Office of the Provost: 2004-2005 Annual Report

Dr. James L. Oblinger served his second year as Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs until December 31, 2004. He was named Chancellor and Dr. Larry A. Nielsen was appointed Interim Provost effective January 1, 2005. Dr. Nielsen will serve in this role until a permanent Provost is appointed. Effective July 1, 2004 the following personnel changes occurred in the Provost's immediate unit: Dr. Judy Peel, Associate Vice Provost, returned to the faculty in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management; Sandy Connolly, Assistant Vice Provost, accepted a position at Duke University; Samara Fleming-Burnette accepted an administration position with the Vice Provost of Enrollment Management and Services; Laura Chen transferred to Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications. The four vacated positions were abolished.

Credit Programs & Summer Sessions

Enrollment for the 2004 Summer Sessions included a total of 13,282 students enrolled. This included 2,315 Lifelong Education students (17.4% of the total enrollment). A comprehensive online Summer Sessions Bulletin was developed in concert with a total renovation of the unit's web presence.

Lifelong Education enrollment in on-campus and distance education courses averaged 2,921 students per semester. The Academic Enrichment Opportunities program for Wake County high school students enrolled an average of 58 students per semester (an increase of 23.4% over the previous year). At the undergraduate and graduate levels, the percentages of Lifelong Education students that are non-white or female exceed parallel percentages for degree students. Individuals admitted into NC State University degree programs during 2004-05 previously enrolled through Lifelong Education numbered 989.

Enrollment in distance education course work during 2004-05 averaged 2,972 students per semester. This represents a 21.0% increase over the previous year. Among these 2,972 students, 1,212 were Lifelong Education students. In conjunction with this activity, Credit Programs & Summer Sessions proctored 4,709 examinations (a 47.4% increase over the previous year).

Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA)

Total credit hours delivered in Distance Education courses and degree programs increased from 25,499 SCH for 03-04 to 29,670 for 04-05, a 16.4% increase. Fundable enrollments (NC residents) increased from 21,675 SCH to 26,170 SCH, a 20.7% increase. Two new Distance Education master's degree programs and one graduate-level certificate were implemented in 04-05. Two doctoral level programs and two graduate-level certificates were developed and approved to begin in 05-06.

The pilot phase of the WebCT Vista Learning Management System was implemented. MCNC will host the servers for the Vista deployment. DELTA began implementation of an end-to-end digital video production process that will rapidly provide distance education content to students.

DELTA coordinated the development and implementation of the UNC Military Education Alliance, in collaboration with the UNC Office of the President, to establish a UNC Distance Education (DE) consortium to serve the NC military through Distance Education. This Alliance will increase military DE enrollments, provide shared advising space at four military bases, and leverage resources to produce higher DE enrollments

"A study of distance education course structure, student course load and residency for distance education students" was undertaken in 2004-05 with 40 online sections of the English Professional Writing program.

Larry Evans received Apple Pro certification for Final Cut HD; Tony Pearson completed the Equal Opportunity Institute Certificate Program; Sharon Pitt was re-elected as Board Chair of the UNC Teaching and Learning with Technology Collaborative for 2005-06 and was on the program committee of the Southeast Regional EDUCAUSE conference; Kay Zimmerman was named Associate Vice Provost for Marketing and Partnership Development and named Program Chair for the 2006 ASEE Conference on Industry and Education Collaboration; Tom Miller was appointed to the NC E-learning Commission, and appointed to the North Carolina Information Technology Advisory Board.

Diversity and African American Affairs

The Office for Diversity and African American Affairs continued to enhance its activities in creating a culture that values, respects, and welcomes everyone; promoting increased interaction among diverse people on campus; increasing demographic diversity; and increasing the level of diversity education among students, faculty, and staff. NC State became the first university or college in NC to join the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and also established a Resource Center for our growing Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (LBGT) community. A climate survey for Hispanic and Latino students was conducted. Efforts to increase interaction among diverse people on campus included increased support, advertisement, and participation in the Campus Dialogues on Diversity, Race and Ethnicity Study Circles, Prejudice Reduction Workshops, establishment of a Student Diversity Council, and conduct of an annual student diversity festival called, "A Taste of NC State."

Activities conducted to achieve increasing demographic diversity included outreach, recruiting, admissions, retention, and professional development programs. We partnered with Admissions to encourage student volunteers to call high school students who had applied for admission to NCSU. In faculty recruiting, we began participation in a National Minority Faculty Recruitment Fair, a National Minority Faculty/Staff Directory and an NSF funded Future Faculty Recruitment Program that will bring twenty or more Ph.D. or Post-Doctoral students to NC State every year to interview and to apply for open faculty positions.

