Committee Structure and Membership

Provost Kris Bulcroft is chair of the Self Study Steering Committee, seconded by Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Andrew Starcher.

They work in close connection with the Faculty Deans, Sara Steinert Borella and Armando Zanecchia, to assure representation of the entire faculty. The Deans are joined on the committee by Professor Sanja Dudukovic, whose area of expertise is quantitative methods and who served as a primary contributor to the 2000 self-study, and by Richard Bulcroft, in a consulting institutional research role. In order to ensure input from the entire campus community, the committee is joined by student Rene Musech as well as by Trustee Rick Bell and alumnus and Trustee member, John Steinbreder. Giorgia Greppi, the Assistant to the Provost, provides key administrative assistance.

The Deans and Professor Dudukovic serve as co-chairs of one or more of the Working Groups, thus facilitating clear communication between the various Working Groups and the Steering Committee. Each Working Group also has a co-chair from the President’s Cabinet or the faculty to assure adequate contributions from the diverse constituencies. The alumni and trustee representatives are called on to serve as critical readers of the drafts.

Each Working Group has the following representation:

An Academic Dean
A senior administrator from the President’s Cabinet
A member of the staff
2-4 faculty members
A current student
An alumna or alumnus
A trustee

The role of the Steering Committee is to:

• complete the Self-Study design, research questions and committee structure (Spring 2008)
• ensure that the timetable is implemented (2008-2010)
• provide oversight and feedback to the Working Groups throughout the project and provide communication between Working Groups (Fall 2008 onwards)
• create a template for Working Group reports (Fall 2008)
• edit the draft reports from the Working Groups before melding them into the final Self-Study report (Spring/Summer 2009)
• arrange for institution-wide review and responses to the Self-Study draft and responses from the evaluation team chair (Fall 2009)
• complete and send final draft to evaluation team and MSCHE (January 2010).
  

The role of the Working Groups is to:

• investigate the research questions they have been assigned, determining if information is currently available to answer the questions
• solicit information or additional studies from standing committees or design and carry out independent research, when the necessary information is not available
• write drafts of their findings following a template provided by the Steering Committee and adjust their drafts after feedback from the Steering Committee.