91爆料

An accountability report organizes aggregate statistics for undergraduate involvement in a certain activity type. An Activity models a person鈥檚 participation in some sort of trackable activity. The primary purpose of the Activity models is to compile and generate accountability statistics for the provost and the legislature. We currently focus on two metrics for undergraduates: public service and research.

How activities are stored

Activity is subclassed by a number of Activity varieties:

Sources

The following data sources are used to calculate accountability statistics:

• Course lists provided by departments, including
  course_branch, course_no, dept_abbrev, and section_id for each course along
  with a Y/N for each quarter that the course should be counted. (Note: if
  section_id was not specified, we automatically pull all sections
  for that course. In some cases this will result in duplicates but they will
  be removed during duplication processing).
• Individual student lists provided by departments
• Carlson Center service-learning participation (as tracked by EXPO) 鈥�
  only for the public service report
• Applicants and group members of applications whose Offering has an ActivityType defined (currently, this includes
  Mary Gates Research scholarship [research], Mary Gates leadership
  scholarship [public service], and the Undergraduate Research Symposium
  [research]).
  • For session-based events (e.g., UGR Symposium), session presenters (all
    group members) are counted.
  • For non-research-based award offerings (e.g., Mary Gates Leadership), only
    awarded applicants are counted.
  • For research-based award offerings (e.g., Mary Gates Research), all
    complete applications (mentor approved) are counted.

Intended Results

This system generates the following general types of statistics wherever
possible:

Student-quarters

The number of quarters a student spent working in the given activity. One
student for one quarter = 1 student-quarter. One student for three quarters
= 3 student-quarters. Three students for one quarter = 3 student-quarters.

Number of students

The total number of unique students who participated

Number of hours

A sum of all total number of hours that students participated

Coverage

The number/percentage of departments reporting information

Accountability Methodology

This section describes the methodology used to calculate accountability
statistics. All statistics are generated in groups based on the ActivityType of the given activity.

1. Raw Data AccumulationFor each data source, pull relevant records. Calculate number of students
   and hours for each record.
   1. Student participation is gathered for department
      course lists:
      1. Each ActivityCourse that meets the
         requested criteria (e.g., 鈥測ear = 2009鈥�) is validated against
         the SDB to verify that it is a valid course.
      2. For each course, the class enrollment is pulled, resulting in individual Student records.
      3. Students who withdrew, failed, or did not receive credit for the course are
         removed.
   2. Student participation is gathered from
      department individual participant lists.
   3. Student participation is gathered from
      EXPO鈥檚 service-learning courses (ONLY for public service report).
   4. Student participation is gathered from
      EXPO鈥檚 application system (ONLY matching ActivityTypes)

   Final result: hash with Students as keys and an activity array for each
   quarter, e.g.:

          Student_1_system_key   =>  {
            AutumnQuarter => [ActivityCourse, MaryGatesLeadershipApplication],
            SpringQuarter => [ServiceLearningCourse],
                           },
          Student_2_system_key   =>  {
            WinterQuarter => [ActivityEvent]
          }
          Student_3_system_key   => {
            :no_quarter => [ActivityProject]   # in rare cases, we don't know what quarters a project spanned
          }
          ...

2. Removal of non-undergraduates for each student in the data hash, check each quarter of activity to ensure
   that the student was enrolled as an undergraduate during that quarter.
   Non-undergraduate quarters are removed. To do this, we look at the
   student鈥檚 transcript record for that quarter.
   • If the quarter being evaluated is summer, the record is never removed, even
     if the student was not enrolled or not listed as an undergraduate for that
     quarter.
   • If there is no transcript record for that quarter and it is not summer, we
     remove it from the data hash.
   • If the 鈥渃lass鈥� code for that quarter is higher than 5 and it is
     not summer, we remove it from the data hash.

   Notes:

   • For this report, 鈥渦ndergraduate鈥� is any student with a class
     standing of 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 (note that we do not include non-matriculated
     students but we do include 鈥�5th years鈥�).
   • If removing a quarter from a student in the data hash results in that
     student having no more valid quarters, the student is completely removed
     from the data hash and will not count toward any totals.
   • Any :no_quarter listings are still analysed based on the first quarter of
     the academic year being evaluated.

