Campus Project Director
I. Organizational Structure of the Project
Portland State University has made substantial progress in developing its urban university portfolio. The Office of Institutional Research and Planning, which is housed within Academic Affairs and reports directly to the Provost, coordinates the project. The Campus Project Team consists of the Provost, the Director of Institutional Research and Planning (who also is the Campus Project Director), two institutional research analysts, and a graduate research assistant. Early on, the Project Team recognized that direct participation by faculty was essential to the success of the project. During Fall Term 1998, an executive planning group within Academic Affairs appointed a ten-member Faculty Advisory Committee, representing a broad array of perspectives and expertise from across the campus. The Committee is chaired by Dr. Robert Everhart, Graduate School of Education, and supported by the Campus Project Team.
II. Role of the Faculty Advisory Committee
The Faculty Advisory Committee has contributed significantly to the development of PSU's portfolio, both in content and design. The Faculty Advisory Committee has clearly defined objectives and has outlined a process for creating and sustaining the Portfolio. The Committee is creative, dynamic, and highly productive, and has come to be known by other faculty as the "best committee on campus." By creating an active rather than advisory role for the faculty, the Project serves as a model for faculty engagement in university-wide initiatives.
During Winter Term 1999, subcommittees formed around three broad categories: academic, external, and student issues. Topics addressed by the academic subcommittee include program assessment, scholarly work on urban issues, faculty issues, and curricular reform. The external issues subcommittee focused on topics that include community connections, university partnerships, K-12 and community college collaboration, national/international higher education, and, overlapping with the academic subcommittee, scholarly work on urban issues. The student issues subcommittee focused on topics including student services, diversity, and technology applications.
Much of the Faculty Advisory Committee's discussions have centered around how to integrate faculty and student activities that are not necessarily urban, but are related to our role as a comprehensive university, into the Portfolio. Should we broaden the definition of "urban" to include traditional activities that contribute to disciplines or to knowledge in general? Does "urban," then, connote a place where all sorts of activities occur? While "metropolitan" may be viewed as a broader and more descriptive term than "urban," it may, in the eyes of some scholars, refer more to a service area than to a philosophy or approach. In its discussions, the Committee has begun to explore "urban" as an idea, a philosophy, or an approach, rather than strictly as a geographic or sociological term.
The Committee has established the following principles for the portfolio project
- PSU's motto will guide the process ("Let Knowledge Serve the City")
- faculty will be centrally involved in the design process
- the Portfolio will not be a "laundry list" or "dumping ground," but a strategic document
- the Portfolio will be viewed as a "place" comprising many destinations reached by various pathways
- the Portfolio will provide a forum for discussion, comments, and feedback, and for conversations about assessment
- the Portfolio will represents many voices
- the Portfolio will form the basis for an emergent strategic planning process, and for accountability
- the Portfolio will appear prominently on the PSU Web site's front page
III. PSU Portfolio Home Page
The Office of Institutional Research and Planning has developed a project home page on the World Wide Web to document the project and to communicate information about PSU's efforts to a wide audience. The home page contains the following
- narratives describing the project
- minutes of faculty committee meetings
- organizational charts
- diagrams of proposed portfolio design
- bibliography of references
- links to relevant sites: national project Web site, Urban Universities Statistical Portrait, the OIRP home page of statistical data on PSU, and examples of other Web-based portfolios
- chronology of PSU's history and development
The home page is maintained in OIRP, and is updated monthly, or as materials become available. It will form one piece of the larger Portfolio, both as an historical record of its development and a repository of information about the project. You can view it here.
IV. Relationship between Learning Goals and Characteristics of an Urban University
The Faculty Advisory Committee and Project Team feel that the following campus characteristics define PSU as a comprehensive urban university
- community partnerships/outreach/linkages
- student body characteristics
- mix of programs, including traditional liberal arts, professional, extended/continuing education, and distance education targeted toward working professionals
- topics around which our teaching, research, and service may be focused (transportation, housing, child/family welfare, environmental issues)
- physical location of the campus in downtown Portland and the use of our surrounding environment in our teaching and learning activities
PSU's general education goals (critical thinking, communication, diversity, and ethical responsibility) may be similar to the goals of general education in any university context, but their expression at PSU may have a distinctly urban characteristic. This results not only from our urban context, but also from our philosophy of what it means to be an urban campus. The goals that have a particularly urban expression are the following
- community involvement/citizenship/civic responsibility
- demonstrated awareness and understanding of social, political, and economic issues affecting urban life, locally and globally
- ability to communicate ideas to diverse audiences, through writing, speaking, and graphical representations
V. Design of the Portfolio
Several concrete outcomes have emerged from the Faculty Advisory Committee's work, to date. They include initial decisions on what will be highlighted in the Portfolio, a first draft of its appearance, a process for obtaining outside review and comment, and a process for increasing campus awareness of the project. Efforts are underway integrate the Portfolio into other ongoing activities, where appropriate, and members of the project team and Faculty Advisory Committee take every opportunity make other committees and faculty groups aware of the project. Support has been extended from the Office of Information Technologies and other areas across campus to assist in development of the Portfolio.
