JMU Partnership Committee Meeting
February 4, 2004

1. Members present: John Fahey, Jane Smith, David Lane, Linda Krause, Mary-Faye Browning, Oris Griffin (sitting in for Diane Foucar-Socki), Tammy Gilligan, Tamara Jetton.

2. Approval of Minutes:
The minutes from the last meeting were reviewed and approved through e-mail. They had not been sent out to the deans and will be sent out this week.

3. John mentioned that all partnership sites should continue to send him activity reports so that he may forward them to the deans for review. The Dean’s office wants monthly Partnership reports. They need to be emailed to John and to Dr. Pettus. There has been a number of articles in the Daily News Record about Tamara’s work in the schools. We should copy these and send them on for the partnership publicity.

4. The main topic for today’s meeting is the review of the Faculty Liaison Assessment Processes and Policy Plan. John stated that one of the issues is an effort to collect more data – surveys don’t always capture what a liaison does. Data can be biased and not fairly reflect liaison activities. Jane went over the Faculty Liaison Assessment Processes and Policies. Faculty liaisons can assist in the design of an open-ended evaluation. The State of the Partnership Survey evaluates the partnerships, not necessarily the faculty liaison alone. Also discussed was the collection of evaluation data from staff development and submitting it with your (WHOSE)annual report. The committee agreed on the need to design a survey to be used by the school sites and steering committees to evaluate faculty liaison efforts. Surveys will give context for an outside group looking at these efforts. Tamara brought up issues such as – it is a lot of work to complete the assessment of partnership efforts and it seems that faculty liaisons do not get a lot of credit for the work already being done. She wants this extra work to be valued. Jane mentions that these are issues we need to communicate to the dean. They should know the amount of work that has gone into partnerships. A lot of the work is not counted, and service scores are low on annual reports. Jane wants to make sure that PAC knows the amount of service and that it is accounted for. Everyone agrees that this is an important issue. Oris mentioned that this assessment could be very helpful for everyone considering the issues on hand. David is concerned for five-year programs. Specifically, without having effective practicums, they will fall apart, which means Partnerships are of great importance. John suggested writing a survey as a group so that it doesn’t have to be self-generated. Tamara suggested that having the surveys already written would be very helpful. John expressed concern about the assessment process when dealing with different principals, multiple overseers. Tammy says that listing goals and then showing proof of completion to PAC could help. Mary-Faye: mentioned that Waynesboro does State of the Partnership evaluations every year, and Augusta does theirs every other. Will this have to change? Jane says data from State of Partnership would be every other year. Mary Faye: notes that she does a partnership report only. Would this need to change? more documents? John said, “No, it seems clear already and we don’t want to create more work. Additions to the process will include self-reflections and getting the steering committee to do an open-ended survey”. Jane says that everyone’s’ role needs to be made clear to those doing the surveys. Mary-Faye and Linda don’t do the monthly reports. John says he needs to get clarification on how often they need reports. Maybe they only need the minutes from meetings? John says just as long as the information gets reported to the deans, we may be fine. John asked the committee about how it feels about the draft assessment as a process? Does it seem effective? Jane stated that perhaps the dean’s don’t have an understanding about the nature of these partnerships. David thinks the best way for the deans to understand is to put them on a partnership committee. He said that keeping them in touch would serve us better than creating more paper, more work and that we just need to resolve the lack of knowledge concerning our partnerships. They used to have a direct connection – why not now? Jane stated that if faculty liaisons are devoting ¼ of their time, then there also needs to be assessment – but she agrees with David. John expressed concerns that the hectic nature of all of our schedules with classes and finding mutually acceptable meeting times is still an issue. As for closure on assessments? Tammy suggested some edits for level 1, and the suggestions were given to Jane for the final revision. Mary-Faye wants us to get credit for what has already been done, not just the new things. David wonders why these things aren’t known and implemented. John wants to communicate that some people need to be told about past activity. Context should be given and will. Tamara expressed frustration concerning writing a monthly report instead of combining months. John summarized by asking Jane to redo the assessment policy, and it will be sent out to you for final review. Fridays may be the new meeting day. This will be considered.

5. Next meeting will be set through email.

6. Adjournment – Evaluation