Academic Plan 2011-2015 (PDF 524kB) - SUNY Empire State College

30 SUNY Empire State College: Academic Plan 2011 - 2015Objective B4.2: Reinforce the central role of mentors through professional developmentCurrently, each center’s Office of Academic Review offers orientation and training to new mentorson PLA, and the Center for Mentoring and Learning offers workshops across the college. In addition,institutional development for new mentors and ongoing faculty development should have a sufficientfocus on PLA. There is a concern that new mentors may not have the tools to help their studentsidentify and develop PLA requests outside of their area of expertise. Also, faculty assessing PLA requestsdo so in addition to their current workload assignments, which means some faculty have less time tocommit to evaluating PLA requests.There is a general sense that workload issues may be impacting the effectiveness of the assessmentprocess. High demand areas for PLA evaluation have created an inequitable distribution of work forfaculty mentors, and alternative strategies need to be developed to ensure these areas are coveredwithout an undue burden on particular faculty. Faculty development opportunities and workloadassignments need to place PLA request development and assessment as valued components of facultyprofessional obligation.Finally, the college always will need to turn to external evaluators in particular areas of expertise;therefore, further evaluator training needs to be in place from a collegewide perspective. In addition,for certain high request areas, the college might consider training a cohort of evaluators to ensureexpertise in assessing specific topics. The area of studies could play a more central role in developingguidelines and assessment information for some topic areas that are in high demand.Objective B4.3: Communicate more clearly with students about the value andplace of PLAThe college also needs to determine realistic evaluation strategies and expectations from the studentperspective. The college needs to explore ways to sustain PLA practices without compromising itsintegrity and to make sure that students understand these practices. Most degree program publicationsand web-based materials focus on the specifics of the degree program planning process, and very littleis available to students to communicate collegewide expectations and guidance related to preparing aPLA request and engaging in the assessment interview. In some cases, individual faculty have developedmaterials to support this process, but little has been done to collect these valuable resources to sharewith other faculty. Collegewide, web-based materials need to be developed to support the PLA processmore effectively.Objective B4.4: Address fiscal implications for PLAThe fees associated with the PLA process have not been reviewed in many years, and initial assessmentsindicate that the fee structure no longer adequately supports the work on prior learning assessmentthat is completed by the college as a service to students. The college needs to examine the fee structurefor the individual evaluation of prior learning (IEF) and payment levels for external evaluators. It iscritically important to ensure that our process is cost effective for students, but also that our feesgenerate the revenue to support the process itself. We also support the effort to establish consistentand equitable payments to external evaluators at a level that is fiscally feasible and a fair compensationto attract and retain quality external evaluators.