Current state of internationalization at PSU

Last week I had conversations with Professors Patricia Wetzel, Linda Walton, and Meiru Liu – experts in international affairs and Asian Studies – about PSU’s internationalization efforts.  The four of us were in a van traveling from Shanghai to Suzhou, China where an informative conversation took place.  Suzhou is Portland’s sister city and its university, Soochow University, is our Confucius Institute partner institution.

Internationalization progress

In 2008 President Wiewel identified internationalization as one of PSU’s five campus themes. Faculty-embraced international initiatives have contributed to successfully growing the University’s international character, with a total of 330 strategic partnerships worldwide. The quality and depth of these relationships is expanding, especially in the School of Business Administration and the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science.  Recent joint teaching programs with Changchun University of Technology and Jilin Jianzhu University exemplify this trend.

International student enrollment has grown 37% over the last five years and the goal is to increase international enrollment to 10% of our student body. Students from Saudi Arabia, China, and India make up 48% of PSU’s international student body; India in particular provides a significant number of students at the graduate level. Vietnam is among the countries with the greatest potential for rapid enrollment growth. PSU’s commitment to international student success is also reflected in our mentoring program for first-year international students, which has grown considerably in recent years.

A collective effort
The Office of International Affairs (OIA), directed by Ron Witczak, oversees all of the major international activities at PSU. They provide support for our international student population as well as our international scholars and faculty. OIA offers opportunities for PSU students to study and intern abroad and for PSU faculty to teach overseas. OIA houses Centers and Institutes, promoting cultural understanding and engagement focused on specific geographic regions. In addition OIA hosts Special Programs for foreign students visiting the U.S.

OIA works closely with PSU's International Studies Program and the Internationalization Council (IC).  The IC, in cooperation with academic and administrative units on campus, facilitates:

• curricular integration
• travel abroad opportunities
• increased international presence on campus
• increased engagement with others, both nearby and around the world
• formation of the Internationalization Council
• reporting on campus international initiatives and activities

Recent changes

The Office of International Partnerships was created this past year through internal reallocation within OIA.  Joyce Hamilla, its Director, joined PSU this fall. Most recently, after I consulted with faculty, staff and student groups, Margaret Everett, Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Sociology, agreed to add the Vice Provost for International Affairs duties to her portfolio.

The work ahead
One of Linda Walton’s suggestions during our van ride to Suzhou was the reinstatement of a full time vice provost for international affairs.  This was not a criticism of Margaret Everett’s abilities, but a recognition that for the past two years the vice provost for internationalization has been an add-on to someone’s existing portfolio. Although PSU did have a full time vice provost of international affairs prior to 2012, I chose to eliminate the position in response to faculty concerns that there were too many administrators and the need to make budget reductions. I added the duties to the former vice provost for budget and planning, Kevin Reynolds, and subsequently to Margaret.  We do not have the resources to fund a full time vice provost for international affairs. However, like Linda and me, a number of faculty, staff and students have expressed concern that we not lose momentum on our efforts.

Our progress is something to celebrate, but we have work ahead. We know that PSU needs to examine existing partnerships; to sunset ones that have never moved past the “let’s be friends” stage and to strengthen those that have potential to grow.  We need to establish new partnerships that have the potential to provide PSU faculty and students with rich international experiences and connections.  Lastly, we need to be more mindful and strategic in our efforts in recruiting and retaining international students.

Read More

The Biology Interactome

Open New Tab for Full Images

About a week ago, department chair, Jason Podrobsky, took me up on my annual offer to visit any department upon invitation.  A lively presentation was held in the Science Research Center Building, filled with Biology Department faculty. 

Jason started out with a basic question: How is Biology connected to other units across PSU?  

This was an intriguing topic for me given my blog post last month on complex systems and how we benefit from considering all of the relationships we have within the university.

Using DataMaster, a data warehouse solution used to run reports for strategic decisions and daily operations, and through the support of the Office of Institutional Research and Planning, Jason had mined course data from fall 2014 enrollment and the SCH generation by Biology majors for the 2013/2014 academic year.

He created a set of interactive maps to examine student flow and relevant data. In the elaborate diagrams, you will see:

•  Circles proportional to student FTE for colleges
•  Number of majors for departments
•  Lines directly proportional to the strength of the interaction

Take Home Messages

The interactome-style maps clearly show that Biology serves a large number of majors and plays an important service role at PSU.  They are highly interconnected and several other colleges and units depend heavily on their courses. In addition, because Biology is of central importance to the STEM disciplines, a strong and healthy Biology department is critical to the development and sustainment of the STEM education system at PSU.

