Texas Tech University is in compliance with Federal Requirement 4.1

Texas Tech University uses a wide variety of criteria to evaluate student achievement, depending on the student’s college, department, and major. The university’s strategic planning annual assessment reports require colleges (areas) and departments (units) to report annually on retention rates, GPA, graduation rates, performance on state licensing and certification examinations, and, to the extent possible, on acceptance to graduate school and employment rates.

Programs that prepare students for state licensing or certification examinations are very concerned with the performance of students on those tests and compare their students’ performance with that of students in other schools in the state. State-wide data generally are made available to programs for this purpose, and low passing rates are definitely a cause for program changes to be considered.

Course completion data are available to department chairs and are used in their evaluation of faculty. Any faculty member who consistently has a high drop out rate in his or her classes is likely to have this noted in annual evaluations and also to be advised to try to determine what accounts for the relatively high drop rates. The same would apply to programs that have a high drop out rate (i.e., change of major or failure to complete the degree).

Job placement rates (and anecdotal responses from employers) are very important to applied and professional programs such as Business Administration, Education, Engineering, Mass Communications, and Human Sciences. The Career Center collects data on job placement for students who are registered with it. Some colleges and departments also maintain data on job placement for their graduates. These data provide a general idea of the relative effectiveness of individual programs, but the data are not as reliable as those from licensing examinations.

Individual college and department responses to this requirement support the above statements.

 SACS Off-Site Committee Finding: 

4.1       When evaluating success with respect to student achievement in relation to the institution’s mission, the institution includes, as appropriate, consideration of course completion, state licensing examinations, and job placement rates. 

___       Compliance
_X_      Non-compliance
___       Did not review
 

Comments:   

The narrative in this section states that units measure student success in a variety of ways. Retention and graduation rates are included and seem to be the most common measure. Job placement rates are difficult to measure. Some units have apparently done so, but documentation is missing.

TTU Response:

Most placement tracking is done at the individual unit (college or department) level.  However, at the university level, placement data are tracked and maintained by the Office of Institutional Research and, to a lesser but emerging extent, by the Career Center in the Office of Student Affairs.

Office of Institutional Research 

The office of Institutional research conducts and tabulates survey data by college on graduated senior and graduate students.  Response rates are typically low; however, the data are tabulated longitudinally so that trends are apparent.  For example, the following chart is taken verbatim from the Institutional Research web site, and is directly accessible by all in the Texas Tech Community who have e-raider log-in privileges.  

 Office of Student Affairs/Career Center 

The University, through its centralized Career Center, regularly surveys its graduating seniors to determine their initial plans after graduation.  The Center's on-line registration system compiles and analyzes the data as students complete a graduation survey and data may be compiled for each academic college of the University. 

Additional Data Supplied by Units: 

Many academic units, such as the Rawls College of Business and the Law School keep regular placement data in addition to the data kept by the University.  Upon further request, additional data about placement were provided by the following units:

Arts and Sciences
The college of Arts and Sciences is a quite diverse collection of departments, each of which maintains placement data to greater or lesser degree.  These data are reported in the Qualitative Information section [p. 9] of the 2003 Arts and Sciences Strategic Planning Assessment Report [http://www.irs.ttu.edu/SACS/AssessmentReports/2_0_2003.pdf], reported as follows: 

Some A&S units placed undergraduate students in graduate programs elsewhere: PHIL sent graduates to law school at Catholic University and Baylor University, sent a graduate to further education at Vanderbilt University, and placed 3 students in graduate education at TTU; MATH reported placing 6 students in graduate education; ENGL sent graduates to further study at Ohio State, Oklahoma State, and Rice. Some A&S units reported on recent placement of doctoral and masters students: ENGL placed Ph.D. graduates as faculty at UT Permian Basin, Cameron University, West Texas A&M, and Arkansas Tech; BIOL reported a Ph.D. graduate doing a post-doc at UC San Diego, another Ph.D. graduate doing a post-doc at UC Santa Barbara, and an M.S. graduate now doing a post-doc at UC Santa Barbara.  A survey of alumni who received their baccalaureate degrees in December 2003 showed that, of those responding, half had plans to enter the work force (62 of 124 respondents) and half had plans to continue in further education or continue in further education while working (60 of 124 respondents); two respondents reported no plans for work or further education but said they intended to travel or take time off.  9 reported plans for law school; 1 nursing school; 1 physical therapy education; 1 dental school; 5 medical school; 5 for MBA programs; 5 for masters programs in education; 15 for masters programs in arts and sciences; 18 additional students indicated unspecified plans for further education.  9 indicated plans to work for a company or business (such as Disney, America West, Cingular, Wells Fargo, or a particular newspaper in New Mexico); 7 indicated that they would be teaching; 4 stated plans to work in a scientific or technical field; 3 said they would be doing secretarial, office, or administrative work; 2 planned military careers; 2 planned to join a police force; and 29 indicated unspecified plans to work.
 