From its discussions, the Faculty Advisory Committee has developed a long-term vision for the Portfolio, and a plan for creating the pilot versions of the Web pages. Under the plan, Institutional Research and Planning staff will create prototype Web pages during Summer 1999, which will be available for review by the Faculty Advisory Committee when they return to campus in Fall 1999. Under the broad heading of "Community Pathways," the Committee has identified four topics through which assessment, access, diversity, and activities and programs related to teaching, research, and service will be showcased. The topics are a) urban planning, transportation, and housing, 2) child and family welfare, 3) internships and community-based learning (for example, Capstone, Extended Studies, Center for Science Education), and 4) student services.
VI. Outside Review
From the outset, the Faculty Advisory Committee has planned to involve "critical friends" from areas within and outside the University to provide expertise and guidance in specific areas. On May 5, the Committee convened an informal focus group, consisting of eight external and internal participants, to review and comment on the preliminary design of the Portfolio. These individuals represented possible audiences, ranging from high school counselors, to accrediting board members, to state and local officials. Specific recommendations of the group were as follows
- the Portfolio should communicate concrete examples of what PSU does for its customers and the community
- it should be a concrete and practical tool for users
- it should facilitate contact between the community and PSU faculty, staff, and students
- it should communicate an overarching message, highlighting PSU's connection to the community
- it should incorporate a "feedback loop" for users
- it should document current activities, communicate a vision for the future, and provide a method for analyzing progress toward goals
- the design should incorporate clear and well-defined boundaries for what will and will not be contained in the Portfolio
- prospective audiences should be grouped under three to five major categories
- the Portfolio should focus on functional areas within the University, and provide a mechanism for sharing information among PSU and its peer institutions
During the summer, the group will be asked to review the prototype Web pages and provide comments and suggestions for further improvements.
A second focus group with senior faculty at PSU is being organized for May 25. During this meeting, faculty will be asked to discuss how to effectively disseminate information about the Portfolio across campus, and how to ensure faculty and departmental buy-in for the project. In addition, representatives of a local Web page development firm will be invited to campus during June for a consultation on design and technical issues related to the development of the prototype portfolio.
VII. Current and Proposed Activities
The Faculty Advisory Committee will meet in late May 1999, before adjourning for the summer. At this meeting, the Committee will discuss a proposed template and develop a list of criteria, or decision rules, for inclusion of materials into the Portfolio, and name three to five specific audiences, or groups of audiences. The Committee also will develop a strategy for determining how to solicit departmental and program participation in the project, and for addressing political issues that may arise from decisions on which University activities will or will not be included in the Portfolio. In Fall 1999, the Committee will reconvene to review the prototype Portfolio and refine the template and decision rules for use during Phase II of the project.
During June, Institutional Research staff will work with the Web master and student assistants in Instruction and Research Services to select software and establish technical design principles for the prototype portfolio. The Project Team expects to have the prototype completed by August 1999. The Faculty Advisory Committee also has proposed designing a Senior Capstone course that would focus on Web page development for the project. Committee members are exploring this idea with PSU's Department of Computer Science.
One goal that is being advanced by the UUPP is to bring together many of the projects underway at PSU that have common themes or shared elements. Examples of these are the newly-formed University Assessment Council, two projects funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts that are concerned with learning communities and undergraduate writing assessment, and redesign of the University's Web site. The Faculty Advisory Committee also feels that PSU's portfolio project may be catalyst for development of an emergent strategic planning process for the campus and for more widespread discussion about assessment and dissemination of information about exemplary assessment activities. They hope the Portfolio will be a "place" for discussion and comment, rather than a static portrayal of campus characteristics and activities. As such, it would compliment the campus home page, but not duplicate information contained there.
VIII. Expenditures from Institutional Subcontract
Funds from PSU's institutional subcontract for the UUPP have been expended in hiring Kay Woodford as a full-time Institutional Research Analyst, and Patricia Drew as a Graduate Research Assistant. Additional funds have been expended on upgrades to three computers in order to accommodate Web-based and related software for work on the project. The upgrades were installed through PSU's technical services at a substantial cost savings. These upgrades and software purchases were necessary to enable OIRP staff to carryout the Faculty Advisory Committee's vision for the Portfolio.