I applaud the Biology Department for creating interactive maps to understand how Biology is connected to other units across PSU. With the appropriate data available in DataMaster, and now with Educational Advisory Board Student Success Collaborative tools (described below) , departments can also explore these critical questions and use data for strategic decision making and student success.

What does your department’s interactome look like? Where are the connections for your majors and students taking your classes?

More about the Educational Advisory Board Student Success Collaborative

The EAB Student Success Collaborative (SSC) is a new tool for PSU.  It combines technology, research, process improvement, and predictive analytics to positively inflect outcomes with at-risk and off-path students. By accessing and analyzing underutilized academic data, we can unlock hidden insights about patterns of student success (and failure). These insights allow advisors, faculty, and retention specialists who sit on the front lines of student engagement to have earlier, more proactive, and more data-driven conversations with at-risk, but savable students. SSC members have access not only to an innovative web-based retention platform, but also to a collection of services—from peer benchmarking to live webinars to national student success summits—designed to facilitate cross-membership learning and maximize the value of participation.

Read More

How do we sustain and grow our sustainability efforts?

Sustainability has been part of PSU’s vision and strategic emphasis area since the 2005 adoption of the Declaration of Support for Sustainability. There are many of us, me included, who were not at Portland State when this declaration was made.  I suggest it is time for everyone to re-read (or read) the declaration.  It articulates a commitment that can only be realized if we work together.

A lot has taken place on sustainability at PSU that we can all be proud of.  Under Professor Jennifer Allen’s leadership, our Institute for Sustainable Solutions (ISS) has served as a hub for sustainability activities and actions.  ISS has a team of dedicated faculty, staff and students, but they cannot do this work alone.

Made possible by ISS support
ISS has been instrumental in the development of our Graduate Certificate in Sustainability, the Research to Action symposia, the Sustainable Neighborhoods Initiative, and the Ecosystem Services for Urbanizing Regions Graduate Research Traineeship (IGERT). The ISS administers the 10-year, $25 million challenge grant made to the University by the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation in September 2008.  The 2013-14 Annual Report for Sustainability provides much more detail on the sustainability accomplishments of PSU.

The work ahead

PSU is seven years into a 10-year, $25 million challenge grant from the Miller Foundation.  We have developed a set of goals and initiatives that has become known as the Sustainability Playbook. The playbook is divided into six sections: Education and Curriculum, Student Experience and Engagement, Research, Community Engagement, Campus Operations, and Institutional Policies and Administration.

I think of the playbook as both a blueprint and a challenge.  A blueprint in that it outlines the strategic initiatives needed to follow through on PSU’s commitments on what it means to be an institution dedicated to sustainability.  A challenge in that it is a call to all of us to help move this work forward.  Although individual and groups of faculty, staff and students can make things happen, it will require all of us to make PSU an institution known for sustainability. 

Portland has a national and international reputation as a sustainable city.  It goes to follow that we would be its university known for sustainability.  I would like to challenge everyone on campus to take just one page out of the playbook and think about what you can do to advance PSU’s efforts in sustainability.

Feel free to share your thoughts about the playbook below.

Read More

Academic Program Prioritization (APP) Moves Forward

On November 24, the Academic Program Prioritization Committee (APPC) held its first public forum. I was one of approximately 60 in attendance for a very informative 1.5 hour session.

What is APP?

“Portland State is conducting an APP (Academic Program Prioritization) process during the 2014-15 academic year as a way to take stock of the broad range of academic programs that our university offers. More specifically, the results of this process will be used to support well-informed, strategic planning for the purposes of program development and resource allocation and to help in identifying new opportunities and directions for the university. The goal is to build and share a greater understanding of who we are, what we do, and how we interact with and support one another through our diverse array of academic programs.” -- Academic Program Prioritization Committee

Mark Jones, Professor of Computer Science and Chair of the APPC, facilitated the session by: 

• Providing an overview of the APP process  
• Discussing and soliciting feedback on the draft proposals for Criteria, Metrics, and Questions that will be used. 
• Discussing and soliciting feedback on the draft proposed list of academic programs that are included in the review.
• Discussing initial plans for the scoring phase of the APP process, including a role for broader faculty involvement as members of the Program Scoring Teams (or PSTs).

