273 of Vol. I of the Institutional Report.
2. Approximately one-third of the faculty are part-time
lecturers.
Information concerning part-time faculty funded by the College of Education is provided on pp. 250-252 of Vol. I of the Institutional Report. For FY93, of 174.54 FTEF budgeted for the College of Education at the time of the BOE team visit (up from the 169.20 reported on p. 243 for earlier in the year), 34.49 FTEF (19.8% of the FTEF) was budgeted for part-time lecturers.
Vol. III of the Institutional Report was prepared based on data from a previous 12-month period, including the 1991-1992 academic year. Changes in extent of use of part-time lecturers occurred between FY92 and FY93.
Use--as opposed to budgeted amounts for the College of Education--can be affected by such factors as (a) hiring a part-time lecturer to replace a faculty member whose time is "bought off" by a sponsored project and (b) use of Continuing Education funds, rather than College of Education funds, to support the hiring of a part-time lecturer.
3. There is insufficient number of clerical staff to support
programs.
Data on the number of clerical (21.5 FTE) and professional-technical
and other support staff (11.67 FTE) (total = 33.17 FTE) of the
College of Education is provided on pp. 244-245 of Vol. I of the
Institutional Report. At the time of the BOE team visit, 30.17
FTE positions were operational. This compares with 18.0 FTE clerical
and 7.0 FTE professional-technical and other (total = 25.0 FTE) as of
November 1991 (a year earlier).
4. When students do not or can not sign up for classes on the
first day of registration, the classes often are closed. Some
students are forced to attend an extra semester in order to enroll in
the necessary classes for graduation.
The College of Education offers approximately 2200 sections of
courses per year with a mean number of students per section of 20-21
(Exhibit 82-A, Academic Department Profile, p. 62). Classes
are typically closed at 25. In general, the College of Education has
a small excess capacity for serving students in professional
education and specialty studies courses offered through the College
of Education.
However, some students have found themselves faced with a closed section in the College of Education. In such cases, students faced with a closed section in the College of Education may request an "override," which, if granted, has the effect of admitting the student to an otherwise closed section. If the "override" is not granted, faculty advisors are available to help the student identify another course appropriate for the student's program.
We have no data on the number of students who might find the completion of their programs delayed as much as a semester because of closed sections. We suspect the number of cases of delayed program completion due to closed sections of professional education courses is small (but vocal!). A larger number of cases may be due to scheduling problems related to the general education and/or specialty studies courses offered outside the College of Education. For example, the College of Arts and Sciences offers approximately 6100 sections of courses per year with a mean number of students per section of slightly over 25. Many of these courses also are closed at 25, indicating that these courses, through "overrides," are, on the whole, operating at slightly over stated capacity and with excess demand over capacity. (Exhibit 82-A, p. 10.)
5. There are not sufficient computers to meet the growing
technological demands of the student population. Many faculty do not
have ready access to computers.
Computer resources available to professional education students are
described on pp. 265-266, 280, and 283-284 of Vol. I and in several
of the program descriptions in Vol. II. These descriptions include
those of the three computer laboratories in the College of Education;
the computer laboratories of Learning Resources and Technologies; the
Goddard Hall computer laboratory; and the computer laboratories of
the Departments of Business and Industrial Education, Chemistry, and
Music, among others.
Faculty access to computers is described on p. 264 of Vol. I of the Institutional Report. Among the full-time faculty of the College of Education, 55% have a computer in the office which each occupies. This includes all of the faculty in the Department of Leadership and Counseling and almost all of the computer users in the Department of Special Education. Most computer users in the Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance have a computer in the office. In the Department of Teacher Education, largely for security reasons due to the nature of the faculty office areas, multiple computers have been located in secure areas in close proximity to faculty offices. Even in that department, all the faculty in educational technology and a number of others who make extensive use of computers have individually-assigned computers.
