Highlights of IR group's annual meeting: measuring adult students' academic success, update on NRC survey of grad programs, and lots of talk about retention.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Diverse Issues in Higher Education - GAO Again Recommends Better Oversight of Grants to Minority Serving Institutions
May 28, 2010 By Joyce Jones
WASHINGTON – Since 2004, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been telling the U.S. Department of Education that it needs to improve the way it monitors and provides technical assistance to Title III and V grantees. These federal education funds go to institutions that enroll large numbers of low-income and minority students, including historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribally controlled colleges and universities, and others. And, in the past 10 years, funding has almost tripled, from $230 million to $681 million.
But according to testimony delivered before the House Committee on Education and Labor on Thursday, the agency continues to make only limited progress. In fact, GAO uncovered “questionable expenditures” at four of the seven institutions where it conducted financial site visits last year—to the tune of more than $140,000.
One Maryland-based institution was responsible for $105,117 of that amount. It used $79,975 for student trips to locations such as amusement parks and resorts as part of a character and leadership building activity; $6,000 was used to purchase a desk and chair; and $4,578 was used to purchase an airplane global positioning system although the school does not own an airplane. More surprising, however, is that the Department of Education recommended the school as a model grantee.
“[The Department of] Education has made some progress in implementing a systematic approach to grant monitoring and technical assistance, but much work needs to be done,” said George Scott, GAO’s director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security, at the hearing.
Scott said that the department has made progress in automating its monitoring tools and developing risk-based criteria. The redesigned system, he said, increases the ability to assess the risk of grantee noncompliance. The department also has taken steps to improve its technical assistance programs and develop mechanisms to routinely collect and use grantee feedback.
“Despite progress in these areas, we found that Education still lacked a coordinated approach to guide its monitoring efforts,” Scott added. “It recently developed a draft monitoring plan for Title III and V programs but has not consistently developed realistic and measurable targets for each of the activities in the plan.” In addition, Scott said that not having a comprehensive approach increases the potential for fraud, waste and abuse.
Robert Shireman, an Education Department deputy undersecretary, reported that the agency has made progress in its monitoring and technical assistance efforts. Its monitoring index, he said, helps to identify institutions for possible review based on audit and accreditation findings, commercial credit scores and other measures. In addition, the agency is reviewing annual performance reports to alert them to whether grant benchmarks are being met or the funds are being used in ways not identified in the grant application.
Shireman also said that the Department of Education will increase site visits in Fiscal Year 2010 and is pairing experienced staff with new staff on these visits as part of its training initiative. He added that the department is following up on the incidences of fraud that GAO has uncovered. He also noted that this year the department held a conference with more than 1,000 project directors from minority serving institutions around the country to share best practices across institutions and suggestions for how the Education Department can be more helpful.
“All of this is part of an effort for us to be a stronger learning organization so we can get better and better at what we do and figure out how we can help institutions to grow, improve and graduate more students toward the president’s 2020 goal,” Shireman said. “Our goal is not only to make sure that the funds are used appropriately but also to do all we can to ensure that they’re used as effectively as possible.”
Rep. Robert Scott, D-Virginia, said that making the grant applications more specific could go a long way toward solving some of the problems. Citing the example of the funds used for leadership development activities that took place at amusement parks, he said the line item should offer details other than “leadership development.”
“There’s no reason why there should be any questions after the fact. The line item should have been exactly what they were going to actually spend the money on. Had they required more specificity in the application before they funded it, there would be less discussion after the fact,” he said.
Rep. Scott said that he has spoken to several Education Department representatives and that the next round of applications will be made more specific so this problem will not exist in the future.
SANDRA M. PHOENIX
Program Director
HBCU Library Alliance
sphoenix@hbculibraries.org
www.hbculibraries.org
404.592.4820
1438 West Peachtree Street NW
Suite 200
Atlanta, GA 30309
Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis)
Fax: 404.892.7879
www.lyrasis.org
Honor the ancestors, honor the children.
Register now http://www.hbculibraries.org/html/meeting-form.html for the October 24-26, 2010 HBCU Library Alliance 4th Membership Meeting and the "Conference on Advocacy" pre-conference in Montgomery, AL. The Pre-Conference and Membership meeting are open to directors and other librarians.
Dissertation Doctor
Working with the Dissertation Doctor can dramatically boost your productivity and help you to set realistic goals to get you from ABD to PHD.
Copyright Dr. Sally Jensen 2000 All rights reserved
New Mexico State University Teaching Academy & Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching and Learning
The Teaching Academy serves all NMSU educators through training, mentoring, and networking.
Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching and Learning
What is the Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching and Learning?
The Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching and Learning (OTL) is for professionals in business, government, education, or other settings who want to develop their knowledge and skills in online teaching and learning.
