The Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) defines integrated planning as, “the process whereby all planning and budgeting activities throughout every level of the organization are effectively linked, coordinated, and driven by the institution’s vision, mission, and academic priorities.” ¹ Purchase College is working to ensure that institutional planning uses assessment results for continuous innovation and improvement, and happens across the campus in ways that support a culture of transparency, collaboration, and effective communication.

In the last academic year, Purchase College experienced a convergence of factors pertaining to integrated planning: an anticipated change in senior leadership, a still-emerging strategic plan, a sunsetting diversity plan, and the start of a self-study reaccreditation review. Purchase College’s last five-year strategic plan ended in 2015, and our inaugural five-year diversity plan ended this past academic year. We have taken steps to integrate all planning across the institution, synchronized with reaccreditation work as well as assessment processes.

A President’s Integrated Planning Council (PIPCo) has been formed with a mission to ensure that institutional planning happens across the campus, and is integrated, sustainable, strategic, collaborative, consistent, and effective. The Council will work closely with me and with planning groups across the institution, including standing committees of the College Senate, and other administrative committees.

The members of the President’s Integrated Planning Council are:

Carrie Bianchi, Executive Assistant, Office of the President

Chris Bisignano, Recreation and Athletics Director, Physical Education

Dennis Craig, Vice President, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, and Institutional
Advancement

Jerima Dewese, Chief Diversity Officer, Office of the President

Kathleen Farrell, Chief Human Resources Officer, Office of Human Resources

Mike Kopas, Director, Facilities Management

Miranda Kozak, Director of Development, Institutional Advancement

Barbara Moore (co-Chair), Director, Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment,

Wendy Morosoff, Director, Office of Career Development

Ryan Nassisi, Assistant Director, Campus Technology Services

Milly Peña, President of Purchase College

Mustafa Sakarya, Director, Library

Patrick Savolskis, Executive Director, Purchase College Association

Shane Seaman, Interim Dean, Enrollment Management and Marketing

Jennifer Shingelo (DEIC Chair), Assistant Dean, School of Arts

Seth Soloway, Director, Performing Arts Center

Robert Swainston (EPC Chair), Assistant Professor, School of Art + Design

Greg Taylor (Vice Chair), Associate Provost, Provost’s Office

Vicky Tyler (SPAC Chair), College Accountant, Business Office

Antony Ware, Director, Office of Community Engagement

 

Webpages relative to integrated planning and assessment are currently under construction. Links to those pages will be shared in a future email.

¹ Rylee, C. (editor). Integrated Resource and Budget Planning at Colleges and Universities: Society for College and University Planning. 2011. www.scup.org.

Last semester I formed the President’sIntegrated Planning Council (PIPCo) to help ensure that our ongoing institutional planning efforts are as integrated, sustainable, strategic, collaborative, consistent, and effective as possible. As PIPCo has been meeting monthly since October, I wanted to take the opportunity to provide the campus community with an update on the work that has been completed to date.

First, important progress has been made in ensuring we have mechanisms in place for clear communication, and in clarifying policies that will further support institutional planning. More specifically, the group has developed:

• public webpages for integrated planning and assessment;
• the President’s Integrated Planning Council Team Site in the Purchase College Collaboration Center;
• a proposal has been drafted for an Institution-Wide Planning Process that Cabinet will review and provide input for the final draft; and
• a draft proposal for a Campus Software Acquisition Process will soon be submitted to Cabinet for review and input.

In addition, PIPCo is engaging in ongoing planning discussions to ensure that we continue to plan smartly, with vision, and in a manner that is at once coordinated and inclusive. These discussions have recently included strategic planning, and also the development of broad institutional learning outcomes, both of which will serve our ongoing efforts in preparing for Middle States review. With these goals, PIPCo is supporting the development of sector strategic plans for Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, Institutional Advancement, and Finance and Operations which will, in turn, inform the upcoming development of individual unit plans. Finally, my Office will be drawing upon the Purchase College Strategic Plan (still being drafted) to inform my own strategies and initiatives for the upcoming year.

We will continue to build a culture of data-driven planning and assessment to support continuous improvement and to serve as an incubator for new ideas and initiatives. Thank you for your engagement with the important work we do to support student and lifelong learning.

Dr. Milagros (Milly) Peña
President

 

In order to build on the momentum for planning and assessment, the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment will be providing regular broadcast email updates from IRE.Planning.Assessment about this important work happening across the campus.

To launch the broadcast email series, we wanted to remind all stakeholders of the various campus resources available to support this important work. Please save this email to use as a reference as needed.

**Please contact Campus Technology Services (CTS) if you have any issues opening the links.**

Website (open to the public)

· Academic Planning and Assessment page with links to Student Learning Assessment and Academic Program Reviews and Assessment of the Senior Project.

· Integrated Planning and Assessment page with links to the PIPCo page, the Planning, Assessment and Resource Allocation Handbook page, and the MSCHE re-accreditation page, all of which also have internal sites in the Purchase College Collaboration Center.