   Final result: same as in step 1, but only with the students鈥� quarters
   that are valid.

3. Duplication ProcessingFor each student in the data hash, process each duplication rule (see rule
   definitions below). As the processing happens, records that are removed are
   saved in a duplicates array for later review.
   1. Same quarter, same course
   2. Same quarter, multiple courses
   3. Same quarter, multiple activities

   Final result: same as in step 2, but only with the activities that should
   be counted in the final tally.

4. Statistics Calculation
   1. Student-quarters: sum of the count of each student鈥檚 Quarter objects, plus any :no_quarter listings.
   2. Number of students: size of student data array.
   3. Number of hours: sum of number of hours per student; calculated differently
      based on the data source.
      1. Course list: number of credits the student
         earned for the course, multiplied by the constant
         COURSE_CREDIT_TO_HOURS_MULTIPLIER and the WEEKS_PER_QUARTER (10).
      2. Individual list: Hours are specified by department (as either hours per
         week or total hours per quarter)
      3. Carlson Center service-learning: 20 hours per quarter is used, as
         recommended by the Carlson Center (this is the minimum requirement by the
         CC)
      4. Application processes: use hours_per_week as specified by the student, if
         available. If hours_per_week is not available, we calculate the average
         number of hours for all students in the given activity type.
         • For award-based processes, multiply the calculated-hours-per-quarter times
           the number of requested award quarters
         • For event-based processes, the number of hours is only counted for the
           quarter during which the event occured.
5. Additional Reports
   • Department Sponsorship Breakdown: in what
     departments are these activities happening?
   • Department Cross-Pollination: e.g., how many
     BIO majors are doing research sponsored by medicine?
   • Demographic Analysis: majors, gender, class standing, and race/ethnicity of
     students participating.
   • Coverage: how many departments are represented/reported, broken down by
     college, discipline, and academic/admin.

Rules for duplicates

These rules define how we handle students who have multple records in a
given quarter. Note that activities are always
evaluated through the lens of a specific ActivityType, so these rules only apply to
duplicates within the same ActivityType.
For example, if a student participates in two research projects and one
public service course in the same quarter, the public service course is not
factored into the duplication processing of the two research projects.

Any time duplicates are removed, a Duplicates Report or Discrepancy Report
is generated to allow for manual inspection and override.

• Same quarter, same course: If a student is enrolled in the same course for
  the same course_no (e.g., they are enrolled in both a lecture section and a
  quiz section for the same course), only the section with the larger number
  of credits are counted.
• Same quarter, multiple courses: Students receiving credit for multiple
  courses in the same quarter are not de-duped, unless the faculty
  mentor/instructor is listed as the same for both course.
• Same quarter, multiple activities: Students who receive credit for a course
  and are also listed under an ActivityProject or ActivityEvent for the same quarter will only
  count the larger of the number of hours.

Dear UAA Colleagues,

Cathy Beyer in the Office of Educational Assessment and I have been meeting with faculty and students as part of an assessment of the Freshman Interest Group program. Last month, I mentioned a little about what faculty hope for students in their first year at the 91爆料. Now it鈥檚 students鈥� turn to tell us what they hope to experience at the 91爆料. Here are a few quotes from students:

鈥淚 hope to learn how to design a circuit board through a computer aided program and build my own device or robot that improves space or medicinal technology. I want to learn how research ideas are approached and evaluated. I hope to learn all the aspects of calculus so well that I can explain it to anyone who asks me on the street about a specific problem.鈥�

鈥淚 hope to learn how to use the diversity that I encounter to make myself more rounded and accepting as a person.鈥�

鈥淚 hope to step outside my comfort zone and take challenging classes without fearing that my performance in them will hurt my GPA. I no longer just want to be concerned with grades I want to do the work for me and not my professors.鈥�

鈥淏rave, mature leadership.鈥�

鈥淗ow to be a better critical thinker, a better writer, a more insightful scientist, and more understanding of the world around me.鈥�

What we celebrate this spring is our best effort to fulfill our commitment to our students鈥攖o help them achieve their goals as 91爆料 students. The Spring Celebration, Undergraduate Research Symposium, recognizing distinguished teaching are all manifestations of how our work impacts students. Additionally, we celebrate Goldwater and Morris Udall scholars and the University鈥檚 first Putnam Fellow who is also an Honors student, Mary Gates Scholar, and will be presenting in the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

We touch every student at the University in some way. Our purpose is to deepen and enrich their experience in significant ways by being agents of a mission that creates a proud and engaged community. The broad, three-dimensional part of our work of teaching, research, and service, is alive and vibrant and interdependent. UAA leadership in the undergraduate experience is evidenced in our work stretching from Mary Gates Hall and Guthrie Annex to Kane Hall and Roosevelt Commons.

