Committee Members

Beryl Pagan (chair) – Librarian, Assistant Professor, Caye Smith (liaison) – Associate Vice President for Student Development, Jeff Bolster – Director, International Ministries, Gordon Golsan – Vice President for Student Development, Rick Kennedy – Professor of History, Michael Leffel – Professor of Psychology, Michael Lodahl – Professor of Religion, Bettina Pedersen – Professor of Literature, Bruce Schooling – Professor of Business; Dean of the School of Business, Jeff Sullivan – Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Maxine Walker – Professor of Literature

Committee Charge

Point Loma Nazarene University has chosen to opt for a thematic approach to its Education Effectiveness Review. The newly restated University Mission, summarized in the phrase To Teach ~ To Shape ~ To Send, is a logical choice for such a thematic treatment. Furthermore, the University is anxious to investigate further and more deliberately sustain discourse on these missional phrases. The Institutional Proposal, page 8, calls for “analytical essays for each of the three themes” utilizing “specific lines of inquiry and means of assessment.” At the conclusion of its work, Task Force II will have prepared a reflective essay whose findings will generate full discussion “with the Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, students, and alumni.”

Listed below are questions that have been crafted by the WASC Steering Committee for the purpose of addressing the theme “To Shape.” These questions cover three specific areas: engaging the student, equipping the student, and embodying in the student.

Engaging the Student

As students are shaped at Point Loma Nazarene University, are they actively engaged in the following educational practices:

• Experience a significant level of academic challenge;
• Become involved in active and collaborative learning in both academic and co- curricular programs;
• Interact frequently with faculty and staff;
• Participate in experiential learning; and
• Acquire a sense of connection to a supportive University environment?

Equipping the Student

As students are shaped at Point Loma Nazarene University, do they understand and practice the disciplines necessary to develop as whole persons?

Embodying in the Student

As students are shaped at Point Loma Nazarene University, do they demonstrate a capacity to care for and understand others, evidenced by their ability to:

• negotiate cultural differences with others;
• participate in ministry and service opportunities; and
• commit to ethical practice?

Engaging the Student

Point Loma Nazarene University faculty and staff strive to shape the minds, character, and faith of students. To shape students is to engage them in a process that fosters intellectual development, personal growth, and spiritual formation in a community rooted in Jesus Christ.

Student engagement has been defined as the time and energy that students devote to educationally purposeful activities and the extent to which the institution gets students to participate in activities that lead to student success. At Point Loma, multiple and varied experiences of engagement are inextricably linked recognizing that learning is facilitated or hampered by emotions and that emotions often motivate learning. The University plans multiple overlapping activities designed to engage students with the University while acknowledging the powerful role of both the social context and quality focused interpersonal relationships.

As students are shaped at PLNU through this process of multiple overlapping experiences with faculty and staff, it is necessary to determine whether or not students are actively engaged in a robust and rigorous academic challenge; the extent to which students rise to life’s challenges; engage and relate to self, others, institution, church and society; find fulfillment in creativity and productivity; and look beyond themselves to serve others. Therefore, when students have multiple and varied contacts with faculty and staff and when they demonstrate focus in the classroom, evidence emerges that the personal interaction has motivated students to prioritize learning during this time of life.

A growing body of evidence exists that PLNU students are indeed being challenged intellectually. The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) illustrates positive trends, exit interviews support that students are presented significant and rigorous academic challenge, and institutional data reveals a growing retention rate which is 10% higher than most of our sister schools. According to the 2005 PLNU NSSE Report, seniors state that they often discuss ideas from readings or classes with others outside the classroom.

At Point Loma Nazarene University we believe that the most complete education prepares a person to live a full life. This quality education incorporates intelligence and reason as well as character, integrity, commitment and faith. With this in mind, PLNU strives to educate the “whole” student. This holistic approach challenges students to integrate their knowledge—even as they’re attaining and processing it—with their beliefs, values and actions. For example, the PLNU Wellness Center Outreach Data shows that outreaches focusing on “whole student” growth totaled over 10,000 student contacts in 2005-06.

These relationships are built and the learning accomplished in both curricular and co-curricular settings. The total experience for students at Point Loma teaches and shapes individuals. In the experience, students integrate an understanding of themselves and their future—physically, emotionally, socially, cognitively and spiritually. Stimulated by the positive influence of both the environment and people, students are prepared and sent from the University to have a positive and courageous impact on their world.

Through their relationships with faculty, staff and administration, students are motivated not only to acquire specific knowledge in an academic specialty but also to increase personal understanding and make meaning of their own lives spiritually, emotionally and socially. Faculty and staff incorporate the students’ “meaning-making” into the learning process. They help students to work with others, to establish professional relationships, to manage change, to assess self, to clarify values and to broaden the student’s perspective on life. Faculty attitudes are reflected in the Faculty Survey, conducted every 3 years by PLNU Institutional Research. Over 90% of PLNU Faculty put a high or highest priority on promoting the intellectual development of students. According to the Faculty Survey Profile, approximately 95% over the past nine years, agree or strongly agree that it is important to encourage students to develop a personally meaningful relationship with God.