Approximately 50 computers for faculty use were acquired and set up during the early part of FY93, in addition to the 22 previously held for this purpose and in addition to several privately-owned computers used on campus. In addition, a large portion of the FY93 College of Education equipment budget went to computer-related infrastructure, including large expenditures for servers, wiring and cable within and between buildings, connecting devices and software to support networking, and the like. As a result, the College of Education now has excess infrastructure capacity for networking (on-campus and worldwide), lacking only enough additional stations for the remaining computer users among the faculty. In addition, a full-time computer technician, with special expertise in networking, was hired this year for and by the College of Education.
6. There is a lack of acceptable office space. The office walls
are not connected to the ceiling. In some offices, there are four
faculty members per office.
Faculty office spaces are described on pp. 261-262 of Vol. I of the
Institutional Report. Almost all individual faculty offices in
the College of Education are in the range of 100-110 square feet in
size, furnished with desk, desk chair, one or more guest chairs, file
cabinets, shelving, telephone, and one or more electrical outlets.
About two-thirds of the full-time faculty in the College of Education occupy individual offices that meet this general description. About one-third of the full-time faculty of the College of Education share an office with a colleague (or, in rare instances, more than one colleague). Shared offices are larger than the individual offices and, while there is typically only one telephone per office, there are furnishings proportionate to the number of occupants.
In the College of Education, 30% of the faculty occupy an office in an area that has been converted from classroom to office space and where, for reasons of heating and ventilation, cinder-block walls stop short of the ceiling in order to permit air circulation. All of these faculty offices are in either the Department of Teacher Education or the Department of Leadership and Counseling. In all other cases, including some of the faculty offices in the Department of Teacher Education and the Department of Leadership and Counseling, faculty offices are completely enclosed.
7. Many supervisors have had traditionally more than an 18 to 1
load.
Unfortunately, this situation has been true in the past; fortunately, due to added support from central administration, excessive supervision loads were not the case at the time of the BOE team visit, are not the case now, and will not be the case in the foreseeable future.
See the statement on p. 21 of the BOE team report, which reads "College of Education administrators, aware of student teaching loads which were excessive in the past, sought and obtained supplementary funding from Eastern Michigan University sources to bring the student teachers-supervisor ratio within an acceptable range."
For Fall 1992, at the time of the visit, sufficient funds and personnel were available for the Office of Student Teaching such that the number of FTE student teachers divided by the number of FTE supervisors was less than 18, the required upper limit for the supervision ratio.
The BOE team may have been misled by equivalencies. Many supervisors of student teaching have this responsibility as a fractional part of load. For example, a faculty member might be assigned student teachers as a 1/4 time assignment for a given semester. This would indicate that he/she could supervise as many as 4.5 student teachers and be within load requirements. In a few such cases, especially involving supervision sites at some distance from campus, five students in the same or a near-by building might be assigned to a given supervisor, with another 1/4 time supervisor having only four students. The next semester, the situation would be reversed. (In such cases, it seems counterproductive to have four students at a distant site supervised by one supervisor and the fifth student supervised by a different supervisor who has had to drive a long distance to provide the supervision.)
In other cases, university record-keeping at a given point in time can disguise the fact that some student teachers (e.g., K-12 fields, early childhood) are doing a half-semester assignment in each of two settings, often supervised by a different faculty member for each of the assignments. The student's name (and thus the count of students) can appear on two rosters in such a case.
8. Not all facilities are accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Access to classrooms, offices, and other facilities associated with the professional education program is described on pp. 256-261 of Vol. I of the Institutional Report.
General education courses are held in locations that are readily accessible by mobility-impaired students, as are almost all specialty-study courses. Basic-level professional education classes are held in approximately 90 classrooms in 15 buildings on campus. All but four classrooms are accessible by ramps and/or elevators for mobility impaired students. One departmental office and approximately 25 faculty offices are not readily accessible for mobility-impaired students. Classes, advising, and other functions are relocated for any mobility-impaired student who needs to access the one floor of one building where these functions are located.
Advanced-level courses are held in a greater number of locations, all of which are readily accessible to mobility-impaired students except for four classrooms in one building on the main campus. One department office and approximately 20 faculty offices potentially needed by advanced-level students are not readily available to mobility-impaired students.
