Cooperative Alliance Workshop

This week was the annual Cooperative Alliance Workshop for technology centers and college partners. This annual workshop is held at the OSRHE offices in OKC and bring together all the partners under the Cooperative Alliances.

The workshop started off with a welcome from Dr Debra Stuart, OSRHE Vice Chancellor for Educational Partnerships and myself. 

After the welcome, we dove straight into Policy Issues and Updates with Dr Debbie Blankee, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. The OSRHE Policy 3.6 is the governing policy for the CAP's and Title 780 780:15-3-6 covers the rules for careertech education in Oklahoma and reflects the Regents policy.

During the discussion several issues were discussed including the importance of the college partner having up to date credentials for instructors at the technology center who are serving as adjunct faculty.  It was also discussed that when justifying the need for a CAP, there should be a need for the credit and not simply credit to be awarding credit.

Participants had the opportunity to hear from Dr Phyllis Hudecki, Oklahoma Secretary of Education. Dr Hudecki spoke about the need for more credentialed employees (certificates, certificates, A.A.S., A.A.S and bachelor degrees) and Oklahoma's work in the Complete College America initiative.

According to the official press release, one of the planned projects for Oklahoma is to enhance the Cooperative Alliance Program and bring in line all certificates in higher education and careertech education to bring them in line with national norms.

(Oklahoma's Complete College America Profile)

We also heard from Oklahoma City Community College and about its recent Higher Learning Commission (HLC) visit. Greg Gardner, AVP for Academic Affairs and Alexa Mashlan, Director of Cooperative Alliance Programs, presented on the campus perspective of the comprehensive evaluation visit sometimes referred to as the ten year evaluation.

During the visit, HLC representatives visited two technology centers, Mid-America Technology Center and Moore-Norman Technology Center. Under the Cooperative Alliances, students are enrolled at the college partner as a college student and instructors are classified as adjuncts of the college. The visit was conducted as institutions with off campus additional locations. 

During the visit, the evaluator talked with instructors, administrators and students regarding several factors. These factors included

• Academic Controls
• Regular Evaluation by the Institution
• Faculty
• Facilities
• Resources
• Academic Services
• Student Services
• Financial Stability
• Long-Range Planning
• Assessment of Student Performance
• Marketing and Recruitment. 

Mr Gardner was happy to let us know that the report was accepted with out exceptions!
Dr. Jo Lynn Digranes, VP for Academic Affairs at Connors State College and HLC Consultant Evaluator, spoke to the crowd about the visit she conducted at the off-campus locations and shared insight into the process.

Congratulations OCCC on passing your accreditation visit!

Dr Stuart and Kathy Spangler, CareerTech Research Analyst presented preliminary date on the students in the Cooperative Alliances. One of the interesting pieces of data was the retnetion GPA os students enrolled in the Cooperative Alliances. The Regents data show that students from the fall of 2007 and on have had over a 3.35 college GPA while enrolled in the CAP's. The highest GPA for a semester was 3.43. Input is being sought on the types of data needed to conduct more in depth analysis of the data, but initial data is exciting.