OTL utilizes technology-based environments to actively engage students in designing formal educational projects that meet professional objectives. The five 3-credit course sequence provides an intense immersion in a dynamic online environment and culminates in an online teaching practicum.
Prime candidates for the OTL program are individuals with a need to explore online teaching and learning techniques and the willingness to engage in collaborative learning projects.
What benefits does the OTL program offer?
Benefits from earning a Certificate in Online Teaching and Learning include:
•proficiency in fostering online learning communities,
•skill in online teaching,
•knowledge of successful assessment and evaluation strategies,
•associations from a network of committed professionals,
•a foundation of theoretical and practical information, and
•expanded career opportunities.
What is required to complete the OTL program?
Once admitted into the program, you must:
•Attend all sessions.
•Complete all five courses with a B or higher.
•Maintain a 3.0 GPA.
Brochure
Academic Leader June 2010 - Full Issue PDF
Being an effective chair has always been a challenging task. However, lately the game has intensified. Assorted higher education rating rituals have fueled competition that has many presidents scrambling to lay claims for distinction. The pressure trickles down to the sometimes hapless chair, who can no longer settle for doing merely a good job but must now try to achieve greatness and must guarantee that others in his or her charge are achieving greatness too.
Keys to Effective Program-Level Assessment By Rob Kelly
Effective program-level assessment requires faculty investment in the process because it’s too large a job for one person and because individual faculty members have knowledge and insights about their courses that others don’t have. Part of getting faculty buy in is making the process meaningful to them and reminding them of its benefits.
The Dangers of Dry Promotions By Jeffrey L. Buller, PhD
Any but the most modest level of budget cuts lead to layoffs, hiring freezes, benefit reductions, and furloughs. But institutions sometimes try to preserve morale in times of crisis by promoting faculty members without increasing their salaries. These dry promotions, as they are called, began to be widely discussed as early as the 1950s [see, for example, Harris (1952) 103, Whitehill (1955) 186, and Yoder (1956) 602]. In 1963, a writer under the pseudonym of “Hamilton Waring” (the names taken from two popular brands of household blenders) warned prospective faculty members against working for any college or university where dry promotions have been common. (Waring (1963) 145.) Nevertheless, during the recent financial crisis, some institutions once again reverted to this practice, perhaps on the assumption that an increase in rank could serve as its own reward. The dangers of dry promotions can be significant, and academic leaders are well advised to engage in this practice only if they’re fully aware of the risks involved.
Trying Times and Departmental Cohesiveness By Rob Kelly
Cheryl Stevens had been chair of the chemistry department at Xavier University of Louisiana (in New Orleans) just two weeks before Hurricane Katrina struck. The storm seriously disrupted operations, damaged equipment, and displaced faculty and students. Maintaining the department was seriously challenging proposition. Here’s her story and her advice on getting through (hopefully not so) challenging times.
Higher Education: Exporting Middle-Class Dreams By Jeffrey Ross, EdD, and Jann M. Contento, PhD
Community colleges, we believe, have become the protectors of the American middles [we have borrowed the contextual use of this term from the American novelist John Updike]. Although this is not consciously intended, community colleges have evolved into places of great tension—tension between developmental (remediation), academic, and vocational/occupational demands; tension between traditional (face-to-face) and online course offerings—and tension among local “stakeholders” concerning staff salaries, travel expenses, baccalaureate training, and bond elections.
Wikipedia Launches an FAQ for Librarians
Wikipedia Launches an FAQ for Librarians
A resource that’s definitely worth knowing about and sharing with colleagues, using in a presentation (if you’re talking to other librarians perhaps a link or handout), or just reading and agreeing or disagreeing with, and perhaps even making changes or corrections you believe are important. Perhaps you might even want to use it as a template and include the opinions of your organization.
Access Wikipedia FAQ for Librarians - Some of the Questions Asked and Answered:
+ Who owns Wikipedia?
+ How common are mistakes on Wikipedia?
+ Will the people who use my library find material on Wikipedia that’s objectionable, or unsuitable for children?
+ If people ask me whether Wikipedia is an appropriate resource for students and researchers, what do you recommend I say to them?
+ Why do I read sometimes that Wikipedia is closed to outsiders, or resistant to help?
+ Can you point me towards other people’s views on Wikipedia – either supportive, or critical?
Source: Wikipedia/Wikimedia
Microsoft at Work: 4 ways to streamline your tasks!
Every job requires a variety of tasks during a given day. Maybe yours includes meeting new clients or writing letters or downloading information into various software applications. Regardless, staying on top of all the tasks you need to perform is crucial. By organizing them effectively, you can plan ahead for tomorrow, and improve your productivity at the same time.