Standard I-A
1. (Basic) Assessment of programs designed around the knowledge base has not yet been undertaken.
This is an accurate statement.
2. (Basic) The knowledge base has not yet been fully communicated
to constituencies external to the institution.
This is generally an accurate statement. However, the College of Education's Community Advisory Committee and several ad hoc groups from the field have been involved in the develop ment and review of the basic-level knowledge base and model.
3. (Advanced) The knowledge bases articulated at the advanced
level are not uniformly reflected in curricular design, course
syllabi, instructional design and practice, nor are models
conceptualized for some knowledge bases presented.
This is an accurate statement; however, in a number of programs, these processes have been completed.
4. (Advanced) Assessment of programs designed around advanced
knowledge bases have [sic] not been addressed.
This is an accurate statement.
Standard I-B.
5. Some syllabi do not show the various approaches and methods of best practice and current research.
This is an accurate statement. However, much revision of syllabi occurred during the months immediately prior to the BOE team visit, especially associated with those courses to be taught in the Fall of 1992. Syllabi for courses next to be taught in Winter 1993 and thereafter had not necessarily received complete revision at the time of the team visit.
Standard I-D.
6. At the advanced level, school psychology is not in compliance with the American Association of School Psychology [sic].
Undoubtedly, the reference should be to the guidelines of the National Association of School Psychologists; otherwise, this is an accurate statement.
7. At the basic level, programs in elementary education,
mathematics, and physical education are not in compliance with their
professional organizations.
In the case of one of the programs mentioned, response from the specialty organization has been, in our opinion, excessively slow. This, in turn, has caused us difficulty in making any needed adjustments. In the other two cases we have not yet been found in compliance by the specialty organization.
A fourth program, not mentioned, is not yet in compliance, but this is due to the fact that the specialty organization had determined that we should submit on a different schedule and materials had only recently gone to the specialty organization at the time of the team visit.
Standard I-E.
8. Collaboration between faculty in academic departments teaching subject specific methods courses and teacher education faculty is not always apparent.
In general, the composition of the University Council on Teacher Education (UCTE) consists of faculty in teacher education and persons housed in the disciplines who teach subject-specific methods courses. This group meets approximately every two weeks during the academic year. Minutes of the UCTE record formal actions of the group; the minutes do not typically reflect the full discussions or the informal interactions before/after the meetings that occur between these constituencies.
Standard II-A.
9. All students do not have field assignments equal to those afforded students in the CITE program.
If the reference is to "equal" in structure and possible quality, this is generally an accurate statement; however, all basic-level students complete a minimum of 100 clock hours of field experiences before student teaching. Although we are trying to devise ways such that many more students can have a structured, developmental, sequential, integrated pre-student teaching field experience, we hold that the NCATE criteria and Standard do not require that all students participate in a pre-student teaching filed experience at the level of CITE, a nationally-recognized, award-winning pilot project.
Standard II-C.
10. The College of Education does not have a systematic plan regarding faculty participation in activities with local schools.
Very strictly speaking, this is an accurate statement. Nevertheless, we have extensive faculty involvements with the field, as indicated in a variety of places in the Institutional Report and in the BOE team report. In addition, there are a number of highly focused areas, some of which emerged from last year's College of Education "Conference on Collaboration." For example, the school counseling faculty and students are focused on providing assistance to students/parents/staff of two local communities (Willow Run, Ypsilanti) undergoing traumatic conditions (a large plant closing and severe mid-year financial problems/retrenchments, respectively). The total educational leadership faculty and many students are focused on a research study in the South Lyon school district that involves systemic change. Early childhood and other faculty are involved in the creation of a professional development school in Detroit. There are numerous other focused efforts.
More importantly, we hold that the wording of the criteria and the Standard does not require a formal plan related to relationships with the field, desirable as that might be.
Standard III-A.
11. The unit has limited involvement in recruiting activi ties and relies on the central admissions office to attract minority populations.
