TEACHING AND LEARNING AND COMMUNITY ORIENTATION

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Professional Development, Faculty Evaluation, and Research

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Strategic Planning and Implementation

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Major Findings

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Consistent with the strategic plan in promoting excellence in instruction and intellectual accomplishment, the University provides support for faculty professional development through the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching (CET), the Office of Faculty Affairs, and Research and Sponsored Programs.

The Center for the Enhancement of Teaching (CET) provides strong support for faculty utilization of technology in support of instruction through workshops, individual tutoring by the professional support staff and through grant support. The CET also provides support for a variety of teaching approaches including resources and consultations for faculty teaching large classes, and those interested in collaborative and cooperative learning. The CET conducts chairs workshops, an extensive (4 day) orientation program for new faculty and a newly instituted orientation for temporary faculty. An innovative diversity oriented program to assist faculty in working with second language learners involves support for improvement of student writing through its Assistance With Writing On-Line (AWOL) with WWW links to other student support resources on campus such as the tutoring center.

The Office of Faculty Affairs provides support for the formal retention, promotion and tenure process, dispute resolution, faculty leaves, and faculty appointment. Faculty Affairs provides information regarding opportunities for professional leaves (sabbatical, Difference in Pay-DIP, Professional Development Leave without pay), travel funds, internal grants and recognition awards, and faculty assigned time for curricular and pedagogical innovation.

Research and Sponsored Programs supports faculty needs to build capabilities in grant writing and development and provides for management of grant applications and programs. The staff within the Research and Sponsored Programs Office provide support for the development of faculty capabilities in conceptualization of appropriate projects, identification of potential funding agencies, grant writing (including editing services) and submission of proposals in compliance with agency and University requirements.

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Strengths and Commendations

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The CET is given very high commendation by faculty and administrators alike. Faculty feel they receive strong support for development of innovations in technology in support of instruction via the Center.

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Challenges and Opportunities

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Challenges for the campus include its ability to recruit new faculty. This will be particularly challenging given the large turnover in faculty expected, due to retirement, in the coming years. As indicated earlier in this report, approximately 61% of the tenured/tenure track faculty are at the rank of full professor. Faculty recruitment is difficult for a number of reasons. First, the high cost of living in the San Francisco area has hindered the University’s ability to hire faculty. Housing prices in the area are among the very highest in the nation. In addition to the cost of housing, salaries within the CSU are not indexed for cost of living differences. Because of this SFSU competes with CSU campuses in areas such as Bakersfield, Humboldt and Chico who offer the same salary package but reside in locations with much lower housing and living costs. SFSU’s efforts to provide housing options for faculty near the campus is an excellent first step in alleviating housing pressures among faculty and should be continued.

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Teaching and Learning at SFSU

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Major Findings

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The Center for the Enhancement of Teaching (CET) and the Office of Faculty Affairs, provide support for teaching and learning through a number of venues. The CET provides workshops and consultations on pedagogical approaches and innovation in course delivery, identifies and recognizes best practices, and supports faculty efforts to evaluate and improve practice. Support is provided for faculty interested in integrating group work, cooperative and collaborative learning approaches into their courses. In response to increases in class size, the CET offers specific support in the form of planning and media/materials preparation for faculty who will be teaching very large classes.

The CET also provides an extensive program of support for faculty interested in integrating technology in support of courses. This can take the form of utilization of course environment programs such as Blackboard, creation of original web-based modules for teaching or development of a variety of multimedia supports for classes. Some faculty use this support to put courses fully on-line while most use technology to enhance more traditional course formats. The CET provides a number of facilities to assist faculty in the creation and delivery of technology supported innovations in teaching and learning. This includes a technology classroom, development lab facility, demonstration classroom and collaboratory. These facilities are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and supported by a professional staff. Grants for redesign of the traditional class into an on-line format are offered through the Center that also provides support and training for faculty to implement their proposals.

The Office of Faculty Affairs provides internal grants and awards, recognition and facilitates professional leaves for faculty.

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Strengths and Commendations

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The programs offered in the CET are utilized by a number of faculty. Faculty are highly supportive of the CET and identify it as important to their gaining capabilities in improvement of teaching. This is particularly true in the development of on-line modules for courses.