The Tasks program is a feature of Microsoft Office Outlook that helps you create lists of task-related items. But dig a little deeper, and you will find it also does more for you than act as a simple list program. Using these four Microsoft Office Tasks feature tips will help you stay one step ahead of the competition.
1. Customize your view
In Tasks, you can find your tasks and view their status at a glance. Choosing the appropriate view saves time because you can determine which item is most critical on your list without scrolling through all other tasks still marked as incomplete. For example, do you prefer to manage your time by tackling the task that needs to be completed first or by the client name? A variety of options in Tasks help you sort tasks according to your requirements.
There are three key sections in Tasks to note:
•Navigation Pane—Tasks Current View is represented in the left pane. This illustration shows the Simple List view is currently displayed under the To Do bar.
•Subject—This column lists the current tasks you have established. In the Simple List view, you see a subject and a due date.
•Status—This column indicates whether the task has been completed, both with a check mark in the box and a line through the task.
First, decide which Current View works best for you. For example, if you prefer to see items in a visual format, try the Task Timeline. If not, you might prefer the By Category view, which shows your tasks by the categories you have established in a text-only view. This view is particularly helpful if you have specific groups or individuals to complete tasks for. Try out different options until you find one that suits you best.
You can customize your view to sort your tasks by subject, status, due date, percent complete, or category. There are literally dozens of ways you can customize your task lists to suit your needs. You can even change the font and column sizes.
Experiment with different options. If you don’t like the way your tasks appear, you can always change the view to the original or choose a new one. The trick is to decide which view will streamline your tasks so that you aren't digging for information. Your views may not look anything like a co-worker's, and that's okay. This is your chance to personalize Outlook to meet your goals. To find out more about customizing views, go to Create, Change, or Customize a View.
When setting your view, you will also want to consider the reading pane. To find out how to use the reading pane, go to Turn the Reading Pane On or Off. When you turn on the reading pane, you can immediately see any notes that are associated with the selected task. This view can be a great time-saver because it quickly offers you all the information you need to complete a task."
2. Detail your time, billing, or mileage
It's not easy to remember the date you drove to an appointment with a client or how much time you spent completing a task in the office. Most people try to remember to bill the time or mileage later. Often, that means deciphering multiple sticky notes or scraps of paper.
However, you can eliminate that mess by storing all that information in one task. Then, when you need to bill the client, you can easily retrieve the details from your task.
Add details to a task - Do one of the following:
Open a new task. On the File menu, point to New, and then click New Task.
Open an existing task. In Task, double click the task you want to open.
Do one of the following:
In Outlook 2003, in the task, click the Details tab.
In Outlook 2007, in the task, on the Task tab, in the Show group, click Details.
Type the desired details:
Total Work — Enter the total number of hours you have spent for a given client. When you invoice the client, it will be easy to do a search by client and tasks and tally the number of hours.
Actual Work — Type the actual number of hours spent on the task.
Companies — Type the company involved. Sometimes a task will not specifically name the client, so this information is key to helping you track which tasks were performed for each client.
Mileage — Type the relevant date, mileage, and purpose of the trip.
Billing Information — Type the billing information related to the specific task. Perhaps you charged this task at the full rate, but if not, this is a good place to remind yourself of the rate charge. You can add a note to yourself about why the full rate was not charged, for example.
Do one of the following:
In Outlook 2003, click Save and Close.
In Outlook 2007, In the Actions group, click Save & Close.
At the end of each billing period, you can then easily sort through the information by clients and add up the details quickly.
3. Set up tasks from Excel
If you use Microsoft Office Excel, you will likely see a few tasks in the spreadsheets you create. For example, let's say that you created a workbook that outlines all possible aspects of a proposed project. One of the spreadsheets may detail milestones for the project—some or all of which may be yours. Rather than take the time to enter all the necessary information into Outlook that might be needed to complete the task, you can export the Workbook instead, and easily create a new task directly in Outlook from Excel.
You will need to be in the Excel workbook instead of in Outlook to set up this task, but the application integration in Microsoft Office makes this an easy task to set up.
4. Send status reports for assigned tasks from Outlook
If you ever have a client or task that is of utmost importance to your boss, this tip will become a favorite. In Outlook, you can send a periodic status report. It's a great way to communicate that you’re managing things efficiently and remind your boss how well-organized you are.
The report is automatically generated from Outlook to an e-mail message that you send.
Author Bio: S.E. Slack
S. E. Slack specializes in simplifying complex topics so the masses can both understand and apply difficult concepts. She is a co-author of Breakthrough Windows Vista: Find Your Favorite Features and Discover the Possibilities and CNET Do-It-Yourself Digital Home Office Projects. She has written five other books.
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/book.aspx?ID=10366&locale=en-us
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