We find an inconsistency in this statement of weakness and the following Strength identified by the BOE team: "The Urban Teacher Education Program [sic, should be "Urban Teacher Pro gram"] is an innovative approach to seeking students committed to working in the urban setting. The college is continuing to maintain some aspects of the program, even though state and federal funds have not been received."
The "rationale for the decision" addresses only activities of central administrative units and does not speak to the substantial minority recruitment activities of the College of Education.
The descriptions of central administrative structures (not necessarily solely admissions office) for recruiting minority students and College of Education structures for recruiting minority students are given on pp. 138-141 of Vol. I of the Institutional Report. Responsibilities for the nationally- recognized Urban Teacher Program and the YES programming are entirely those of personnel of the College of Education, with College of Education personnel playing major roles in the Oakland County Community College Minority Teacher Initiative Program. Perhaps it was not clear that the Urban Teacher Program clientele are mostly minority (primarily African American with some Hispan ic) students.
Approximately 12 faculty and staff of the College of Education have devoted and, in most cases, continue to devote appreciable time, energy, and resources to the recruitment of minority students, especially through the UTP, YES, and MTIP programs. A number of others have been involved in lesser ways. A comment of "limited involvement" does a disservice to the efforts and successes of these faculty.
We prefer to hold that the College of Education shares with the admissions office and other central structures a responsibility for recruiting and retaining minority students, that unit efforts have been and are appreciable (as acknowledged in the Strength cited above), and that we have made some degree of progress in recent times. (See Appendix to this report for numbers and percents of minority students in recent terms.)
Standard III-C.
12. Not all faculty in the unit are committed to systemat ic, regular, and effective advising of students at the basic level.
Strictly speaking, this is an accurate statement, although not all faculty are assigned to or expected to be substantively involved in advising matters at either the basic or advanced levels. Further, many faculty members, including all of the faculty in the Department of Leadership and Counseling, are not associated with the basic level but are instead actively involved with providing quality advising at the advanced level. Further, we hold that the vast majority of faculty assigned to basic-level advising responsibilities perform their duties with great dedication to the needs of students.
Standard III-D.
13. The unit's approach to helping students toward comple tion of programs is varied and can cause difficulty for students who change majors or who have dual majors.
Indeed, the approach to helping students toward completion of programs is, we feel, appropriately varied and flexible--group advising in some cases, individual advising in other cases, use of conversations, use of printed materials, use of various program monitoring processes, etc. We regret any perception of or real difficulty that has inadvertently been provided to students through the use of a variety of advising and monitoring approaches. We observe that pursuing or completing two majors is quite rare at EMU among professional education students.
Standard IV-A.
14. Although Eastern Michigan University is situated advan tageously close to centers of heavy minority population, its efforts to recruit minority faculty have not produced meaningful numbers of professors from racial/ethnic minorities.
Race/ethnicity statistics for the full-time faculty of the College of Education are given on p. 186 of Vol. I of the Insti tutional Report. However, data for the 1992-93 year were not always available for inclusion in the Institutional Report at the time it was prepared.
For the 1992-93 academic year, the full-time faculty of the College of Education consists of 12.7% minority faculty, includ ing 8.5% African-American, 2.6% Asian-American, and 1.7% Hispanic. In addition, one of the associate deans is an African-American woman. This is not enough; we are highly committed to obtain more well-qualified minorities. However, we hold that 12.7% is "meaningful" in relation to the racial/ethnic make-up of the total University faculty (11.6% in 1991-92) (see p. 186) and of our University and College of Education student bodies (for Fall 1991, not including "foreign," 11.8% and approximately 7.5%, respectively). (See pp. 137-138.) (See also item 11 above.)
P. 10. Two one-hour courses in physical education (or the equivalent) are required.
P. 11. Since the time of the BOE team visit, additional outstanding responses from specialty organizations have been received.
P. 13. The first sentence of the fourth paragraph should refer, not to advanced level students, but to prospective K-12 teachers who have field experiences with both younger and older students.