Human Resources, the Office of Equal Opportunity, Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, the Office for Diversity and African American Affairs, Office of International Scholars and Services, Center for Student Leadership, Ethics, and Public Service, and the GBLT Resource Center all offer diversity education. Diversity workshops and seminars begin with new student, faculty, and employee orientations, and are offered throughout the year. A new Diversity NC State website on the campus homepage was launched. Dr. Karrie Dixon was hired as Assistant Vice Provost for Student Diversity.

Enrollment Management and Services

The Undergraduate Admissions web site was redesigned to include the capability for students to personalize their admissions web site experience based on their specific interest areas using a feature called WolfPAW. Utilization of this new tool included logins by 33,170 individual users, 23,212 started applications for admissions, and 374,250 email messages sent through the system to students. There were a total of 16,550 completed applications submitted through all sources (WolfPAW, CFNC, and paper applications) by mid May 2005. The Admissions Office established a High School Counselor Advisory Board during the 2004-2005 academic year, which has already implemented pertinent recommendations from the group such as creating a counselor newsletter and an active counselor list serve to increase information flow. Admissions officers attended six NC Guidance Counselors Conferences and partnered with the Park Scholarship Office and the Colleges at the NC School Counselors Association (NCSCA) Conference to formally and informally meet with the high school counselors. The Admissions Office recruited transfer students from NC community colleges and to make the transfer process easier to understand. NC State admissions counselors visited over half of the NC community colleges (30 colleges in all), and also attended the College Transfer Program Association annual meeting held at Wake Technical Community College.

The volume of financial aid distributed to NC State students continues to increase annually. The total aid awarded to enrolled NC State students for 2003-04 was $160.6M and the number of enrolled students who received some form of financial aid was 17,198. As of April 27, 2004, the total aid distributed for 2004-05 is $173.6M to 17,280 students and the numbers will continue to grow as students are awarded aid for summer sessions, 2005. For the second year, the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid (OSFA) assumed financial and coordinating responsibilities for the web-based common merit application used by the Park, Centennial, Shelton and university-wide scholarship programs, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences scholarships, and the Honors Program. The OSFA assumed full responsibility for administering the Chancellor's Leadership Awards (CLA) during the current year. For the first time, incoming CLA applicants for 2005-06 were encouraged to apply for the CLA via the web, and a total of 350 applications were submitted. The OSFA scholarships staff coordinated folder reviews of these applications that involved 32 faculty and staff. The OSFA made a concerted effort this year to be more proactive about informing students of the process and timeline for applying for financial aid. Every student who applied for admission received an email message in January giving instructions in applying for financial aid as well as information about the priority filing date. As a result of this and other efforts, the on-time aid applicant numbers for 2005-06 are up 39% over just two years ago.

A task force of key university faculty and administrators was charged with assessing the feasibility of proceeding with the implementation of the PeopleSoft Student Affairs Administration software. Input from other institutions and consultants with reputations for successful implementations were collected. The report recommended proceeding with implementation and outlined both an implementation strategy and project timeline.

During the 2004-2005 academic year, Advisory CounCil for the Enhancing of Student Success (ACCESS), a retention committee established by the Vice Provost and charged by the Provost to define what retention or student success means at NC State, was established. Outcomes from the council's first year included the establishment of an electronic Student Success Inventory, cataloging retention focused initiatives and programs sponsored campus-wide, and the formation of subcommittees focusing on identification of characteristics, patterns of enrollment and viable support strategies for targeted student groups (i.e., third semester freshmen, student athletes, and part-time students).

Equal Opportunity and Equity

Priorities and goals were reestablished at this year's OEO retreat in the areas of outreach and education of the university community about equal opportunity and developing meaningful internal and external partnerships. The Equal Opportunity Institute completed its sixth year with 38 graduates completing the 30-hour certificate program, including 8 external participants from RTP companies such as IBM. OEO sponsored the BASIC race awareness seminar for 24 faculty and staff at the Aqueduct Conference Center in Chapel Hill. OEO sponsors NC State's campus affiliate chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) and trained 11 workshop facilitators. Sixteen NCBI " Building Bridges " diversity workshops were presented to 339 faculty, staff, and students. Two " Building Bridges" workshops were presented as a professional development activity for teachers at Fred Olds Elementary School in fall 2004. OEO offered three sessions of the 5-week program " Study Circles on Race and Ethnic Relations" to NC State students, faculty and staff and partnered with Meredith College to provide a "Study Circles" session during spring 2005. There were 53 harassment prevention educational programs presented to 7,014 participants and 75 complaints of alleged harassment reported to OEO were resolved either informally or formally. Disability Services for Students (DSS) received over 40 invitations to present workshops to over 11,900 people with most of the workshops focusing on providing accommodations to students with disabilities. DSS partnered with several campus units (Computer Science, Mathematics, and Diversity & African American Affairs) to present lecturer, Dr. Abraham Nemeth, Professor Emeritus, Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Detroit and creator of the Standard Braille Code for mathematical symbols.