The work of each unit within UAA builds on our collective purpose: to help students discover their discipline, purpose, or calling whether it be scholarship, research, or service. In The Triggering Town, poet Richard Hugo鈥檚 book of lectures and essays on poetry and writing, Hugo wrote, 鈥淵our triggering subjects are those that ignite your need for words鈥�your obsessions lead you to your vocabulary.鈥� Hugo was talking about strategies for writing poetry but the same can be said for our work. By connecting students to the University, we are expanding their vocabularies. This leads to creating meaning. And from meaning comes purpose.

This summer, we will be handing incoming freshmen a slim anthology of poems compiled by the Common Book committee. As we enter the fifth year of the Common Book, having explored global health, climate change, immigration, and race and identity formation, we introduce poetry as a genre, as a way to capture voice, inspire imagination, and to highlight the power of the written and spoken word. Since April is National Poetry Month, I encourage you to take a moment and read a poem or a few.

Sincerely,

Ed Taylor

Dear UAA Colleagues,

Certain changes are afoot for our campus as part of the strategic steps the University will take in response to the ongoing economic climate. Our tuition will increase. We will increase the number of undergraduate students on campus. They will be ever more diverse and we will continue to be an institution with high standards, asking our students to engage in inquiry in many ways.

These moves crystallize the fundamental purpose of Undergraduate Academic Affairs: to deepen, enrich, and engage all students from the moment they enter to the moment they graduate.

I recently asked some of our faculty: What do you want most for our freshmen? What do you want them to experience and know? In different ways, each faculty member said we want freshmen to find their community, to find a way to engage at the 91爆料. Secondly, we want their engagement to lead to deep, critical, rigorous thinking. We want our students to always be asking new questions.

As they interview and prepare for a new group of Freshmen Interest Group leaders, as they look to the future of Freshmen Interest Groups, Becky Francoeur and LeAnne Wiles in First Year Programs are addressing these questions.

As we challenge our students more, as we invite an increasingly diverse range of students to our campus, my appreciation for the ways Undergraduate Academic Affairs reaches across campus is growing. Collaborations that Janice DeCosmo and Debbie Wiegand are forming with colleagues in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity prepare us for centralizing the work of diversity and reaffirming our commitment to creating research, experiential, and critical engagement opportunities for every student who so desires. In a year from now, you will see the reformation of the floor plan in Mary Gates Hall鈥檚 ground floor in service of these ends.

I am happy to welcome a new director of the Robinson Center. Professor Nancy Hertzog will be joining us from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where her interests include instructional strategies that challenge all children and gifted programming practices. We look forward to Nancy鈥檚 leadership at the Robinson Center.

Leadership and leadership opportunities can become the sine qua non of our work. A prominent and core competency of UAA is creation of leadership opportunities for students and formation of student leaders. For years, UAA has provided real, genuine, and lasting leadership opportunities. They鈥檝e been Mary Gates Venture, Research, and Leadership Scholars; Honors students with a desire to do a little more; Freshmen Interest Group leaders and orientation leaders; and more.

These past few months, we鈥檝e been talking a great deal about the budget. To be sure, the coming months will also be months for UAA to live up to its mission. Now is the time for us to lead.

Sincerely,

Ed Taylor
Vice Provost & Dean

Dear UAA Colleagues,

We recently learned that the 91爆料 is a Pac-10 leader for graduation rates of student athletes. According to the NCAA, the 91爆料鈥檚 student athlete graduation rate of 84 percent is second-best in the West for a public university. For football student athletes, the 91爆料 ranks second only to Stanford in graduation rates.