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Challenges and Opportunities

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Faculty are quite happy with the support in learning new technology they receive from CET. Continued technology support once the faculty member returns to their faculty offices was a major concern. There is a need to consider the level of support available for the use of technology within the academic units if faculty are to successfully implement innovations created within the CET.

In reviewing the self-study documents and the strategic plan and in its interviews/conversations with SFSU faculty and staff, the Team observed that the focus of the strategic theme "A Learning Centered University" is primarily on the faculty's responsibility and meeting faculty needs for creating a learning environment.

  Recommendation 5. The Visiting Team recommends that more attention be paid to student’s needs and student learning as SFSU further develops and implements its strategic plan.

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The Faculty—Support and Professional Development

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Major Findings

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The CET and Office of Faculty Affairs offer a number of professional development offerings for faculty. These include New Faculty Orientation, Orientation for Lecturers and a semi-annual workshop for new chairs. In addition, the Office of Faculty Affairs has developed a faculty manual to be used across the campus.

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Strengths and Commendations

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Faculty affirm the importance of the New Faculty Orientation Program in providing needed orientation and initial faculty development opportunities.

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Challenges, Opportunities and Recommendation

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Although the Chair’s retreats are helpful, chairs express a need for a much more comprehensive program of support. The Team believes that both new and experienced chairs feel "out of the loop" on a number of issues. Greater communication with chairs could assist the University in more effectively implementing the strategic plan objectives. 

Recommendation 6. There is a need to provide more opportunities for comprehensive training and support for new and experienced chairs in order for chairs to be able to support campus efforts to move the strategic plan forward.

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The Faculty—Expectations, Evaluations, and Rewards

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Major Findings

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Evaluation of teaching as well as faculty research and community work are in place on campus. Evaluations for retention, promotion and tenure are consistent with CSU policies and follow departmental, chair, dean, University faculty and administrative review.

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Strengths and Commendations

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A study is under way to develop a campus-wide student assessment of teaching and will be refined over the next year. The process for development of core items has been thoughtful and carefully done.

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Challenges and Opportunities

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Although some departments have developed guidelines to define appropriate achievement within their discipline, most are informal and understood among faculty rather than documented in formal guidelines. As a result, faculty success in the promotion may be highly dependent on the dean and department's ability to strongly delineate the strength and appropriateness of faculty work, particularly in cases of non-traditional research. Without careful attention by the departments and deans, non-traditional research may not be recognized, particularly at the University committee level, where faculty from disciplines more familiar with traditional forms of research are evaluating the dossier.

Generally, faculty and administrators support a variety of faculty profiles. It appeared to the Team, however, that scholarship in the areas of teaching and learning or application were not deemed as appropriate and credible research areas. With the heavy workload and expectations in teaching and service, the University may wish to consider the acknowledgement of these broader views of scholarship as a means to reward faculty who make contributions in these areas.

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Research and Sponsored Programs

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Major Findings

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The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) offers pre and post award support for faculty seeking research support. Support includes assistance with project development, identification of potential sources of support, proposal writing and editing and meeting compliance requirements of the University and the granting institution. Post support primarily involves personnel related activities such as payment of student/graduate assistants, hourly employees, staff and faculty.

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Strengths and Commendations

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The ORSP provides an important service to the campus. The staff and leadership are enthusiastic about their role and their work with faculty. This unit provides an important professional development resource for faculty on campus.

The leadership and professional staff involved in the ORSP clearly view their role as faculty education. Beginning with a presentation in New Faculty Orientation, they work with interested faculty to build competencies in the development of grant projects, proposal writing and project management. Faculty utilizing the services of the ORSP are highly supportive of the unit.

The physical environment of the ORSP is accessible and pleasant. Professional staff are enthusiastic and knowledgeable about their work with faculty.

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Challenges and Opportunities

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Although faculty are generally quite pleased with the support offered by the ORSP, two areas of concern were raised: 1) support for small grants, and 2) faculty awareness of services available.

Concern was raised by faculty about the level of support for faculty seeking smaller grants. These grants, although small in dollar yield, make an important contribution to the support of faculty in fields that lack broad external support opportunities and may contribute to faculty building expertise in grantsmanship and developing baseline support needed to seek more lucrative grants.

