Graduate Programs at Point Loma Nazarene University
Comments from the Graduate Studies Committee
April 2006
MBA and MSN Programs
The past five years has seen a significant increase in the growth of graduate programs at Point Loma Nazarene University, both in number of students and in number of programs. The MBA and MSN programs opened in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Both have remained small, attracting between 12 and 20 new students each year. Each is viewed as having had a healthy impact on their respective departments (now called schools). Each grew by two new faculty members and thereby increased the academic breadth and depth within their area. Faculty felt challenged but fulfilled, through having the opportunity to teach some courses at a more advanced level. Although the numbers have remained small there is a general consensus that the programs have not cost the university money and on a long term basis the programs have the capability, now that they are becoming established, of providing for a solid growth opportunity. There is also a consensus that these programs have strengthened the undergraduate experience as well as the reputation of the respective schools in the community.
Both programs have primarily made use of full-time faculty. This has enabled the programs to retain close fits to the institutional mission. As the programs expand in the future, it would be appropriate to increase the use of adjunct faculty. This would increase the financial viability of the program and would give graduate students more exposure to current practitioners.
M.A. and MMin in Religion
The Master of Ministry and M.A. in Religion programs have remained about the same size (each with about 10 students) throughout the past five years. There is potential for the MMin program, in particular, to have much greater impact on the church, especially if it can be coupled to continuing education courses for pastors. Significant strides have been made in that direction with the appointment of a leader who holds joint appointment as a member in both the School of Theology and Christian Ministries as well as heading up the church relations arm of the university. The challenge as time goes by will always be to ensure that the structure and personalities ensure that both the academic realm and the church relations realm are true partners in the endeavor and that the leader does not come to be more closely associated with one realm than the other. Locating the offices of the program within the School of Theology and Christian Ministry will be most important in that regard.
The M.A. in Religion has frequently been viewed as a good thing in providing added fulfillment for the faculty to the School. As with the Nursing and Business schools, it brings additional depth to the teaching experience, something that leads to increased scholarship and faculty fulfillment. Neither program (MMin or M.A.) costs the institution very much, and both bring benefits to the School and to the University as a whole.
Education Programs
In contrast to the programs above, Education at PLNU has shown very significant growth over the past five years. (The number of graduate and credential student units grew from 5600 in 2000-01 to 20,400 in 2004-05. Almost all of that increase was in Education.) The head count within this time frame went from 626 to 1639. With this rapid growth, PLNU went from being an institution primarily focused on single campus undergraduate programs to an institution with four sizeable off-the-main campus locations offering coursework that represented almost 25 percent of the total university offerings. When graduate programs represented only a small number, it was possible to get by through fitting grad/credential programs into the undergraduate mold. This was no longer feasible when the grad programs came to occupy a significant portion of the university endeavor.
PLNU has chosen to adopt a model for Education that is different than most other universities of our type that have made the transition to multiple sites. For one thing each site is fully staffed. When students have support services-related questions they are seldom directed to the main campus—there are trained personnel at each location that handle questions related to financial aid, public school teaching and service credentials, admissions procedures, registration, and academic advising. Also, PLNU has committed (to WASC) to have at least one full time faculty member for every 50 students at a site. This provides a nucleus of faculty whose sole job it is to be sure that students’ needs are being met.
Providing fully-staffed locations has proven to be very successful from the perspective of student-friendliness, and it has probably been a major contributing factor to the rapid growth. With this approach students’ needs are met in a manner that best occurs face-to-face. It does, however, create some challenges. The university is legally responsible for the administration of government financial aid. Compliance with the many technical details of disbursement of funds is significant for the whole University. The University is bound to follow its catalog policies and admission standards, must maintain course quality, consistency of grading, timeliness of submission of grades etc. otherwise the reputation of the University would be affected in a manner that could impact the entire University’s WASC accreditation status. The task before us in a system like ours, then, is to find the right balance between a very healthy sense of freedom and autonomy at each location while also ensuring that the structure upholds uniform standards that are adequately monitored. Coming to identify that balance has been an extremely challenging process during these pioneering years.
