To The UT Tyler Community:

In preparation for UT Tyler’s upcoming SACS reaffirmation in 2010, faculty and staff have been busy working in teams to focus on the necessary components of the process.

One of the most important components is the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), which is a carefully designed and focused course of action that addresses an issue or issues directly related to improving student learning at UT Tyler.

The QEP Committee identified four potential QEP topics and I am pleased to announce that the UT Tyler leadership team, at a meeting the last week of June, approved their leading candidate.  Global Awareness Through Education: Living and Learning Communities (GATE) will be UT Tyler’s QEP initiative. (click title to read abstract of proposal)

Specifically, GATE will bring together a diverse group of students in a living and learning community.  These students will be broadly engaged in globally-enhanced learning opportunities and cross-cultural experiences. GATE’s objectives will be achieved through the integration of three curricular enhancements: 1) 1-credit hour global foundation courses, 2) globally-focused core curriculum requirements and 3) service learning and/or travel study projects.

A special note of thanks goes to Barbara Haas and Steve Krebbs for identifying the importance of global awareness for this campus and for spending many months writing the winning QEP proposal. This initiative is made even more important because it directly relates to our mission of preparing students to be global leaders.  Global awareness and leadership ability are both among the five attributes we listed in our vision as being the most important for our graduates to possess.

Keith McCoy, Marsha Matthews and Bob Sterken (chair of the QEP Committee), also presented excellent proposals. Although their ideas were not adopted for the QEP, they were intriguing enough that I hope each can be realized over the next several years simply because they are important to the University.

The proposal for the GATE initiative is due in early spring of 2010 and actual implementation will not occur until Fall 2010. That may seem a long way off, but a great deal of work by many people must go into producing the complete plan before it can be reviewed and approved by our SACS visiting team. Sometime in the next month, we will identify a QEP Council composed of students, faculty and staff who, under Bob Sterken’s leadership, will research and write the GATE proposal.

The QEP Council will sharpen the GATE proposal by working on many critical issues such as: 1) determining the baseline of global awareness among students; 2) developing training protocols for faculty incorporating global awareness into their courses; 3) training residence hall advisors to assist in making this an excellent learning and living community;  4) developing a set of learning objectives, rubrics and assessment methodologies, 5) piloting courses; 6) creating distinctive global or trans-cultural experiences for students; and 7) creating a communication plan to attract a diverse group of students to the initial cohort.

Each of you has skills that are important to bringing this initiative to fruition, so I invite you to submit your name to Bob Sterken if you are interested in serving on the QEP Council or have an interest in being involved in the development of this exciting proposal.

Thank you for all of your hard work,

Rod Mabry

The Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) is one of SACS' core requirements:

Core Requirement 2.12 The institution has developed an acceptable Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) that (1) includes a broad-based institutional process identifying key issues emerging from institutional assessment, (2) focuses on learning outcomes and/or the environment supporting student learning and accomplishing the mission of the institution, (3) demonstrates institutional capability for the initiation, implementation, and completion of the QEP, (4) includes broad-based involvement of institutional constituencies in the development and proposed implementation of the QEP, and (5) identifies goals and a plan to assess their achievement. (Quality Enhancement Plan)