Many faculty seem unaware of the services provided by ORSP or do not know that they could receive support for grants involving smaller funding levels. Building greater awareness of the availability of services must be coupled with resources that enable staff to provide adequate support. This is particularly significant because of the importance of compliance deadlines. This could also be particularly important for attracting new faculty to the campus and assisting them in building research capabilities given their heavy teaching requirements.

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Curriculum Delivery, Partnerships and Community Service Learning, 

Extended Education, and Distance Education

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General

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Major Findings

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Building on the diversity of the city of San Francisco, the goals of diversity, international framework, and a close involvement with the community intertwine to create a vibrant learning community. The University deserves commendation for its efforts in developing service learning and an innovative general education upper division requirement. These efforts have required significant resources and this has been forthcoming in the creation of offices and centers. It is not as evident in staff support.

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The challenges are also present. In particular, the campus needs to determine a process for prioritization that includes consultation with staff. The issues of budget and faculty workload present significant challenges, and in times of plenty these can be tolerated, but if the economy sours, then severe problems could surface quickly.

The Strategic Plan recommendation that "courses should be developed incorporating an element of service learning" is clearly being followed. The presence on campus for several years of a nationally recognized expert on service learning, did much to stimulate faculty and enhance the development of service learning courses. The number of courses that has been developed is impressive.

The Strategic Plan recommendation that "the University should construct curricular offerings that challenge students in alternative ways such as honors work and distance learning" does not appear to have had a major impact. While the Presidential Scholars’ Program is commendable, it serves less than 100 students. Little distance learning takes place, and much of it seems motivated by limitations on the number of students allowed on campus. Other off-campus offerings appear to be similarly motivated.

There is much effort to reach out to community colleges and some other community organizations as the location for classes. The College of Extended Learning appears poised to move forward aggressively in this area. These efforts are a real strength and help to give reality to the community-oriented goal of the University. One warning sign is comments to the team of the need for the University to pay constant attention to ensuring that the University’s ability to supervise off-campus learning experiences is not outrun by the demand for such types of learning.

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Summer School has become a State-supported program. This change appears to be a good move for students and possibly for the University. However, it appears to have caused a major change in the College of Extended Learning (CEL). As the entrepreneurial branch of the University, the CEL is adjusting to this change and moving forward on other projects.

The University has made efforts to meet the demand for technology. Significant funding has supported the creation of mediated learning spaces. The Collaboratory is an especially innovative and prized teaching space. Both the nature of the student body and the priorities of State funding make the achievement of the goals for access to technology a severe challenge. The Team commends the University for its efforts to overcome these challenges.

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Partnerships and Community Service Learning

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Major Findings

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The fifth goal of the Strategic Plan is to have "a community-oriented University." This goal is based on a long history of involvement with the community and therefore flows natuarlly from the campus culture. In fact, quite often faculty and staff commented to the Team that the Strategic Plan was more a compilation of the primary longstanding interests of the University than a true strategic plan. Involvement in expanding these interests is present among all constituencies of SFSU. Even prior to the strategic planning efforts, much had been accomplished since the last reaffirmation of accreditation. The Office for Community Service Learning had been established, important outreaches to community organizations had been established, and SFSU had become the host campus for the California Campus Compact.

The Strategic Plan developed 16 recommendations in this area and the University addressed six of these in Chapter 15 of the Self-Study. Since 1998, the University has made significant progress in implementing each of these six recommendations. New partnerships with K-12 education and with community colleges are particularly notable. Also, service learning activity has been well supported and popular with students.

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Extended Education

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Major Findings

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The College of Extended Learning has recently undergone a major change. First, its responsibility for summer sessions was shifted back to the academic departments when the university moved to a year around format. This allowed the summer enrollments to be brought into the CSU funding formula, but it did create a drop of about $5 million in revenue to the CEL. The University has begun a new program that the CEL will administer that will allow students who have not been formally admitted to the University to take regular courses where they meet the prerequisites on a space available basis. The CEL is also working to expand their successful work in continuing education that provides important opportunity for certificate programs in areas of local interest.

The University has also worked to develop their outreach efforts in communications and fundraising with the community and alumni. The new alumni magazine is one example, and the strong increase in fundraising is another.

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Strengths and Commendations

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SFSU should be proud of its strong community orientation. Clear evidence is present that SFSU is an "engaged campus."