There are other significant challenges related to the fact that there are a significant number of full-time faculty at distant locations. On the one hand, it is very costly in both time and money for those faculty members to come to the main campus regularly for meetings. However, these are full-time faculty who rightfully desire ownership of the university’s governance that is equal to the role that other faculty play. How can this be done in a way that is cost-effective and time-effective? Is it possible to be a single entity from the governance perspective given the constraints imposed by distance?
General Issues
One of the biggest issues that affects the future of graduate programs is the efficient development of IT and library resources. In theory, PLNU ought to be able to have the technology in place that will allow the institution to function as a unit without members having to travel extensively. However, at these early stages of development of the graduate program infrastructure, this has proven expensive and difficult. These areas have simply not had the resources to keep up with our growth. Even if they could, it would be important to develop a cost/benefits analysis to determine what was a good investment and what was not.
Increasingly graduate and credential programs will need to go to where the students are. Traffic congestion is so bad, especially in the greater Los Angeles area, that potential students will choose their program based upon proximity to their work or home. Also, there is an increasing recognition among the leading Schools of Education in this country that quality of the program is closely connected with how closely the SoE works with school districts. PLNU has in many ways been on the leading edge in this regard as it has partnered with school districts to accept some of the district class-work towards our own degree. This has resulted in significant growth. For example, in San Diego, our Master’s programs for teachers has grown from 10 students in the Fall of 2003 to 160 students today. Most of that growth can be attributed to our partnership with school districts. There are many challenges in this work as it pertains to maintaining the distinctiveness of the PLNU Christian mission in such settings, as well as providing the appropriate support for academic advising, assessing, and monitoring each program. As other programs (business, nursing, and religion) go to where there students are (rather than the other way around) this will become an even bigger issue in the coming days.
Other significant issues that PLNU must come to grips with in coming days is the need to move towards increased use of the online instructional mode. It has become increasingly clear in recent years that online programs can be very successful in fostering student learning. To this point, PLNU has almost exclusively used the face-to-face approach to teaching and learning. It is important that there be an assessment of the wisdom of this conservative approach to graduate education. Is the institution missing out on opportunities to provide some higher quality learning experiences for its students?
The efforts at assessment of teaching outcomes are still in the early stages. There needs to be much more emphasis on this in coming years.
Finally, PLNU is going to need to determine whether the governance of its graduate programs should continue to be the domain of the entire faculty, or whether it would be more efficient and productive if there were to be a separate governing body made up of faculty who teach in graduate programs.
The past several years have been an exciting and dynamic time for graduate programs at Point Loma Nazarene University. Often, the best way to identify challenges is simply to begin, to be willing to make a few errors, and then to learn from them. With that PLNU moves into a bright future with the potential of having a very significant impact on its various communities through its unique Christian approach to graduate education.
Immediate Goals
- Make a recommendation as to whether there should be a change in the university governance structure as it relates to the academic oversight of graduate programs and expansion to a 12 month governance system. Specifically, determine whether it remains desirable for it to be overseen by the entire faculty or whether this could be better done by a sub-set (e.g. faculty who teach graduate courses).
- Make a recommendation which responds to the need for reevaluation of the appropriate GSC representation of off-the-main-campus and main campus faculty.
- Develop a model as to how to more effectively include off-the-main-campus faculty in decision-making that does not involve extensive travel to the main campus.
- Develop a recommendation regarding whether increased use of online strategies and courses in our graduate programs should be explored.
- Ensure that mechanisms are in place so that off-the-main-campus students and faculty are familiar with and using our online library data base and IT resources.
- Ensure that each program has a system in place for assessment of program quality and accomplishment of objectives, in addition to the reporting of these activities.
The above goals have been placed on the table in the hope that the GSC will move swiftly towards making specific recommendations through an in-depth study of the issues involved.