STATEMENT OF COMPLIANCE: The Citadel is in compliance with Core Requirement 5.

RATIONALE FOR JUDGMENT OF COMPLIANCE:

•••  The Citadel's "ongoing, integrated, institution-wide planning and evaluation process" is described in Section II.D of the Faculty Manual [Reference 1]. It may be explained by dividing it into the areas of planning, assessment, and budgeting.

Planning

The planning process takes place at three levels:

Level I (Strategic) Planning.

Simply put, The Citadel's strategic planning process begins when the Board of Visitors and the President determine that a previous strategic plan is outdated. At that point, implementation of the old plan through regular monitoring and oversight gives way to the establishment of new goals and to a realignment of priorities. Periodic adjustments of this sort are common in higher education, and healthy; for they prevent institutional stagnation and complacency. They regularly occur, for example, when new presidents arrive with new visions. In 1997, two watershed events coincided at The Citadel to prompt the inception of a new strategic planning process: the inauguration of Major General John S. Grinalds as the college's eighteenth president, and the enrollment of the first group of women in the Corps of Cadets.

The process leading to the previous strategic plan had begun in the spring of 1994, and officially ended with the final report of the Strategic Plan Coordination and Implementation Committee in June 2001. That process is documented in the "Chronology of Strategic Planning Events, 1994-2001" [Reference 2], and the final report is available as Reference 3.

The current strategic planning process was initiated in August 2000 and resulted in statements of "Vision, Core Values, and Mission" [Reference 4]. These were approved by The Citadel Board of Visitors on 1 February 2003 and by the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education on 5 June 2003. In October 2002, the Strategic Planning Committee approved the "Strategic Plan for 2002-2012" [Reference 5] and this plan was adopted by the President and the Board of Visitors in February 2003.

Level II (Vice Presidential) Planning.

Level II planning determines how each major organizational unit of the college will pursue the goals established by the Board of Visitors and the President during the Level I planning stage.

Following the approval of the Strategic Plan by the Board of Visitors in February 2003, the Strategic Planning Committee was dissolved, and a smaller group, the vice-presidential-level Strategic Planning Council, assumed responsibility for implementing the strategic plan. (See the minutes of the April 9, 2003, meeting of the Strategic Planning Committee [Reference 6].) As the nucleus of the strategic planning process, the Council monitors the progress of the Strategic Plan, reviews Level II plans, and makes recommendations to the President and the BOV. It consists of the Provost (its Chair), the Chair of the most recent Strategic Planning Committee, the Chair of the Faculty Council, the Chair of the Staff Council, the Vice President for Finance and Business Affairs, the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee of the Board of Visitors.

To date, the Council has studied the implications of the new strategic plan and drafted a report that will be submitted to the President and Board of Visitors in the fall of 2003. The draft is available as Reference 7.

Level III (Unit) Planning

Level III planning is routinely conducted as part of the annual assessment-budgeting process of the College. (See Comprehensive Standard M16.) Its primary purpose is to advance the progress of individual units toward the strategic goals established in Level I planning, and to advance them in the ways determined by the Strategic Planning Council in Level II planning. Each budgeted unit of the College presents its annual goals and priorities with its annual assessment report. The unit plans for 2003-04 are available as part of the 2002-03 assessment reports at Reference 8.

 

Assessment

As noted above (and in the statements of rationale for Comprehensive Standards M16, P1, and P15; and Federal Mandate 1), The Citadel requires periodic assessment of the programs and services of its budgeted units. Because assessment takes place concurrently with Level III planning, it is, in the main, decentralized. That is, the school, department, or operational unit responsible for providing a program or service is responsible for the quality of that program or service, and thus for its assessment. It is expected that assessment will be more effective if developed and carried out by the unit providing the program or service. It has also been found that assessment tools that are imbedded in normal operations are in general more effective than "tack-on" or externally mandated assessment requirements.

The annual assessment reports are provided to the President, Provost, and each Vice President to be used in the institution's budgeting process. They are also available in the Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs for the entire institution and serve as the basis for annual Institutional Effectiveness Reports provided to the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education [Reference 9]. Annual assessment reports also provide the context in which the Strategic Planning Council (see above) monitors the implementation of the strategic plan. The reports for 2002-03 are available electronically through Reference 8 . Electronic posting will be continued and will provide broader access to the assessment results for academic programs, services, and operations.

That the assessment process is effective may be illustrated outside of the reports themselves by the fourteen short summaries in the attachment entitled "Closing the Loop: Fourteen Examples in Summary Form of Improvements Brought about by Assessment" [Reference 10].

Budgeting

The Citadel's budgeting processes are described in the Faculty Manual [Reference 1]. Assessment results play important roles in the development of the annual budget and in reallocation of funds within a budget year when that action becomes necessary. Each May, the individual department or unit uses assessment results to document requested increases in its budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Assessment results again play a role in budget development when the Provost and Vice Presidents analyze all department/unit budget requests and make final recommendations to the President. In executing the current budget, a midyear review is conducted; and again, assessment results document requested increases in funding, personnel, or other resources.

A recent example of the significance of the strategic planning process in budget decisions is documented in the minutes of the Strategic Planning Committee in helping to frame the College's response to recent drastic reductions in state appropriations [Reference 11].