Vice Provost Joanne Woodard serves as the campus liaison for Women Administrators in North Carolina Higher Education (WANCHE) and the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Four NC State women participated in the "Bridges, Academic Leadership for Women Program" that is coordinated through OEO.

The full version of the Office for Equal Opportunity Annual Report, 2004-05 will be available July 1, 2005 on the OEO website at http://www.ncsu.edu/equal_op/pubs.html .

Graduate School

Graduate enrollment (on-campus and DE) in Fall 2004 was at an all-time high of 5971, a 5.5% increase from Fall 2003. Doctoral enrollment increased by 7.7 %, while master's enrollment increased by 1.5%. International enrollment increased by more than 7%. Changes in enrollment of students from underrepresented populations were mixed. Enrollment of Hispanic Americans increased by 23.6% and Native Americans by 25%. However, there was a 2.9% decrease in enrollment of African American students. Approximately 1000 fewer graduate applications were received for admission in Fall 2004 than in Fall 2003 a 12.6% decline. International applications were down by approximately 25%. However, we admitted 2.7% more students for Fall 2004 than for Fall 2003, and 4.2% more enrolled. An estimated 1717 graduate degrees were awarded in 2004-05, 343 doctoral and 1374 master's, compared to 1741 degrees awarded in 2003-04, 338 doctoral and 1403 master's.

Six new master's programs, two new doctoral programs, and five graduate certificate programs were either approved this past year or are in the process of approval.

The Graduate School received one major federal grant that will help to recruit and retain a more diverse graduate student body. The NSF Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) renewal grant was funded for three years at a total of $3.3 million. The Graduate School administered 25 different fellowship and traineeship programs that supported 189 students and had an annual value of approximately $2.4 million. Almost $1.6 million of this was used to support female and minority students.

Information Technology Division (ITD)

Modernizing and expanding the university's IT infrastructure and capabilities with a data storage capacity of 96 terabytes, the conversion to the university's new Storage Management System was completed. The successful move of equipment and data to the new Data Center secondary site in the Administrative Services Building III was completed. Classroom Technologies Services became a production service in 2004 and will expand to serve more than 50 multimedia classrooms by the end of 2005. The Brickyard outdoor commons now has wireless computing access. The Flyspace collaborative learning project continues to grow in popularity, and the Virtual Computing Lab pilot project entered its second semester. The $1 Million SAS Software & Services Grant was extended to December 2005. High Performance Computing research computing capacities more than doubled as a result of funding provided by faculty participation in the HPC Partners Program. ITDs participation in the design and testing of the National LambdaRail enabled the Triangle to become an early Point of Presence on this new research network backbone. A proactive approach to addressing university resource issues was launched.

Rob Gierka and Mark McLawhorn and the publication Computing@NCState won the national Award for Printed Computing Newspaper at the ACM Special Interest Group for University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) conference in 2004 and Sarah Noell and Laura Grady presented "Building a University IT Community." Carrie Levow co-presented "Assessing Your ResNet." at the national ResNet Symposium. 12 ITD staff gave presentations at the 2004 UNC CAUSE conference. Dr. Eric Sills served on the executive committee of the Supercomputing 2004 conference and gave an invited talk at the IBM NC Technical Experts Council. Dr. Henry Schaffer gave an invited talk at the Supercomputing 2004 conference. Saroj Primlani and Sina Bahram presented "Building an Accessible Next Generation Virtual Computing Environment" at the 2005 International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference; Ms. Primlani was invited to lead a panel on Web accessibility at the 2005 EDUCAUSE southeast conference. "Algorithm 841: BHESS: Gaussian Reduction to a Similar Banded Hessenberg Form," by Dr. Gary Howell, was published in " Transactions on Mathematical Software .

Greg Sparks was promoted to director of Communications Technologies. John Streck accepted the position of Assistant Vice Chancellor of Telecommunications at UNC-Chapel Hill.