Additionally, more than 130 student athletes earned recognition as Pac-10 All-Academic, meaning their cumulative GPA is higher than 3.0 and they are a team starter or significant contributor. These student athletes play football, baseball, basketball, crew, cross-country, soccer, gymnastics and more and study sociology, molecular biology, accounting, international studies, informatics, digital arts and still more.

Congratulations to the academic support staff in Student Athlete Services, to Kim Durand, to so many faculty mentors, and to our coaches. These professionals support the many forms of student excellence we realize on this campus.

This quarter, I鈥檒l be spending a good deal of time working with colleagues to help determine what constitutes our common goods and common principles, as we begin to adopt new a budget model called activity based budgeting (ABB).

I want to underscore that ABB is a budgeting model, a way to recognize and reward academic activities and create a more transparent budget process. While ABB supports the mission and values, the work of lining up to the mission and values is our work. The mission and values are driving the budget, not the other way around. Our commitment to the student experience, our commitment to access and quality experiences and to shaping student lives is work we do during the best of times and during the worst of budget times.

We are all aware that, as we were last year at this time, we are experiencing some budgetary ambiguity. I hold my UAA colleagues in high regard for the way you continued our work. Through unknowns you continued the work of serving students and deepening academic experiences. We鈥檒l continue that good work this year as we plan for the immediate future and the future yet to come.

Sincerely,

Ed Taylor

Dear UAA Colleagues,

As a public university, our call to service has deep roots that extend throughout our community and includes alumni and donors.

Recently, one of UAA鈥檚 good friends, Alyson McGregor, made a multi-year pledge to the Pipeline Project鈥檚 Alternative Spring Break. With it, we plan to engage more students in deeper ways in collaboration with Washington state rural and tribal communities. Connections will begin in Early Fall Start and continue through the year, expanding the traditional Alternative Spring Break efforts. These communities have important histories and traditions from which we can learn by doing work that is important to the heritage of this state and University. Having students engaged in rural and tribal communities goes to the soul of who we are in the Pacific Northwest.

This January marks the 9th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. Since January 2001, the 91爆料 community of students, staff, faculty, and alumni have come together in ever increasing numbers to remember, honor, and further King鈥檚 legacy by volunteering. For some, it may be a one-day event to commemorate a man whose life and work changed our nation. For others it may mark the beginning of their commitment to serving an organization, a cause. And for others still it may be a moment in what to them is a lifelong commitment to volunteerism and service.

It is profound to think of King, who has been deceased now longer than he actually lived, and consider the impact he continues to have. His call to service was for more than one day and indeed the work lasts beyond the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. But, we as a community can begin to answer that call on this one day, so let鈥檚 put on the garden gloves, pick up the paint brushes, and serve our community.

I hope you enjoy the holidays. I look forward to continuing our good work in the New Year.

Happy New Year,

Ed Taylor

Dear UAA Colleagues,

President Emmert and Provost Wise have asked the University to envision and academic plan for the next two decades. The initiative, named 2 Years to 2 Decades, is underway and some reformations in Undergraduate Academic Affairs are worth mentioning.

Janice DeCosmo and Debbie Wiegand are stewarding a conversation with colleagues in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity and Student Life about creating a holistic approach to serving students. We are significantly closer to our vision of expanding and deepening engagement for students across these administrative divisions. This allows us to ask some important questions including:

• How do we best advise students?
• How do we expand opportunities to premier learning experiences?
• How do we create communities of engagement and learning?
• What is our response to teaching and helping all students have a sense of vocation? By vocation I mean the ability to pursue their calling.

Related to this work, academic advisers on campus are 鈥渢ransforming鈥� the way academic advising happens at the 91爆料. There is no better time for this as we begin to create a vision for growing the freshman class over the next few years.

A third transformation may well be catalyzed by the Report on Teaching and Learning. Betsy Wilson, Jerry Baldasty, and I called some of our most talented educators on campus to help envision how we can create a collaborative and visionary teaching and learning center. Lisa Coutu led the committee and a leadership meeting will happen soon to go over the details of the committee鈥檚 work.