Service learning is another area of strength. The Urban Institute and the Office of Community Service Learning receive strong support from the administration and have developed an important following on campus. It was clear to the team that the cadre of faculty and staff who participate in service learning are fully committed to this form of bringing theory into practice.

The Team commends the efforts and results of the Collaboratory, the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching, and the Urban Institute and the Office for Community Service Learning.

The Team also commends the University’s efforts of outreach to alumni and the resulting increase in alumni support.

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Challenges and Opportunities

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One noteworthy omission from the recommendations in the Strategic Plan is the absence of direct reference to student learning. In exploring this omission, team members found that more energy was being put into program development than into specific attention to student learning. Supervisors and faculty did not appear to spend significant time in discussing learning objectives, nor did it appear that serious assessment of student learning occurred. For example, the Self-Study reported that 58.2% of the service learning students surveyed reported increased learning, and there was no evidence on whether this was viewed as good, acceptable, or poor. Not having good assessment data hurts the program, because it does not allow its advocates to have concrete evidence with which to convince their colleagues that service learning is worth the extra effort and that this type of teaching needs to be recognized in the HRTP process.

An opportunity that SFSU may wish to pursue more fully is to take advantage of using service learning to support the diversity goals of the University. It was noteworthy that in discussions with the service learning participants that they were not considering this potential of their program. Breaking down ethnic barriers is a tremendous challenge and placing students of one type into communities of another type is an excellent start, but the goals set forth in the diversity area by the University go well beyond this type of participation. The potential for service learning to make greater contributions in the area of diversity clearly exist.

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Library, Computing Services and AV/ITV

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Major Findings

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The WASC accreditation review of 1992 identified serious deficiencies in the current acquisitions and collections of the University Libraries and the Audio Visual Television Center (AV/ITV). The team noted some concerns about the AV/ITC equipment and email system overseen by the Computing and Communications Services. The spaces occupied by the J. Paul Leonard Library and AV/ITV were identified as in need of serious attention. There was also the suggestion that the organizational structure of these units be reviewed. It is apparent from the current visit that considerable progress has been made in addressing these and in strengthening learning resource support.

Although not specifically addressed in the current University Strategic Plan, the work of these units are alluded to and are certainly identified as central to realizing the aspirations described. The self-study does comprehensively address the accomplishments of these units over the last five years as they have addressed the areas identified in the plan. It is obvious that the campus administration has responded to the need to invest in 

learning resource infrastructure with both permanent and one time funding. The results of this investment are readily apparent in the current self-study, the documentation in support of the study, the comments from faculty and staff, the lack of criticism from students, and the apparent high morale of the employees met during the site visit.

To insure that the services and technologies of the library, computing and AV/ITV complements rather than compete or unnecessarily duplicate each other, the campus has created the Information Technology Team (ITT). Charged with "cooperatively determining the direction and means by which information technology can best serve the campus", the ITT members in consultation with appropriate campus groups recommends allocations of information technology funds and generally provides oversight and strategic direction for campus-wide information technology services. The members of this group are the associate vice president for computing and communication services, the director of AV/ITV, the university librarian, the associate vice president for academic resources, the director of the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching, and the dean of the College of Extended Learning. This new organizational structure appears to be meeting its charge based on faculty and administrative feedback and the impressive accomplishments in supporting the implementation of the Strategic Plan recommendations. The individuals involved appear to be very creative and to work well together as exemplified by the several cooperative projects they have underway (training programs, joint labs, etc.).

Access to learning resources is always key to successful learning and research programs. The Library’s upgrade of its integrated online system, purchase of a number of online data bases and full-text journals and books, rewiring projects to add a substantial number of workstations in the Library, implementation of the innovative Link+ project, increased hours of opening and reference service, addition of several new document delivery services, etc. have improved access and now many information sources are available 24 x 7 basis as well as remotely from dorm or home. AV/ITV has created an online catalog of its resources, embarked on technology enhanced classroom renovation projects, and is implementing a fiber-based television delivery system to the classrooms to ensure that faculty members have easy access to the technology and programming needed to support their instruction. AV/ITV has also extended hours and completely upgraded its equipment and equipment services. Email service, modem purchases (including 72 modems just for faculty access), open access computing labs, support staff for equipment maintenance and consulting, free internet accounts, and an upgrade of the campus network backbone by Computing and Communications Services have all helped increase access and support transformation to the learner centered, user friendly campus aspired to in the Strategic Plan.