College of Visual and Performing Arts
The primary source of placement information comes from the TTU BSR (Business Systems Resources) database maintained through the Office of Institutional Advancement and the Alumni Association. Methods of updating the data are varied. Institutional Advancement employs a staff of researchers who search through public records; the Annual Gift Call Program – updates are requested during the calling period – those not contacted via telephone are sent a mailer with a postage-paid return card; the college development officer personally calls on many alumni and updates information; announcements regarding requests for information updates are sent via postcard to alumni and placed in the CVPA magazine, Ampersand, directing alumni to the CVPA web site to respond to an alumni survey http://www.vpa.ttu.edu/survey_devel.shtml; the three units comprising the CVPA administer Exit Surveys each semester to graduating students that include requests for initial placement information; periodic alumni surveys are distributed; update cards are distributed at alumni events at professional meetings; updates are often obtained by personal contact through professors and former students. Every effort is made to channel updated information, both formal and informal means of acquisition, to the central BSR system. The college and its units are currently investigating additional means of enhancing and streamlining its documentation efforts.
 

College of Education
The past associate dean, Hansel Burley, did a survey in ’98 that had about a 26% return rate.  About 95% or so of the respondents had (or had had) teaching positions, and reports prior similar surveys have been performed periodically.  COEd plans to draw upon TTU Development Office, which has the most reliable and updated postal information on TTU alumni their databases for future placement and other data gathering. 

College of Human Sciences
Several programs within the college track, as part of their accreditation standards, the placement rates and professional positions of their graduates.  These programs include the Marriage and Family Therapy Program, the Family and Consumer Sciences undergraduate and graduate programs, the Personal Financial Planning programs, the Restaurant, Hotel and Institutional Management programs, and the Interior Design and Apparel Design programs.  Documentation exists in the departmental offices of these programs.

The College of Human Sciences is accredited by the American Association for Family and Consumer Sciences.  As such it undergoes a thorough review of each educational major as well as its departmental infrastructures on a ten-year rotation.  Additionally, each year the COHS is required to submit a report of changes that may affect accreditation status.  The AAFCS accreditation report is housed in the Dean’s office in the College of Human Sciences (HS 142).  This report contains learning objectives in relation to the AAFCS mission.

The Associate Dean for Academic Programs in the College of Human Sciences has been meeting in focus groups with students to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the academic programs in the college.  The information gleaned from these interviews is compiled and forwarded to the respective Department Chairs.  The Chairs then discuss the feedback with faculty and make adjustments based on student feedback.  This has resulted in curricular changes, more attention to student requests, and an increase in student awareness of processed within the college.  These meetings have been instituted as part of the College’s strategic plan.

The COHS alumni are surveyed periodically by the university’s Institutional Research and Information Management Office.  These survey results are distributed to the college’s administrators and act as feedback mechanisms to enhance the services we provide.  One example of this is the alumni’s feedback about a certain employee in the COHS advising office.  This employee was consistently discourteous to students and has been let go as a result of student feedback.  The Advising Office in the COHS has also been documenting student satisfaction with each Advisor-Student meeting after each advising session to ensure quick implementation of student feedback.  Another change that has been made in response to student feedback was going from a “First come first served” service delivery mode to an appointment system in the Advising Office.  Students have reported feeling as though their feedback was taken seriously and are appreciative of our efforts to make our services more student-friendly.