Finally, a theme that should define our moment in this economic downturn is a call to service. Two weeks ago I was honored to address over 1,000 Americorps members. President Obama would like the country鈥檚 Americorps membership to increase from 75,000 members to 250,000 members over time.

The 91爆料 has deeply-embedded roots in service. These roots and this moment in history peak in our service learning courses. This fall quarter, the Carlson Center is reporting more students participating in service learning than any other quarter. Typically, the average number of students involved in service learning is about 400 per quarter. Only one time have we broken the 500 student mark. This quarter, 648 students are involved in service learning.

Additionally, JumpStart surpassed its goal of 90 Corps Members and recruited a record 110 Corps Members to help preschool age students prepare for kindergarten. And, the Pipeline Project has seen record numbers of student involvement with 278 91爆料 students working with 4,800 K-12 students across the city.

The 100 part-time Americorps slots the Carlson Center works to fill are all filled. This work usually takes until March or April.

If our students are an accurate gauge of our time, civic consciousness may in fact guide the work of the University and guide the work of our community in the next two decades.

Sincerely,

Ed Taylor
Vice Provost & Dean

Dear UAA Colleagues,

In this message are some things I鈥檒l want to draw your attention to that will impact our work in the coming year.

You鈥檒l hear a lot of conversation about activity based budgeting as a model we may be moving toward. The primary purpose of this model is to bring more transparency to how budget decisions are made and to find more efficient ways of allocating resources on campus.

A second initiative and related is the 鈥渢wo years to two decades鈥� initiative President Emmert and Provost Wise have asked us to embark upon. The purpose of the 鈥渢wo years to two decades鈥� conversation will be to look at the University model and a business model within the next two years and through the next two decades. In effect, we return to the question, 鈥淲ho do we want to be as an institution and what foundation is necessary for us to get there?鈥�

There will be a number of discussions about both of these initiatives. How does it impact our work? We will want to continue to look at where we can be efficient in our work and where we need to expand. The exciting moment for Undergraduate Academic Affairs is that much of the focus and much of the attention of the coming year and the coming years will be related to the undergraduate experience. A movement toward higher tuition and higher undergraduate enrollment will call on us to find even more ways鈥攊nnovative, efficient, effective, and creative ways鈥攖o serve students on our campus.

I鈥檇 also like to draw your attention to potential moves within Mary Gates Hall that will bring our work with students closely aligned with our colleagues in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity and Student Life. Plans are being formulated to co-locate academic advising, experiential learning, academic programs in the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, and academic support, in order to take significant steps towards a comprehensive experience for our students.

Nana Lowell and Cathy Beyer and OEA staff have worked diligently on University accreditation, and we can expect in the next two years and the next two decades to lead and innovate in classroom technology and learning environments.

I want to acknowledge Grant Kollet, Becky Francoeur, and Namura Nkeze for their efforts in assessment of Freshman Interest Groups. Indeed Freshman Interest Groups are the first step into the University for many of our freshman and transfer students. The research is clear that students who are engaged on campus have a richer academic experience, a richer social experience, and a deeper interpersonal experience. The leadership of our First Year Programs staff has been outstanding.

We鈥檒l miss Stan Chernicoff at next week鈥檚 Fall Kick Off as he and some Dream Project students will be in New York City preparing for their presentation at the National College Board meetings. We鈥檙e proud of them and wish them well.

What I appreciate most about you as colleagues in Undergraduate Academic Affairs is that I see leadership manifest in your work and in your actions in countless ways. Let鈥檚 continue to work together to make the 91爆料 undergraduate experience the best that there is in the country.

Sincerely,

Ed Taylor
Vice Provost & Dean

Dear UAA Colleagues,

Welcome back to school!

While summers on campus bring a different pace, lest you think it鈥檚 all ice cream and summer strolls, our work continues. Here are a few things we鈥檝e been up to:

• Honors students studied abroad in Berlin, Istanbul, Tokyo, Argentina, Kenya, and other global destinations. Before heading to Brazil to play, the women鈥檚 soccer team worked with Honors Program director Jim Clauss to learn about Brazil鈥檚 culture and history鈥攁 great continuation of our growing work with Athletics.
• Amgen scholars studied and contributed to new research in biomedical sciences and humanities students found a community of researchers in the 8th Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities.
• First Year Programs oriented 5,342 freshmen, 1,299 transfer students, and 3,257 parents. More than 20 peer leaders welcomed freshmen and began the process of inculcating them to what it means to be a Husky.
• We are beginning a partnership between the Teaching Academy and Athletics to connect Distinguished Teaching Awardees with coaches and student athletes. This should lead to some wonderful conversations about the role teaching plays in inspiring excellence in both the classroom and on the field.