There were great questions and comments – some from faculty who were just learning about APP and from faculty who have been following the work of the Faculty Senate and the APPC over this past year.  Mark and the other members of the APPC did a terrific job in responding to questions and listening to the concerns and input received.  I have no doubt that the conversation was helpful to  the APPC and those present in the audience.

Learning more about APPC:

There is a lot we can all learn about APP. On August 6^th, I blogged about APP to share the preliminary work and to reiterate that this must be a faculty-driven process. It is an opportunity for our faculty to determine and make known the priorities for our academic program array.

You can follow the APPC work, including copies of the proposals and other documents at the APP website. 

You can also subscribe to the APPC discussion mailing list via the blog site. As of last week the appc-discuss@lists.pdx.edu had over 50 subscribers.

Next public forum:

The next public forum will be in January or February of 2015.  Details will likely be announced at the January Faculty Senate meeting (or shortly thereafter) and on the APPC blog.

APP Committee Members Include:

Sy Adler, CUPA

Talya Bauer, SBA

Samuel Henry, GSE
Mark Jones, chair, MCECS

Karin Magaldi, COTA
John Rueter, CLAS
Lynn Santelmann, CLAS

Ex Officio:
Michael Bowman (in capacity of his Library faculty position, but there is also benefit in his role as chair of Faculty Senate Budget Committee) 
Steve Harmon, Provost Office
Kathi Ketcheson, OIRP

I know members of the APPC would love to hear from you. To send a message just to APPC members please use: pdxappc@gmail.com. 

Read More

An upstream view of advising

As of November 1, 2014, the Learning Center, Advising and Career Services, and the Registrar’s Office have been successfully transferred from Enrollment Management and Student Affairs (EMSA) to Academic Affairs.  While there are details still to be worked out, I want to thank all involved for their mutual respect and collaboration during the transition. You might ask, How will this change allow us to better serve students?   What about this change makes it possible, as one colleague put it to me “to realize opportunities to elevate and improve advising practices?”   

Allow me to use a metaphor and a few examples to share some of my thoughts about advising.     

Metaphor

Advising is one of many successful student retention and student success strategies at PSU. Advisors help students navigate the rapids, rocks, and still water in the long journey down a complex river. They give advice on the equipment a student needs; they call out when there is danger, help correct course, and yes, even sometimes provide the bucket for bailing when the boat takes on too much water, ride it when it capsizes, or toss out a life preserver when someone goes overboard.  

We have recently provided advisors with powerful predictive analytics to give them hidden insights into the patterns of academic success. But I see advising as more than guiding, navigating and tossing out a life preserver.  We have the ability and opportunity to change the characteristics of the river our students travel by constantly examining and adjusting the quality, content and delivery of our curriculum.  

Examples

Think about it, advisors have a holistic view of a student.  An advisor knows how well (or not well) a student did in not only Professor X's class, but in subsequent courses the student had with Professors Y and Z. Through our powerful data analytics an advisor can see that even though many students earn a B in Professor X's class, a majority of them fail Professor's Y class. 

With this knowledge a department can ask: Is Professor X an easy grader? Is Professor Y too hard a grader?  Is there a gap in the curriculum between what Professor X teaches and what Professor Y expects students to know?  Do Professors X and Y have such different perspectives that what a student learns from Professor X is refuted by Professor Y?  The latter resonates with me.  When I was an undergraduate student one of my professors believed in the emerging theory of plate tectonics (and yes, it was an EMERGING theory at that time!) and another thought it was rubbish.  What I learned in one class was considered "wrong" in another. 

Imagine a steady flow of information coming from advisors feeding into curricular conversations that faculty members have in their department or between departments. Imagine not merely calling out to a student when there is a rock or a rapid ahead, but getting rid of the obstacle or calming the dangerous waters through curricular change. Imagine an advisor being able to focus attention on how a student makes a smooth trip down the river rather than a rough one. 

Advising, while an activity in and of itself adds value by guiding students, is a powerful tool to help us see how faculty might change and innovate the curriculum—a means by which we can make sure that we are not responsible for creating the rock, rapid, or conditions that capsize the boat.

I certainly would be interested in your thoughts on this topic.  

