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Academic Excellence

• Benchmarking
• Peer and Aspirant Institutions for Mount Mary
• Relevant Initiatives from the current plan
• Strengths and Challenges
• Key Performance Indicators
• Current College Activities
• Best Practices
• What if...Where might Mount Mary be in 2020?
• Download complete PDF for Academic Excellence

Benchmarking is a process relatively common in the for-profit world undertaken for the purpose of evaluating various aspects of a business in relation to best practice, typically within a company’s own industry. In recent years, benchmarking has been adopted by governments and nonprofits, including higher education institutions. In its simplest form, benchmarking is just a way to gauge one’s own performance against that of others considered to be similar (peer) or, in some way, improved (aspirant).

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Research to identify peer and aspirant institutions to Mount Mary College included data compiled by Hanover Research Council (an independent research organization) in 2008 as well as 2009-2010 NSSE and IPEDS comparison schools. This pool of institutions is intended to offer possible points of comparison to Mount Mary College to assist in better understanding its own operations as well as to glean best practices from others.
Peer institutions were selected based on similarities to Mount Mary: geographical location (urban or very close to urban), student profile (% Pell eligible, average ACT, and ethnicity), retention and graduation rates. This process generated a list of peer institutions that includes the following institutions:

• Alverno College (Wisconsin)
• Columbia College (South Carolina)
• Ursuline College (Ohio)
• La Roche College (Pennsylvania)
• College of St. Elizabeth (New Jersey)

Aspirant institutions were selected based on higher numbers in at least two of the following three areas: average ACT scores, retention rates, (graduation rates. Other considerations were diversity of students and percentage of Pell eligible students. Aspirant institutions have student bodies similar to Mount Mary College, but these institutions are more successful in recruiting academically better prepared students; they also are more successful in graduating a higher percentage of those students. This process generated a list of aspirant institutions that includes the following institutions:

• Mary Baldwin College (Virginia)
• Cedar Crest College (Pennsylvania)
• Brenau University (Georgia)

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Goal 1: Develop new academic programs

Goal 2: Enhance current academic programs

• Collaborate with other colleges in academic programming/course offerings in three departments to help reduce low enrollment courses.
• Enhance global initiatives, including study abroad, to promote and support our vision to educate women to transform the world.
• Identify, develop, and create course/program delivery offerings/format by 25% to increase student access (e.g., online, satellite campuses, weekend, evening, etc.).
• Extend reading specialist license to Level II.
• Increase number of students to engage in undergraduate research by 15%.
• Reduce the percentage of total credits taught by part-time faculty from 35% to 25%.
• Increase faculty development opportunities for teaching and learning.

Goal 3: Address technology issues

• Create and implement a discipline-specific faculty development program in pedagogical uses of technology.

Goal 4: Strengthen ongoing communication and involvement between academic departments and admission

• Meet with each academic department annually.
• Provide quarterly report summarizing enrollment division initiatives and activities.

Goal 5: Attract, retain, and support a diverse, highly qualified faculty, administration and staff

• Market Milwaukee as a diverse community to applicants by providing a packet of information about neighborhoods, religious institutions, and community organizations that embrace diversity and multiculturalism.
• Identify faculty contacts that would be willing to answer applicants’ questions regarding religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity at both Mount Mary and the greater Milwaukee metropolitan area.
• Review faculty salaries based on AAUP benchmarks for Category IIB; raise salaries as budget permits.

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Strengths

• Educate for a lifetime (not a “quick fix” approach)
• Explicit focus on values and intentional reflection of one’s values
• Social justice integrated into curriculum
• Dedication and accessibility of faculty to students
• Accomplished faculty/quality teaching
• Looks and “feels” like a traditional college
• Small class size

Challenges

• Conservative mindset (this is how we’ve always done things)
• State of classroom facilities in terms of IT and other infrastructure
• Lack of support for faculty development
• Lack of electronically supported instruction including online and distance learning
• Proportion of part-time faculty
• Lack of college readiness among some students
• Full-time faculty are spread thin

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• Faculty provide academic and professional leadership at the regional, national, and international level.
• The curriculum integrates service learning, leadership, and social justice to actively align departmental goals and objectives as well as learning outcomes with mission.
• Innovative study abroad programs, primarily developed and led by faculty, support students’ curricular needs for short-term experiences.
• Academic environment balances professional and liberal arts studies, answering student desire for clear career paths while sustaining the arts and sciences core.
• Dynamic graduate programs expand professional and career opportunities.
• Faculty embrace mission as a curricular component and work collaboratively. Examples include the team-taught study abroad course “Women, Peace, and Conflict” (bringing together History, Behavioral Science, and Fashion) and the cross-disciplinary art and science project resulting in student artwork published in the Journal of Chemical Education.
• Students are provided with scholarly opportunities through a wide range of programs and honor societies.

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More than 20% of last May’s graduates participated in a study abroad experience. This strong participation reflects the quality and range of offerings, and it demonstrates the commitment of faculty to expanding – globally – student horizons and worldviews. While study abroad has become a staple at most four-year institutions, the Mount Mary program is distinctive. It intentionally integrates not only curricular subject matter but also shapes each experience around the institutional mission of social justice. Attuned to the demographics of its student body, the College offers a mix of formats (short-term as well as full semester or yearlong), study sites and subject matter. What factors contribute to the success of this programming? It is tied to the academic core and to the mission, elevating student learning to exceed 21st-century requirements. Faculty are integrally involved in conceptualizing study abroad offerings, and programming is responsive to constraints on students’ time and flexibility as well as their interests.

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Things to include in our vision might be:

• We are known for our outstanding faculty, intellectual vitality, and an array of degree programs that contour the scholarly, and communitarian, aspirations of our state, our region, and beyond.
• Our faculty are selectively recruited nationally as well as regionally. They are distinguished by their strong academic preparation, vision, and leadership. They serve as leaders of discourse within our community, and they model the highest traditions of intellectual rigor and enlightened vision for their students.
• The efforts of our dedicated faculty and the achievements of our outstanding students and graduates elevate and sustain the College’s reputation as a center of intellectual creativity in the service of humanity. Mount Mary is recognized for its strong role in regional initiatives for entrepreneurship, design, and health care.
• Complemented by expertise in, and application of, state-of-the-art instructional technique and technology, the Mount Mary undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs in 2020 are recognized for inspiring student success and creating potent contributions to the region’s vitality.
• Other?

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