International Affairs

International Affairs established the International Operations Council (IOC) and developed draft Comprehensive Strategic Plan for Internationalization of NC State University. GlobalEyes , OIA Newsletter initiated in 2005; International Exposition: Research, Entertainment and Culture event was implemented for the Chancellor's Installation. Faculty Internationalization Seed Grant awards (have yielded 5-10 times return on investment over the past decade). OIS staff led six on-campus Diversity Workshops. Ingrid Schmidt and Michael Bustle had title changes to Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs.

The Study Abroad Office served 647 students in 04-05, a 3.9% increase over the 623 total of 02-03, increased the number of summer faculty-led programs to 26. Enrollments in summer or short-term programs have increased 9.2% to 487 (compared to 446 for last year). The OIS re-engineered admissions processing of international applicants.

OIS must rearticulate the roles and responsibilities of the OIS and the Graduate School. Immigration advising and SEVIS actions must remain in the OIS. SAO permanent space to house all staff in same facilities is needed. Additional personnel are needed in both the OIS and the SAO.

Learning in a Technology Rich Environment (LITRE)

With the completion of the SACS review in 2004, implementation of NC State's Quality Enhancement Plan entitled "Learning in a Technology Rich Environment" (LITRE) began. A new small grants program for faculty research into better teaching methods using technology awarded 19 LITRE Grants in its first year. A broadly based Advisory Board guided the first year of LITRE implementation. Early projects continue in a number of important areas. LITRE has also begun building on efforts underway in the various academic colleges. With many thrusts, LITRE provides the umbrella under which research is supported and nourished.

NCSU Libraries

The NCSU Libraries Annual Report may be found at the following link: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/administration/annualreports/reportch05.html

Undergraduate Academic Programs

The First Year College (FYC) has renewed its partnership with University Housing in moving from a living/learning to a "village" model aimed at enhancing student success. A FYC advisory council has been established and plans for a significant facility expansion are underway. The Undergraduate Fellowship Advising program's reporting structure has been realigned within the University Honors Program. Undergraduate Research has published the first 2 issues of the Undergraduate Research Journal of NC State University . The Undergraduate Tutorial Center and the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences have partnered to establish the Physics and Mathematics Tutorial Center. The Virtual Advising Center has coordinated a collaboration of 8 campus units. New Student Orientation's enhanced communication efforts are meeting the needs of the largest incoming class in NC State history (4,400 first year students). UGA despite physically relocated twice during the year to Ricks Halls where UGA will reside through 2008.

The First Year Inquiry (FYI) program has expanded its work to include "NEXT" level courses. The Virtual Advising Center expanded its staff. The Undergraduate Tutorial Center provided pay increases for the recruitment and retention of tutors, and to expand its services.

Jo Allen became Provost at Widener University; John Ambrose was appointed Associate Vice Provost for UGA in June, then appointed Interim Vice Provost effective in July; Marilee Bresciani became Assistant Vice President for Institutional Assessment at Texas A&M; Allen Dupont moved to the Director position in Undergraduate Assessment; Frankye Artis replaced Ron Mimms (retired) as the Director of the Transition Program; Arnold Bell served as Interim Director until Ms. Artis' selection; Carrie McLean was appointed as the Interim Director, and Chris Chafin as the Interim Associate Director of the FYC.

George Barthalmus was awarded for 4 grants; Mary Tetro, was awarded the University's Barbara Solomon Advising Award; Karen Hauschild, Kim Outing and Mary Tetro were nominees for the Provost 's Award for Excellence ; Maxine Atkinson received the Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award from the Southern Sociological Society; Philip Moses, will assist in hosting the National Academic Advising Association for Athletes convention in Raleigh; Roger Callanan continues as executive board member and one of 25 facilitators for NC State's chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute; Dr. Arnold Bell will be serving as President of the NC Cooperative Ed Association; Jon Rust was presented the Ephraim Schecter Assessment Award ; UGA presented the First Year Student Advocacy Award to University Housing for their work; UGA staff continue to conduct dozens of workshops and presentations.

Recommendations and concerns for the future include: Stability in the organizational and personnel structure of UGA. I t will be imperative to maintain a consistency of personnel. Clarification of the mission of UGA as a respected and valued role within the University. Discussions that were part of recent campus forums for Provost and V ice Provost candidates revealed the need for better communication and understanding between UGA and the greater NC State community. The impact and contribution of the work of UGA administered services and programs to the colleges need to be articulated and given better visibility. Continued commitment throughout the University to a culture of assessment as it informs continuous improvement.