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	Home Center Seminars and Workshops CTLE Spring 2009 Faculty Workshops CTLE Fall 2009 Faculty Workshops Faculty Resources IDEA Documents BenUConnect & MyBenU Instructions Blackboard handouts Faculty Development Academic Advising Writing Across the Curriculum Workshops Univ. Faculty Colloquia COB Faculty Colloquia Faculty Mentoring Faculty Endowments Academic Assessment Nine Principles Common Objectives Evidence of Learning Assessment Methods Outcomes AQIP & Activities Association Links Provide Site Feedback     "The only lifelong, reliable motivations are those that come from within, and one of the strongest of those is the joy and pride that grow from knowing that you've just done something as well as you can do it." Lloyd Dobyns & Clare Crawford-Mason, Thinking About Quality				Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence AQIP and Activities These web pages both educate and celebrate some of our successful continuous improvement activities. Academic Quality Improvement Program Benedictine University maintains its accreditation status with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) through Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP). This alternative process is only available to universities in good standing with the HLC. Using AQIP, we examine and improve our processes and related outcomes in nine categories: Helping students learn Accomplishing other distinctive objectives Understanding students and other stakeholders needs Valuing people Leading and communicating Supporting institutional operations Measuring effectiveness Planning continuous improvement Building collaborative relationships For more information about AQIP, please read the following documents from the HLC: Introduction to AQIP AQIP Cycles of Improvement AQIP Categories, rev. July 2008 Systems Portfolio Every four years an AQIP university submits an updated Systems Portfolio to AQIP for review. Benedictine University submitted a Systems Portfolio in June 2006. This large document (172 pages) and our Systems Appraisal Feedback Report from the AQIP reviewers are posted on our S: Drive. Our next Systems Portfolio is due June 1, 2010. Benedictine University 2006 Systems Portfolio (172 page document) Strategy Forum Following receipt of feedback from the Systems Portfolio, up to 12 members of an AQIP university attend a Strategy Forum (approximately every four years). Twelve members of our Benedictine community attended the Strategy Forum in November 2007: Bill Carroll, Catherine Arnold, Patrick Flynn, Gillian Hacker, Dan Nohl, Linda Owens, David Sonnenberger, Carol Swett, Alicia Tait, Elsie Yuan, and two members of the board - Will Gillett and Peter Wren. During the Strategy Forum we made plans that impacted improvement "infrastructure" processes that were related to the three AQIP categories of:     5.   Leading and communicating     7.   Measuring effectiveness     8.   Planning continuous improvement Benedictine University 2007 Strategy Forum Booth (PowerPoint of display at left) Using the planning tools/worksheets at the Forum, it became clear that a University Planning Council (UPC) needed development and implementation. In the months following the Forum, the Handbook Committee refined the UPC, and members were elected or appointed in May 2008. Members of both groups (Strategy Forum and UPC) meet in August 2008 to refine the improvement planning tool and develop a university adoption process. This tool will be available on the S: drive. University Planning Council - handbook description (09/15/08) Action Projects Every year our university submits new or updated Action Projects to the AQIP Action Project directory. In addition, numerous continuous improvement activities on campus are part of our university strategic plans, but just are not submitted to the AQIP Directory. The outcomes of all are reported in the Systems Portfolio. Benedictine University Action Projects - Description (2002 to 2008) Quality Checkup Visit Following the Strategy Forum and preceeding the year of the Reaffirmation of Accreditation by HLC, a team of AQIP reviewers conducts a campus Quality Checkup Visit. Two reviewers visited our campus February 18-20, 2009. Please read the announcement and the checkup report below: AQIP 2009 Quality Checkup Visit at Benedictine University - ANNOUNCEMENT AQIP Quality Checkup Visit Guide, rev. 2008 AQIP Quality Checkup Report Following February 18-20, 2009, Site Visit