Quality Enhancement Project picks two proposals, moves forward

After a one-year assessment-driven, broad-based process by faculty, staff, and students to identify a plan that could be further developed in a second phase of the Quality Enhancement Project (QEP), a recommendation by the leadership panel was made to Dr. Caughman that ACE (Academic Community Engagement) and LEAP (Leadership, Engagement, and Professionalism) be combined.

Using a prescribed logic model, the authors of the two proposals presented their ideas to Provost Gretchen Caughman and other members of a specially appointed Leadership Panel earlier this month. The feedback was that both proposals were excellent and each had the potential to significantly impact student learning and foster collaboration and buy-in across multiple programs, while also having the feasibility to be implemented in the timeframe that will be expected by the SACSCOC.

The consensus of the panel, which included all nine deans as well as officers representing academic, student, and administrative support services, was that LEAP was the stronger overall proposal, but that the ACE plan’s integration of community engagement was more fleshed out. The panel discussed the possibility of combining the proposals to leverage the strengths of both, and based on its input, Caughman recommended that a QEP should be further developed based on LEAP’s overall framework with the ACE plan’s structure for community-based research and Study Away integrated as part of the capstone experience.

On Jan. 20, President Ricardo Azziz agreed, giving Caughman the go-ahead to move forward with the next phase of the QEP project: A team of faculty, staff, students, and community members will be selected to participate in the development process of what Dr. Azziz said he believed “will become a transformative GRU program.”