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In terms of collections, the Library has received substantial funding to restore purchasing of books, journals, and the new information technologies. AV/ITV has had great infusions of resources to purchase new titles. Both units have considerably improved the currency and quality of their collections. With continued support, adjusted for inflation and new programs, especially the graduate programs being implemented, the collections should be adequate for the campus purposes.

An important aspect of the Library’s services is the contribution to the campus learning program through information competency instruction. Information competence is a basic requirement and instruction is offered in multiple ways including OASIS, the new online tutorial. In addition, the Library offers instructional services for upper division courses and has multiple training sessions for drop-in users. It is quite an achievement that over 50% of the SFSU students receives some type of information instruction yearly. The Library staff clearly realizes that the next step is to assess the effectiveness of their efforts and the outcome of their programs in terms of student learning.

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Challenges, Opportunities and Suggestions

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In sum, substantial improvements have been made in access services, collections, and information competency instructional programs over the last five years. However, it does not appear that there is wide spread faculty understanding of these improvements and the new library realities for making information available. There is also a disconnect between the new faculty who are expected to engage in more active research programs and who are being recruited from research institutions with research libraries. The expectations of these faculty do not correspond to the realities of the University Library at SFSU. There is an especially unfortunate comparison between the University Library and the UC-Berkeley, UC-San Francisco, and Stanford libraries. This disconnect will increase as materials are removed from the Library due to space constraints. Therefore, it will be important that continued funding for additional electronic resources is made available to the Library and that the Library should ensure that faculty can easily identify those new materials through the online system. A special effort should be made to continue efforts to communicate about new resources.

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Computing is provided on a decentralized basis. SFSU is to be commended for the considerable progress it has made in providing computing services and enhanced network capability. The number of new labs and available equipment for students and faculty is impressive. However, there is some unevenness in support for faculty and students based on this model and those units without strong support at the college level feel that they have considerable barriers to effective use of the technology. While staff has been added to central services for technology support, an investigation of the concerns and unmet needs should be undertaken. Also, some attention needs to be paid to the issue of equipment updates and how this will occur systematically across the campus to maintain the gains that have been made. It is an observation that the network is never finished nor can classroom renovation be a one-time event. Therefore, both of these need to be continually funded and planned for to insure that the infrastructure remains supportive of the faculty and student needs. Obviously, with limited new State funding available there will be a need for alternative sources of technology funds to be identified. Partnerships with area companies and fund-raising activities may provide some relief. The campus should also explore the possibility of a student technology fee. While not all of the CSU campuses may be ready for such a fee, SFSU might propose to be a test case. University personnel feel that students would be open to this given the dramatic improvements already made and the possibility of even more programs.

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Recommendation

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AV/ITV are the aging physical facilities and serious space deficiencies. There have been some facility improvements—new study spaces and rewiring. However, the Library is seriously short of space for student study and stacks as evidenced by CSU and national standards. The Library is also short of the Integrated Instructional Resources space standards recently recommended for all CSU libraries. According to building planning documents, the building is seriously deficient in meeting current seismic requirements and suffers serious inadequacies in the condition of its exterior envelope—leaks. There are complaints about the HVAC system and concerns that the leaks and lack of temperature and humidity controls endangers existing print collections. There is currently a proposal and building program plan to extensively renovate the current facility and build an addition with an automated storage and retrieval system for collection storage. This project has considerable campus support and is set to compete for CSU system building funds in the next bonding cycle. However, even if funded it will take several years for the project to be completed. There are needs that must be addressed in the interim and contingency plans need to be developed for the possibility that the current project is not funded.

Recommendation 7. The University needs to aggressively pursue the proposed J. Paul Leonard Library renovation and expansion and to develop contingency plans for addressing the inadequacies of this facility if the proposal is not funded by the State. In addition, short-term upgrades in the facilities need to be built into campus budget plans.

There has been dramatic improvement in the capability and infrastructure of the learning support units. There is very able leadership in all three areas and planning taking place that is focused on supporting the campus Strategic Plan. There is an excellent coordinating system (ITT) and good supporting advisory systems to the three units. The University is in an excellent position for advances in its program based on infrastructure support.

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