California State University, Sacramento

Following is text of the draft of the Cornerstones Implementation Plan and the accompanying cover memo from Executive Vice Chancellor David Spence (dated 10/16/98). Executive Vice Chancellor Spence refers to the draft "...as a starting point for campus discussion." In order that we may collectively share your comments and recommendations, we would appreciate receiving your response no later than January 4, 1999. s/Gene Dinielli

To: CSU Presidents October 16, 1998

From: David S. Spence, Executive Vice Chancellor

Subject: Cornerstones Implementation Plan

Attached to this memorandum is an initial outline of points that might be included in a plan to implement Cornerstones. This draft is intended as a starting point for campus discussion. We recognize that many other perspectives must be involved as we move toward a consensus and focused set of initiatives for adoption by the Board of Trustees and action by the system and its universities.

The purpose of this outline is to spark systemwide discussion. The only certainty is that the final plan will differ from the attached. Some believe there are too many priorities; others, too few or the wrong ones. Perhaps this means that the right balance has been struck for beginning discussion.

It is critical that the development of this implementation plan and the contributing discussions receive the highest priority on campuses and across the system. We trust that you will take the needed steps to ensure such thorough and open discussions. We would appreciate comments and recommendations by January 11, 1999.

The responses can be most useful if they describe specifically those actions whose implementation would be of the highest priority. It would also be helpful to know what draft ideas should be eliminated or reduced in priority and what different ones might be added. The development of the plan will be assisted as well by your recommended refinements in the description of actions to be implemented and the roles to be assumed at the university and system levels in carrying out these initiatives.

As a means to further these comprehensive discussions on a systemwide level, we will post a web page devoted to Cornerstones implementation. We will provide details on this development by next week.

Thank you so much for your cooperation. Please let me know if you need further information.

It is the intent of Cornerstones that the California State University create a truly student-centered university, in which every member of the University community - faculty, staff, and administration - has a responsibility for contributing to student success. Actually, CSU is already known for its highly effective orientation to teaching and scholarship. It is the intent and spirit of Cornerstones to build upon this solid base and establish an agenda for even greater effectiveness. Some new faculty tasks, responsibilities, and directions are anticipated under this implementation plan in addition to the demanding, varied and successful roles faculty already assume. Successful implementation will hinge on faculty being properly supported in their efforts to achieve the Cornerstones objectives.

The full implementation of Cornerstones will require several years. This plan addresses the key issues of systemwide concern - program quality, student access, student preparation, and faculty support. The initiatives listed by letter below are derived from Cornerstones principles, and followed by several proposed implementation steps.

1. Each university will strengthen baccalaureate education through student learning outcomes and assessment.
   1. Each university will identify student learning outcomes for both General Education and degree program majors, focusing on the outcomes of overall programs rather than individual courses.
   2. Each university's General Education outcomes will include, as a core, those competencies required in Title 5 and other relevant system policy; other outcomes may be added by each university.
   3. Each university will develop its own assessments for both General Education program outcomes and degree major program outcomes.
   4. Each university will establish a process for measuring the extent to which students are achieving the defined student learning outcomes of both General Education and degree program majors.
   5. Each university will establish a formal process for using the assessment results to review and improve programs. Each university will describe this process and subsequent program improvements.
   
   
2. Each university will assure the quality of the baccalaureate experience and process.
   1. Each university will direct special attention to the teaching and learning process, and develop new ways to strengthen student-faculty interaction, active/involved student learning, and student-to-student learning relationships.
   2. Each university will establish a process for encouraging actions and assessing results related to strengthening teaching and learning effectiveness.
   3. Faculty will determine when student learning can be effectively served by the classroom context, the use of distributed learning technology, community service learning, and other learning methodologies.
   4. Each university will provide an appropriate range of student services including admissions, registration, financial aid, academic advisement, library and information services, and instructional support for all students regardless of type of enrollment or form of instruction.
   
   
3. Each university will examine its programs to ensure that current programs are needed, effective, and have appropriate and understandable requirements. This examination will be guided by the following principles.
   1. In accord with Board of Trustee program review policy, each university shall make special efforts to ensure that programs and courses are strengthened, added, retained, and eliminated according to explicit criteria and procedures. These campus criteria and procedures will be designed to ensure that programs are continually responsive to, among others, state and student needs, changes in the discipline, and campus priorities.
   2. Each university shall ensure that full-time students are able to complete baccalaureate degree program requirements within a reasonable length of time. Across the country, this typically is accomplished in eight semesters (twelve quarters) of full-time study, which normally equates to 120 semester (180 quarter) units. For most degree programs, General Education and degree program major student learning outcomes can be acquired and demonstrated during this equivalent period.
   3. Trustee policy will be revised to minimize references to units required including specific areas of General Education. The intent of this revision is to enable universities to shift attention to student learning outcomes and away from course and unit-based curricula.
   4. Articulation practices among system universities and community colleges and policies for General Education will continue to be reviewed and strengthened at both campus and system levels. Over time these practices will accommodate the shift to student learning outcomes and place less emphasis on course-based units.
   5. New and concerted attention will be devoted to the articulation of required lower division major courses and/or competencies, both within the CSU and between the CSU and community colleges. To this end, faculty from across all CSU campuses will convene in disciplinary groups, with appropriate consultation with community college faculty, to seek agreement on a common core of required lower division courses for each major.
   6. Each university and the CSU system will continue to work with the leadership and faculty of the community colleges to remove barriers to transfer so that community college transfer students can proceed toward their baccalaureate objective at the same pace as students entering the CSU as first-time freshmen.
   