•••  The planning-assessment-budgeting process described above is the vehicle through which The Citadel "engages in ongoing, integrated, and institution-wide planning and evaluation processes that incorporate a systematic review of programs and services." That the process "results in continuing improvement" and "demonstrates that the institution is effectively accomplishing its mission" is documented by the facts listed below.

Continuing Improvement

1. The annual assessment reports [Reference 8] demonstrate improvement in almost every budgeted unit of the college. (Fourteen short summaries of specific improvements brought about by assessment have been extracted for illustrative purposes and are available at Reference 10.) Cumulatively, the annual assessment reports demonstrate that the institution as a whole improves from year to year.

2. The draft of the current status report on the implementation of the strategic plan [Reference 7] demonstrates a strong first step toward the goals established there.

3. Since 1996, by law, 100% of state appropriations for higher education have been allocated according to the performance of a given institution [Reference 12]. During the time that this system has been used, The Citadel's ratings have always been in the "Achieves Expectations" category. Since the 2000-01 rating period, the actual ratings have increased each year from 2.05 to 2.49 to 2.58 on a scale of 3.00.

4. The Citadel considers accreditation to be an important indication of program quality, and it has achieved and continued accreditation in all academic programs for which program-level accreditation is available — except for the programs in Computer Science. (See the table in the statement of rationale for Comprehensive Standard P1.) Since the last SACS review, the number of accredited programs has risen from four to seven. With the hiring of a new Ph.D. in Computer Science for fall 2003, The Citadel is prepared to address the last major hurdle to achieving accreditation in that academic area. At that point, 100% of The Citadel's "accreditable" academic programs will be accredited.

Accomplishing the Mission

The Citadel can demonstrate that it is accomplishing its mission by pointing to the following indicators in addition to those noted immediately above:

1. High Graduation Rates. As documented in the statement of rationale for Federal Mandate 1, The Citadel's graduation rates continue to be higher than those of any other public comprehensive college in the state.

2. National Recognition. The Citadel has consistently received a strong rating from U.S. News and World Report [Reference 13], and these ratings indicate the success of the College relative to meeting its mission and the quality of its programs. The annual rankings consider colleges and universities by category, by region, and by the programs offered, and consider such data as freshman retention, graduation rate, student-faculty ratio, and scores on standardized exams. (The Citadel falls in the category of universities offering a full range of undergraduate and master's programs.)

• In 2002, in the overall category of best universities, The Citadel ranked No. 7 in the South, but was No. 2 among public institutions. (James Madison University in Virginia was the only public institution that ranked above The Citadel.)

• The Citadel's engineering program is nationally ranked: in 2002, it was listed among the top 30 undergraduate programs in the country

• In 2002, The Citadel was listed as No. 11 in the "best value" category among Southern public and private universities. The best value category considers the net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of financial aid. Only two public institutions were ranked higher.

3. Service to Nation. The Citadel emphasizes service as a major component of its mission to prepare its graduates to become principled leaders, and an important way Citadel graduates choose to serve is through the armed forces. Alumni surveys [Reference 14] show that in the past 5 years the percentage of the graduating classes accepting military commissions has ranged from a low of 27% to a high of 38% (in May of 2002). In the Iraqi conflict, two of the first 100 casualties were Citadel graduates.

4. Service to Community. Alumni surveys [Reference 14] also indicate that Citadel alumni serve their communities as principled leaders in other areas. Of the 537 alumni who graduated in AY 1999-00 (based on a 20.5% response rate),

• Over 90% indicated that their college experience influenced their participation in professional or service organizations.

• Over 88% indicated that their college experience influenced their participation in volunteer, public, or community service.

• Over 50% indicated that they were involved in professional or service organizations at least monthly.

• Over 40% indicated that they were involved in volunteer, public, or community service at least monthly.

• And over 95% indicated that their college experience influenced their participation in career-related advanced education or training.

5. Character Development. The same surveys [Reference 14] also asked the respondents to identify those elements in the cadet lifestyle that were important in the development of the graduate's character and personal discipline. One hundred percent of the respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the importance of the rigorous life of the fourthclass cadet, the demanding schedule of cadet life, and the wearing of the cadet uniform. Other important elements are the comradeship of barracks life (over 98% strongly agreed or agreed), responsibilities of holding cadet rank (over 80% strongly agreed or agreed), physical fitness requirement (over 88% strongly agreed or agreed), and cadet honor code (over 96% strongly agreed or agreed). This level of influence on the lives of its graduates is strong evidence that The Citadel is accomplishing its mission.

6. Professional Development. Through the College of Graduate and Professional Studies (CGPS), The Citadel provides the nontraditional students of the Charleston area (Lowcountry) opportunities for professional development. Since typically 90 to 95% of these students are over the age of 25 and are employed full-time, these programs are clearly meeting the needs of nontraditional students. In the alumni survey described above [Reference 14], over 82% of the respondents who earned graduate degrees in the CGPS indicated that there was a direct relationship between their jobs and their graduate major. For undergraduates, over 67% indicated that direct relationship. This clearly indicates that The Citadel is providing opportunities for professional growth.

7. Meeting Needs Bearing on the Mission. The fourteen summaries used to illustrate how The Citadel has responded to the needs of its students (as brought to the attention of the college through the assessment process) [Reference 10] also indicate that the institution is accomplishing its mission to educate its graduates as fully as possible.

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