The rigor and vitality of our work remains evident during the so-called lazy-days of summer and the undergraduate experience remains the heart of the 91爆料.

Our primary goal is to ensure that the undergraduate experience is one of intellectual discovery; cultural and intellectual diversity; purposeful, sustained, and integrated personal development; and sustained engagement in the larger University community. In short, an experience that is seamless, enriched, stimulating, and transformative.

Doing this requires intentional and meaningful collaboration and in the coming year, we鈥檒l be working closely with the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, Student Life, the Graduate School, the College of Arts and Sciences, and deans and faculty across campus. Our work is a shared good on campus. We increase access to experiential learning, ensure students make academic progress, deepen and refine the core of the undergraduate experience, set a national standard for innovation in teaching and learning, and sustain excellence in learning environments.

While there are more than 20,000 ways to experience the 91爆料鈥攐ne for each undergraduate鈥攖here truly is only one 91爆料. We need to ensure that every student experiences that which is rich and vibrant about this University.

Sincerely,

Ed Taylor
Vice Provost & Dean

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

In 2008, 5,500 students joined another 22,000 to make up the 91爆料 undergraduate population. 91爆料 students are first-generation students from Omak, fourth-generation students from Seattle, engineering students from Taiwan, athletes from Los Angeles. Our students come from around the state, country, and world and each day they remind me of our charge and commitment to them.

Discovery

A 91爆料 undergraduate education is all about inquiry and discovery鈥攖his is what makes us distinct. We are inspired by research, scholarship, and a methodology that drives us to understand. By generating new knowledge, we strive to deal with a larger set of world problems and questions that are relevant to our neighborhoods, cities, states, and world.

Engagement

For many undergraduates, the 2008 presidential election was the first in which they voted. This simple but profound act of civic duty is a springboard to being an engaged and educated citizen, ready to contribute to the greater good. Undergraduates here also connect with other knowledge-generators, community leaders, and scholars, bringing their role as citizens into ever-sharper focus.

Commitment

Being a 91爆料 undergraduate means being committed to solving world-class problems鈥攖he struggle to end poverty, the protection of eco-systems, the construction and design of 21st century buildings, and understanding time-honored moral problems and issues. In addition, our students are witnessing economic challenges unlike any others in recent history. For many, sustainability, preservation, compassion for others, and compassion for our environment go hand in hand.

Reflection

It is reasonable to expect all of our students to ask, 鈥淲hat am I to do I with what I鈥檝e learned?鈥� Earning a degree is, in part, preparation for a career鈥攚e need engineers, teachers, doctors, activists, and artists. It also means empowering our students toward continued reflection on what it is to have a set of skills and what it means to apply those skills in thoughtful ways. This education ought to be transformative and it ought to be life-long.

Undergraduate Academic Affairs guides undergraduates into the 91爆料 tradition of inquiry, creating and spotlighting pathways for students to engage in the University鈥檚 spirit of discovery, realize the fullness of their talents, and locate their place in the world.

UAA is designed to drive the University鈥檚 undergraduate mission with programs and initiatives that serve as connective tissue for the undergraduate experience. We ensure undergraduates can walk into state-of-the-art classrooms enabled by teaching and learning technology that recognize multiple types of learners. We help students move into community-based experiences that allow them to think about world problems in a variety of ways, accessing the people and organizations that are addressing big issues. We facilitate access to inspiring world-class faculty and world figures.

Ultimately, though, the purpose of a 91爆料 education isn鈥檛 to come to the 91爆料. The 91爆料 is a catalyst for students to do something much bigger, to go somewhere and do something significant, to be a part of the world and to invite the world to be a part of them.

It is our passion and privilege to help create and facilitate this meaningful journey.

Sincerely,
Ed Taylor
Vice Provost & Dean