Purchase College Collaboration Center (requires Purchase College login credentials)

We have a number of sites related to planning and assessment:

Assessment and Reaccreditation Documentation – I maintain this site which includes:

· A document library for the Sector Strategic Plans

· A document library for the Unit Assessment Plans and the Unit Annual Reports

· Document libraries for each of the seven MSCHE Standards. Note: these are currently not used. The thought was to collect evidence to support the extent to which we comply with the standards as a matter of practice. I hope to launch a process for this once the assessment management system is up and running.

· Up on the top left you will also see a document library called DIRPA Documents. (I’m DIRPA – Director of IR, Planning and Assessment. This library contains a word and pdf version of the Planning, Assessment and Resource Allocation Handbook as well as a variety of documents used to support the work. The 2022_Plan-Assess_Tracking excel file will show from which units I have received Unit Assessment Plans.

President’s Integrated Planning Council (PIPCo) which includes various folders in the document library to house the documents that support the work of the Council.

Institutional Research Reports which includes a ton of reports. The document libraries are listed on the left and each contain a number of folders and subfolders.

Please look for broadcast email updates throughout the academic year. Have a wonderful and successful semester!

In order to build on the momentum for planning and assessment, the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment will be providing regular broadcast email updates from IRE.Planning.Assessment about this important work happening across the campus.

To launch the broadcast email series, we wanted to remind all stakeholders of the various campus resources available to support this important work. Please save this email to use as a reference as needed.

**Please contact Campus Technology Services (CTS) if you have any issues opening the links.**

Website (open to the public)

• Academic Planning and Assessment page with links to Student Learning Assessment and Academic Program Reviews and Assessment of the Senior Project.
• Integrated Planning and Assessment page with links to the PIPCo page, the Planning, Assessment and Resource Allocation Handbook page, and the MSCHE re-accreditation page, all of which also have internal sites in the Purchase College Collaboration Center.

Purchase College Collaboration Center (requires Purchase College login credentials)

We have a number of sites related to planning and assessment:

Assessment and Reaccreditation Documentation – I maintain this site which includes:

• A document library for the Sector Strategic Plans
• A document library for the Unit Assessment Plans and the Unit Annual Reports
• Document libraries for each of the seven MSCHE Standards. Note: these are currently not used. The thought was to collect evidence to support the extent to which we comply with the standards as a matter of practice. I hope to launch a process for this once the assessment management system is up and running.
• Up on the top left you will also see a document library called DIRPA Documents. (I’m DIRPA – Director of IR, Planning and Assessment. This library contains a word and pdf version of the Planning, Assessment and Resource Allocation Handbook as well as a variety of documents used to support the work. The 2022_Plan-Assess_Tracking excel file will show from which units I have received Unit Assessment Plans.

President’s Integrated Planning Council (PIPCo) which includes various folders in the document library to house the documents that support the work of the Council.

Institutional Research Reports which includes a ton of reports. The document libraries are listed on the left and each contain a number of folders and subfolders.

Please look for broadcast email updates throughout the academic year. Have a wonderful and successful semester!

Last month I promised to provide regular email updates on the work happening across the campus relative to using data to inform planning and assessment for continuous improvement. Given the broad participation in the work of enrollment recovery, it is important that we increase our familiarity with the reports available to us. I thought it would be useful to provide a short primer on what reports can be found on the Institutional Research Reports site in the Purchase College Collaboration Center. Once in the site you will see a landing page with a narrative overview and a small dashboard. The list of document libraries is on the left. In the Reference Documents library I have posted a word document entitled Doc-Lib_Descriptions which provides a short overview of the reports that can be found in select document libraries.

In addition to the Institutional Research reports, you can also stay up to date with the discussions and work of the President’s Integrated Planning Council. PIPCo also maintains a site on the Collaboration Center, under Community Information. The President’s Integrated Planning Council has a document library which contains all of our work. You can find meeting notes and presentations in the meeting folder, but please feel free to browse the entire site.

If, after you browse, you cannot find information you need, please feel free to email Barbara.moore@purchase.edu. The Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment is happy to support any campus data needs.

Please look for broadcast email updates throughout the academic year. Have a wonderful and successful semester!

 

Congratulations on completing another successful semester! As part of the ongoing work of developing a complete program for planning, assessment and continuous improvement, the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment and the Associate Provost’s Assessment Office partnered to write an Annual Institutional Assessment Report. The first report has been published to the Assessment and Reaccreditation collaborate site under Community Information. For now, the report is posted to the DIRPA Documents folder. Going forward, we will reach out to the chairs of BPAC and SPAC to work collaboratively with those committees on future reports which will be expanded to include progress towards institutional and budgetary goals. Coming soon…. We are working on new icons for the Broadcast Email (BEM) system to tag emails to one or more of the Purchase College strategic goals. When BEMs are created, authors have the option of selecting one or more Strategic Plan icons to designate to which strategic goal the content of the email relates. Look for an update in my first BEM next semester. As always, please feel free to email Barbara.moore@purchase.edu if you have any questions or comments. The Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment is happy to support any campus data needs. Wishing you and yours joy and blessings for a restful and rejuvenating holiday season.

Please keep this email as a reference and encourage participation.