In the co-curricular realm, students gain awareness of the university community and an understanding of their role within it. They bring unique backgrounds, outlooks and interests. In a close and inclusive community they learn to appreciate one another for their differences as well as similarities.

Increasing student involvement in curricular and co-curricular programs, in laboratory research, in classroom preparation, in service to others and in social activity facilitates the building of community described above. Additional methods for promoting engagement include:

• Creating opportunities and environments for student participation;
• Expanding the number of leadership roles at the University;
• Fostering and rewarding student-initiated opportunities; and
• Providing personal mentoring support to increase student success.

This engaged learning fosters student interaction and stimulates a sense of belonging which results in an ever improving depth of student learning as well as increased retention. Outcomes of this multiple engagement are both quantitative and qualitative. Qualitative measures are best sampled from telephone calls or letters faculty and staff receive years following graduation. Case study statements often include content that the graduate has used the faculty/staff model to guide work and service or that the behavior faculty/staff modeled with me as a student is a goal I have set for myself in my professional experience. Qualitative outcomes are also recognized through the involvement and engagement of donors and through service to the University i.e. Alumni Board, Board of Trustees, mentoring new graduates, etc. For example, the high percentage of Board of Trustees members who served as Associated Student Body officers implies significant loyalty to the institution that emerges from academic success and involvement as a student.

A brief representative sample of the quantitative outcomes of engagement follows in the next part of this narrative.

Academic rigor not only exists, but much learning occurs in a collaborative fashion in both academic and co-curricular programs. Some examples are:

• Academic collaboration:
• For the past 10 years, Integrated Semester for Freshmen (ISF) students have become connected through a breadth of courses taken together in community. The growth of this program is demonstrated in Integrated Semester for Freshmen (ISF) data;
• Living-Learning Communities in the residence halls stimulating special academic interest and life application. Information on participation in these communities, called “Loma-Learning Communities” at PLNU are available in LLC History;
• An initial psychology class, Psychology 101, modeling multiple level active learning;
• Co-curricular learning:
• Career Center activities stimulating planning, discussions, research and relationship among student/faculty/working; professions/graduate schools regarding future student success.
• Community Life and more that 30 clubs and organizations where each member is involved in service;
• Commuter Student outreach and involvement programming where students provide leadership; for approximately 20 events per academic year;
• Student Employment where PLNU students are influenced to be more involved because of relationships at work. Over 60% of PLNU students are employed on campus, as shown in Student Development Counts;
• An active Outdoor Leadership and Recreation program, which trains approximately 40 student leaders annually, who lead approximately 250 students in outdoor adventures developing lifelong skills including technical and relational skills;
• Over 600 students involved in intramurals providing students a model of a balanced life;
• Student engagement in preparation for life by the influence of faculty and staff while involved as laboratory assistants, internships, volunteer service in community, responsible positions in churches and influencing other students stimulating academic interest through response to disaster and community need;
• LoveWorks groups enable an increasing number of students to learn together as they are immersed in the culture and worship of people often dramatically different from themselves. A chart showing the growth in this area can be found in Spiritual Development Counts;
• Small group involvement providing opportunity to extend learning to informal discussions i.e. covenant and discipleship groups (data available in Spiritual Development Counts), peer educator groups (information available in Peer Educator Groups), counselors in the residence hall for counseling support and to engage students in life issues information, etc.. ; and
• A campus ethos that allows for a leadership of service to emerge from the student body. For example, during a major fire, student leaders organized and certified 100 students to provide relief support to the community. This was accomplished in one day. In the recent hurricane season, students took their nights to organize a food drive; produce two musical events as fund raising efforts for victims; completed two blood drives; served as Red Cross Volunteers; provided a car wash to raise funds; and produced Crises Care Kits for emergency services.

The faculty and staff realize that shaping students must not be limited to the classroom, but must be modeled and encouraged throughout the community in a variety of ways:

• Professors are encouraged to regularly and routinely interact with students through 10 office hours per week, and through student advising; such interaction is designed to promote a mentoring and caring relationship in addition to a professional one.
• A robust scholarly interaction occurs between faculty and students throughout the Honors Research Program. A chart illustrating the growth of this program is available in Honors Research Program Growth (appendix at the end).
• Professors and staff are involved in academic focused clubs and informal social interactions that motivate students for more in-depth learning.

The holistic way of thinking seeks to encompass multiple layers of meaning and experience. Each relationship that a student develops with the University community serves to increase the “depth of learning” that occurs in his or her life. The message given students in this environment is learn all you can, shape your life through quality relationships and serve the church, community and the world.