Read More

24 Hour Countdown for Flexible Degree Open Comment

There are 24 hours left for public commenting on all Concept Proposals for the reTHINK PSU: Flexible Degrees RFP. Proposals submitted by your colleagues include a Bachelors in Urban and Public Affairs, a Minor in Sustainability, a Degree in Sociology and a Certificate in Collaborative Governance. You can view and comment on all Concept Proposals by visiting http://flexibledegrees.pdx.edu/. The faculty submitting proposals, the team at the Office of Academic Innovation and the Academic Leadership Team will find feedback your feedback valuable as the proposals are further developed and strengthened. What is a Flexible degree? Flexible degrees can be fully online or hybrid degrees (with 75% or more online) that make effective use of technology to offer high quality and affordable education for students who have attended some college without receiving college credentials, or graduate students who seek new opportunities.  Why Flexible Degrees? A recent analysis by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, Jobs and Education Requirements through 2020 estimates Oregon will need to fill about 694,000 vacancies resulting from job creation, worker retirements and other factors. Of these job vacancies, 480,000 will require postsecondary education and nearly half of these vacancies will require bachelors and advanced degrees. Only 214,000 are expected to be filled by high school graduates or dropouts. One excellent place to begin looking for these additional graduates is in the ranks of Oregon residents who have completed some college without earning a degree. In 2011, nearly 567,000 Oregon residents fit into this category—representing more than 27.12% of the state’s adult population. If only a small portion of this group could be supported in attaining a bachelor or advanced degree, it would go a long way to helping Oregon to meet workforce needs and reach its 40-40-20 goals. Degree attainment gaps among racial and ethnic group in Oregon are significant (41.54% of whites vs. 15.8% Hispanic, 25-64 age group). Thus, an important aspect of PSU’s student success strategy is ensuring that students of color, low-income, first generation and working adults have access to and are successful in PSU’s Flexible Degree programs. Are Flexible Degrees part of reTHINK PSU? Yes. reTHINK PSU is a campus-wide effort to deliver an education that serves more students with better outcomes, while containing costs through curricular innovation, community engagement and effective use of technology. Flexible degrees are a way for PSU to meet the needs for some students. reTHINK PSU projects follow a well-designed reTHINK roadmap for developing solutions for challenges facing PSU. We look forward to your comments.  Questions?  Please check our FAQ page or contact us at flexibledegrees@pdx.edu.

Read More

How can we make it all work?

There is a lot going on at PSU! In addition to our most important day-to-day work of teaching, research, community engagement and service, this year we find ourselves engaged in quite a few exciting initiatives:

• Strategic Planning
• Academic Program Prioritization
• Academic Program Review
• Transition of some units from Enrollment Management and Student Affairs to Academic Affairs
• Big conversations in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on structure
• Discussions on strategic enrollment management and performance-based budgeting
• Filling a number of key leadership positions

Phew!

Questions have emerged
How do these all relate to one another (or not)? Are we trying to do too much? What is the right sequence? What is the overlap? Will any of it make a difference?

PSU: A Complex System

The conversations, initiatives and decisions that need to be made by PSU (those listed above and others) seem to occupy a tight space and be running on compressed timelines. I am guessing I am not alone in wanting the world to stand still to make order of things. However, as many of us know, we do not live or function in a sequential space or time. We are a complex organization that has, and will always have a set of linked initiatives happening at the same time.

I am almost done reading Complexity: A Guided Tour written by one of our faculty members, Professor Melanie Mitchell in Computer Science. Melanie teaches and studies complex systems and although she does not use PSU as an example in her book, she certainly could. I learned from Melanie’s book and from viewing a number of her MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) lectures on the same topic, that complex systems have interrelated parts that have differentiated relationships both inside and outside of an organization.  

Again and again in the book Melanie provides evidence on how interdependent yet self-interested organisms come together to cooperate on solving problems that affect their survival as a whole. By studying a complex system you can begin to understand the symmetry, nodes, interrelationships, and relative magnitudes of how pieces or actions relate to one another.

Mapping it Out

As I examine all of PSU's initiatives I see them mapping onto a network--a complex system.  Of course, as many of you know, my training is in cartography (mapping) and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) so I see most things as having a spatial connection.

I can understand why individuals might believe “there is too much going on” or it is “too complicated.”  The Latin origin of the word complex—complexus—signifies "entwined," "twisted together.” What we need to do is embrace that we are a complex system and sort through the networks, connections and interrelationships. As Melanie points out, interdependent organisms can come together to cooperate on solving problems that affect the survival as a whole. 

I challenge everyone to use one of the models illustrated in this post (or one of your own) to think about how various initiatives at PSU map onto a network.  What are the symmetry, nodes, interrelationships and relative magnitudes? 

I invite ideas on what those connections look like, so that we can create a network map that works for PSU.

Read More