2002 Forum Tracks

We start our exploration of new frontiers with a track reorganization. The five tracks listed in the Call for Proposals characterizes our work as beginning with a focus on student learning and development (Track 1), proceeding through the work of faculty and the academic programs and structures that directly support learning and discovery (Track 2), and through the management and planning of the institutions (Track 3) and larger systems of higher education collaborations, policy issues and
accountability (Track 4) that provide the organizational and societal contexts for the creation, application, and dissemination of knowledge and culture. Finally, the integrity and validity of this work rests firmly upon a conceptual, ethical, technical, and methodological foundation (Track 5).

Student Life and Learning

Research and practice related to student development and satisfaction, including student academic, social, and emotional gains. Proposals may relate to institutional supports and policy issues that impact student life and learning (i.e., how college affects students), but the defining characteristic for this track is a focus on student outcomes.

Topics Include: Student profiles, performance, satisfaction, expectations, and goals; student learning outcomes; participation in campus activities; the campus climate for students; serving students with special needs; and student diversity.

Academic Programs, Curriculum, and Faculty Issues

Issues related to the development and management of academic departments, programs, curriculum, and faculty activities. That is, the kind of information that a faculty member, department chair, dean, or chief academic officer would use in evaluating the status of academic program.

Topics Include: academic program review; pedagogical methods and programs; assessment of general education, the major, and the classroom; research and scholarly productivity; public service; tenure policies; faculty recruitment, development, and retention; collective bargaining; salary models; faculty evaluation; and decision making regarding faculty and academic programs.

Institutional Management and Planning

Campus-level planning, evaluation, and management are focuses of this track. Proposals focus on the types of information and analyses that would be of primary interest to senior campus-level administrators for campus-wide planning and improvement.

Topics Include: enrollment management (including retention studies); quality improvement; strategic planning; fiscal, physical, and human resources (and their allocation); campus information systems; campus policy formulation; and organizational management and change.

Higher Education Collaborations, Policy Issues, and Accountability

This track emphasizes issues that go beyond the campus, including accountability of individual institutions to external publics, as well as multi-institutional collaborations (e.g., data exchanges, learning consortia, and articulation agreements), system-level issues, and public policy related to higher education.

Topics Include: Accreditation; data exchanges and national data resources; system, state and federal higher education policy; multi-institution cooperative projects and arrangements; and international projects and comparisons.

The Practice of Institutional Research: Theory, Techniques, Technologies, Tools, and Ethics

Research and presentations that focus on the practice of institutional research. This includes organizational, ethical, methodological, and technological aspects of the profession.

Topics Include: Organizing and evaluating IR offices and functions; ethical and political dimensions of IR practice; statistics, research, and reporting methods; computer and information technologies for IR work; and data administration and warehousing.

2002 Track Structure