Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)
According to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the QEP describes a carefully designed course of action that addresses a well-defined and focused topic or issue related to enhancing student learning.
First and foremost, the QEP is a plan, a design for a project we promise to start once we receive SACS approval. Second, it is a project to enhance student learning, a project that links directly to one or more of our university-wide student learning outcomes. Finally, it must be a project with outcomes that are attainable, assessable, and sustainable; we must report our progress to SACS after five years, and we will be expected to show evidence of improvement at our next SACS reaffirmation.
The QEP requirement allowed us to create a plan that is linked to our Student Learning Outcomes. This was an exciting opportunity!
An institutional process was developed to engage the on-campus and wider academic community in a “comprehensive and thorough analysis of the effectiveness of the learning environment for supporting student learning and accomplishing the mission of the institution.” During the 2010/2011 academic year, a broad-based participatory process allowed us to gather the quantitative and qualitative data we needed to select our QEP topic.
Update during the May 2, 2011 faculy meeting (slides).
Although the focus of the QEP did not change as we drafted the complete plan during summer 2011, the wording in our student experience framework was updated from the version reported in May because we: responded to your feedback, attended a critical thinking institute to learn how we could best incorporate critical thinking into our framework and continued to study how to encourage our students to develop their critical thinking skills in academically rigorous experiences.
Update during the August 18, 2011 faculy meeting (slides).
Update during the January 6, 2012 faculty meeting (slides).
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The UNC Asheville QEP will focus on enhancing students’ critical thinking through participation in academically rigorous experiences that involve inquiry (identifying an issue), application (designing a project), reflection (reflecting on what was learned as well as the learning process) and communication (broadening the experience). More information about this student experience framework, known as Inquiry ARC, can be found here.
The final QEP document can be found here.
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For further details about the steps in Phase 1 and Phase 2, see the QEP Process Timeline.
To schedule a visit to your department to discuss the opportunities the QEP will offer your faculty and staff and to address your questions, contact the QEP Chair Mary Lynn Manns.
The QEP Leadership Team and the SACS Executive Committee thank you for your interest and support!
Last edited by manns@unca.edu on March 29, 2012