 

We continue to make strides in building a strong and sustainable evidence-based planning and assessment infrastructure for continuous improvement. Valuable information on student expectations, levels of satisfaction, and engagement with our campus and our community is gained from the administration of surveys. The more feedback we get from students, faculty, and staff, the more informed our decisions will be as we continuously strive to be better tomorrow.

Below is information on two surveys that are being administered by the Office of IRPA this semester. We ask you to encourage your students to provide their feedback by participating in these surveys. And, for the SUNY Sexual Violence Survey which is open to the entire community including all faculty, staff and administrators, please take the time to complete it.

National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)

Administration period:  March 8 – April 4, 2023.

Administered to: First-year students and seniors

Purchase College administers the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE pronounced “nessie”) every three years, as do most of the other SUNY institutions. NSSE collects information from first-year students and seniors about the characteristics and quality of their undergraduate experience. Since the inception of the survey, more than 1,600 bachelor’s-granting colleges and universities in the United States and Canada have used it to measure the extent to which students engage in effective educational practices that are empirically linked with learning, personal development, and other desired outcomes such as persistence, satisfaction, and graduation.

Results from the NSSE survey provide valuable information for the college to continuously improve ways to support student engagement and success. Some examples from the 2020 administration:

Do courses challenge students to do their best?

42% of FY students reported that their courses highly challenged them to do their best work.

How do students rate their interactions with faculty?

41% of FY students rated the quality of their interactions with faculty as high.

Are students encouraged to use learning support services (tutors, writing center)?

69% of FY students said the institution substantially emphasized the use of learning support services.

How satisfied are students with their educational experience?

74% of FY and 80% of seniors rated their entire educational experience at this institution as “excellent” or “good.”

For more information please click to open the “About NSSE” page on the National Survey of Student Engagement website.

SUNY Sexual Violence Prevention (SVP) Survey

Administration period for students: March 28 – April 17, 2023.

Administration period for employees: March 28 – April 17, 2023.

Purchase College and SUNY are once again conducting the SUNY Sexual Violence Prevention (SVP) Survey. We are required by NYS law to do so to students, faculty and staff at least every two years. Invitations to participate, with a link to the survey, will be sent directly from SUNY (survey@suny.edu).

It is important to us that we create a living, learning and working environment that is safe for all community members. This survey is intended to gather information to ensure that we understand the full scope of sexual and interpersonal violence issues on campus as well as our effectiveness in communicating resources and services.

We appreciate any help that you are able to provide in encouraging your students to participate in this survey, which:

• Ensures administration understands the full scope of sexual & interpersonal violence issues on campus as well as strengths and areas for improvement in communicating about resources and services.
• Provides an opportunity for collaborative work between students, faculty/staff and administration on this critical issue.
• Ensures administration understands your perspective (results will be viewed by senior administrators but only in aggregate).
• Helps campus community contribute to determining future steps and programming.

For more information please click to open:

An FAQ

An informational flyer for students

An informational flyer for employees

We understand that survey’s take time. We try to respect your time by offering surveys that generally take no more than 15 or 20 minutes. And, information collected from these surveys is used to inform strategic improvements to support student success.

 

Thank you for your support in building a culture of evidence-driven planning to continue making improvements across campus.

 

Before we close this academic year, I wanted to make sure I provided the campus with an update on continuous improvements being made on the planning and assessment infrastructure.

As you know, we are in the second year of an operational infrastructure for planning and assessment, outlined in the Planning, Assessment and Resource Allocation Handbook. The Assessment and Reaccreditation Documentation collaborate site contains the documents and reports which support planning and assessment across the campus, and includes:

• A document library for the Sector Strategic Plans
• A document library for the Unit Assessment Plans and the Unit Annual Reports

The next, critical step in developing an integrated, inclusive and collaborative system for planning, assessment, resource allocation, and continuous improvement is to implement a technology solution. A small task force was charged with identifying a software solution which would:

• support strategic college planning by facilitating the articulation and dissemination of institutional information, and by tracking goal achievement vertically, horizontally and longitudinally across all academic and functional areas and levels of the college;
• support outcomes assessment by capturing learning outcomes at the course, program, and institutional level in concert with D2L Brightspace, and by supporting the analysis and reporting of those data; and
• support re-accreditation efforts with a robust document depository which links continuous improvements to MSCHE standards for accreditation.

That task force included JeanMarie Garofolo De Sa, Gregory Taylor, Ryan Nassisi, Marie Sciangula, Dennis Craig, and Barb Moore. This group spent a year extensively reviewing various vendor platforms. At the end of an RFQ process, Purchase College selected HelioCampus and is partnering with them to implement the Accreditation & Planning and Outcomes Assessment modules.

A small implementation team has begun preliminary meetings with HelioCampus and we hope to have the platform ready to go live with the first module by the start of the fall semester. As we learn more about the implementation process we will be reaching out to community stakeholders to ensure that we have the right people at the table as we review our planning processes and other artifacts of planning and assessment. We will continue to keep the community apprised of progress throughout the summer.

Please feel free to email Barbara.moore@purchase.edu if you have any questions or comments.