   
4. Universities will make their services more accessible in time and place, by removing, to the extent possible, constraints on teaching and learning caused by time or location.
   1. Each university will identify how the opportunity to acquire expected student learning outcomes and related services can be made more accessible to students who experience difficulty accessing traditionally-scheduled, on-campus programming. Each university will document actions taken to accommodate the time and place needs of students and the effects of such actions.
   2. Appropriate system policy should be formulated to govern the development of off-campus centers to accommodate place-bound students.
   3. Each university will ensure that instruction and support accommodate the personal situations of students, especially working adults with families, through services such as flexible scheduling, course patterns, certification of learning, job-site teaching/learning, and use of technology mediated instruction.
   4. CSU and its campuses will direct special attention to maximizing its resources through the effective use of fuller daily, weekly and yearly schedules.
   
   
5. The CSU will support system and university-wide efforts to increase the number and proportions of high school students who are prepared for college-level study upon entry, and in the process, reduce the percentages of students needing remedial education.
   1. CSU will revisit the competencies needed to begin college-level work and how best to assess them. This review will be linked to the re-examination of General Education through a learning outcomes-based approach. The use of ELM, EPT, and SAT for placement purposes will be reconsidered within the context of the Intersegmental Committee of the Academic Senates' statements of competencies expected of entering freshmen.
   2. The CSU will intensify its support for early diagnostic testing of ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade high school students in English and math to determine progress being made in meeting CSU expectations. These efforts will focus on the Math Diagnostic Placement Test (MDPT) and the CSU-UC on-line writing assessment project.
   3. CSU placement tests will be made available to K-12 students as soon as they complete their junior level courses. Students who pass would be granted appropriate CSU placement subject to completion of senior-year math.
   4. Alliances with the public schools will be strengthened. These alliances should focus on developing a clear understanding of what the CSU math and English placement standards are and how best to achieve them. Special funding should support these efforts.
   5. The CSU will insure that teacher preparation programs produce graduates able to assist students to meet State Board of Education standards.
   6. The CSU and its universities will expand the number of well-trained CSU students helping K-12 students achieve stronger English and math skills.
   7. The CSU will also seek more effective methods and structures by which remedial education will be provided, including extended learning and expansion of partnerships with community colleges, public schools, and other institutions.
   
   
6. The CSU will increase access to education beyond the baccalaureate, including degree and certificate programs as well as other forms of continuing and professional education.
   1. Each university will respond to new economic and social needs for post-graduate education, research, and service.
   2. CSU's role as the major provider of the Master's degree and post-baccalaureate certification programs will be expanded. These programs are becoming more critical to meeting the increasing educational needs of people in an expanding number of occupations and professions. California's economy will depend on access to these new levels of knowledge.
   3. The CSU and its universities will increase investment in their graduate and post-graduate educational programs while maintaining the CSU's commitment to undergraduate education. Consideration will be given to the following possibilities for increased support.
      1. Seek State recognition of the higher cost of graduate (relative to undergraduate) education and the alignment of funding accordingly (without reducing support of undergraduate education).
      2. Establishment of differential fees for undergraduate and graduate students to reflect the higher costs associated with graduate education, in parallel with increased financial aid for graduate students.
      3. Allowing campuses and programs to charge differential fees in accordance with costs, competition in the marketplace, and demand, subject to adequate financial aid to assure access.
      4. Special funding for joint doctoral programs.
   4. The CSU will develop new patterns of support for post-graduate and other programs which blend extended learning programs and self-support resources with those supported through the General Fund. The chancellor's office will study the public and system policy issues related to such new funding patterns. It is important that we utilize the energy and entrepreneurship that is characteristic of self-support units and programs.
   5. The CSU's role in doctoral and professional education will be increased through relationships with the University of California and other public and private higher education institutions.
   
   
7. The CSU and each university will make systematic progress toward achieving the conditions that will allow faculty to play their integral role in implementing the plan.
   1. The CSU and each university will provide faculty with a fair and reasonable reward system, including closing the faculty salary gap. In order to recognize the expansion of faculty roles, faculty scholarship should be more broadly defined as appropriate to each campus.
   2. The CSU will develop a more coordinated and substantive faculty development effort related to the implementation of Cornerstones principles.
   3. The CSU and each university will seek ways to provide faculty with appropriate opportunities and conditions to implement Cornerstones initiatives. These will include both seeking new resources and specific targeting of faculty time and support to recognize the importance of the following:
      • assigned time for the development of student learning outcomes and assessment methods,
      • assigned time for the conversion of courses and program to new modes of instruction,
      • increased travel for participation in professional conferences,
      • expanded training programs for the use of technology mediated instruction, and
      • expanded summer stipends to support the development of Cornerstones initiatives.
   4. The CSU and each university will expand resources available for direct instructional support including:
      • increased investment in faculty computing, smart classrooms, and other educational technology,
      • expanded instructional development and support operations, and
      • increased clerical staff, and office and communication technology.

10/16/98