P. 17. The heading should refer to "monitoring progress" instead of "mentoring progress."
P. 25. Last paragraph, starting with the second sentence, should read "The Department of Leadership and Counseling has three and a half secretaries and a PT (professional-technical) serving 15 full-time faculty members, while the Department of Teacher Education has four secretaries and a PT serving approximately 45 full-time faculty members. The Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance has two secretaries and 0.67 FTE PT's serving 33 full-time faculty and 500 majors; and the Department of Special Education has three and a half secretaries and three PT's serving 29 full-time faculty. . . ."
P. 28. Last item. In addition to the President's involvement in the Renaissance Group, the Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs is one of two chief academic officers on the executive committee of the organization and is otherwise very actively involved.
Following p. 28: Donald Bennion is the Associate Vice President, Academic Affairs; Nancy Halmhuber is a faculty member in the Department of Special Education; Steven Kirby is the Head of the Department of Foreign Languages and Bilingual Studies; Ann Remp is the acting Head, Department of Business and Industrial Education; Elizabeth Rhodes is the Head of the Department of Human, Environmental, and Consumer Resources;
R.S. Bajwa is a faculty member in the Department of Teacher Education; James Berry is a faculty member in Leadership and Counseling; Mildred Lintner is a faculty member in Computer Science; Helen Ditzhazy is a faculty member in Leadership and Counseling; Robbie Johnson is Associate Dean; Marvin Johnson is a faculty member in HPERD;
Lew Kieft is a faculty member in Business and Industrial Education; Steven Kirby is Head of the Department of Foreign Languages and Bilingual Studies; Mary Krieger is accurately described only by the second of the two entries for her; James Rokusek is a faculty member in Business and Industrial Education; Quirico Samonte is a faculty member in Teacher Education;
Georgea Sparks-Langer is a faculty member in Teacher Educa tion; Lech Wisniewski is a faculty member in Special Education;
Kathy Ashton-Miller is a university supervisor.
1. We are concerned with the wording of the weakness found in connection with Standard I-E, where the operational term seems to be "apparent." Is there substantively insufficient collaboration between the groups mentioned? Or is the concern with how "apparent" or how "documented" this collaboration is?
2. We are concerned with the wording of the weakness found in connection with Standard II-A. Is there a deficiency related to the criteria or the Standard in the amount and nature of the pre-student teaching experience required for non-CITE students? If so, we will take steps to remediate that deficiency. However, as the statement of weakness is currently worded, it appears that the necessary remediation is to provide a CITE-like field experience for all prospective teachers. Indeed, we are committed to doing so, but are we required to do so under the NCATE criteria and Standard?
3. We are concerned with the wording of the weakness found in connection with Standard II-C. Is there a deficiency related to the criteria or the Standard related to the quantity or quality of faculty interactions with the field? If so, we will take steps to remediate that deficiency. However, as the statement of weakness is currently worded, it appears that the necessary remediation is to prepare a "systematic plan." This seems an excellent idea and we will pursue it, but are we required to do so under the NCATE criteria and Standard?
4. We are concerned with the apparent inconsistency between the statement of weakness found in connection with Standard III-A and a statement of strength on the same subject. The "rationale for the decision" addresses only institutional-level activities and does not speak to activities/efforts/successes at the unit level. This leads us to the possibility that the BOE team did not adequately investigate and consider unit-level activities (e.g., UTP, YES) with respect to recruitment of minority students.
5. We at the institution erred by not presenting prominently, as part of the "Addenda/Errata" document prepared shortly before the BOE team's arrival, updated FY93 statistics on the racial/ethnic composition of the faculty of the College of Education and of the use of part-time lecturers. As a result, we did not present ourselves in the current and most favorable light. However, as best as can be determined, the BOE team did not inquire about current conditions and updated figures on this subject. Accordingly, we request UAB consideration of the information presented above in connection with the faculty-related weaknesses given for Standards IV-A and V-B.
For additional information, please contact Jerry H. Robbins, Dean, at (313)487-1414 or by e-mail at Jerry.Robbins@emich.edu.
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