Equipping the Student

Equipping in the Wesleyan tradition is at the core of PLNU’s shaping responsibility. Mandatory chapel attendance three times a week is simply the tip of a pyramid structure that encourages the whole person at PLNU to practice daily prayer and regular Bible study. Each floor in the residence halls has small group meetings. Wednesday nights has campus-wide "Time Out." Bubbling up in all of these is peer and lay leadership. The Wesleyan tradition empowers members that are not theologically trained or professionally credentialed. The goal is grass roots spiritual vitality, not sophisticated or authorized religiosity.

The institutionalized affirmation of this Wesleyan tradition is also seen in the department chapels that are scheduled twice a semester. Aside from the School of Theology & Christian Ministry where professional clergy abound, the departmental chapels are led by laity who may have no specific religious training; members of the community whose credentials to lead are no more than a humble willingness preach, sing, pray, and interpret the scriptures.

PLNU's motto calls members of the community to shape and be shaped. Faculty surveys show that 90% of the faculty feel it is “very important or essential to develop moral character in undergraduate students” (Faculty Survey Profile). The whole person, the holy person, is the aspiration of the community. Such an aspiration is deeply rooted in the Wesleyan tradition we seek to serve and to lead. The question whether students "understand and practice the disciplines necessary to develop as whole persons" is answered mostly by student participation in the disciplines of conduct, daily prayer, and singing encouraged in our official and unofficial gatherings. Required classes and required chapels together offer a regime of equipping and shaping. Departmental chapels and Residence Hall Bible studies affirm the grass roots responsibility of all to participate and lead in this equipping and shaping. Professors, staff, and students share in shaping and being shaped here at PLNU. "The disciplines" of the Wesleyan tradition are actively practiced at PLNU. The community is structured for the equipping of holiness, and the members actively participate.

In the 2001 CIRP survey, incoming 90.5% of incoming freshmen considered it essential or important to integrate spirituality into their lives. This already high percentage was higher still (94.7%) in the 2005 CSS survey of the same students, as they neared graduation from PLNU.

According to the 2005 NSSE report, PLNU students state that they often participate in activities that embrace spirituality, such as worship, meditation and prayer. The majority of students also indicate that PLNU education has contributed to greater self-understanding. PLNU education has encouraged attendance at events such as special speakers, cultural performances and athletic events.

Embodying in the Student

PLNU is committed to the process of shaping students with the hope that they will embody Christ in the world.

By the proactive selection of administrators, faculty, and staff who reflect a commitment to the mission of the University, who speak and live the possibilities of faith in the context of our work, space is created for these employees to potentially serve as mentors and models of embodiment.

Embodiment is an emphasis on unity rather than the duality of mind and spirit. We seek to demonstrate knowledge for living as “soul knowledge” and “graced minds”. An example would be the choosing of faculty, staff, and outside guest Chapel speakers as who serve as models for students in their communication and in their vocation. Additionally, our staff and faculty are regularly engaged in global ministry opportunities alongside our students.

However it is not enough to simply provide modeling. The University must also provide the necessary opportunities for students to practice what they have witnessed and shared. Students are given the opportunity to participate and try out the skills and values they have seen and heard. It is the ability of the university to provide, resource, direct, and encourage the living out of values and lifestyle that enables us to move forward in the task of shaping.

Embodiment is neither individual self-consciousness nor communal self-consciousness exclusively. It is provided by classroom work balanced with cultural immersion (as in language study or field work and internships). Research, lab work, writing assignments or music practice done in isolation is balanced with reading in community, relationship building through residence life, or the LoveWorks short term mission program to provide students with the opportunity to test out a way of life that is reflective of the values and standards of the University.

Opportunities for embodiment include the commitment to vocation. Opportunities are of an exploratory nature and include career, ministry, major, and interests during the undergrad experience. They seek to provide the infusion of many ideas about true vocation. The number of students engaged in these types of opportunities can be found in Spiritual Development Counts and Student Development Counts.

Further evidence of activities where students embody their beliefs include:

• A display of the various venues and opportunities for doing the work of ministry in chapel bands, debate teams, summer ministries, student government and engagement in the bigger ideas of the campus.
• Over 450 students serve in campus leadership positions, as demonstrated in Student Development Counts.
• The Associated Student Body planned and organized activities in ’05-06 that drew a total of 4,132 participants.
• In 2005 NSSE report data, students state that they often had serious conversations with students of a different race or ethnicity.

The value is, of course, immeasurable. Experiences that are embodying include quality pre-experience preparation, quality facilitation alongside our students who are in-experience, and intentional post-experience follow-up and debriefing.

Some students come to the University ready to accept responsibility for ministry and vocation. for many, this becoming happens because they have been given the opportunity to practice what they have seen and learned, and they have accepted the challenge to be actively engaged in the various opportunities and venues provided for them. The percentage of students who are involved in co-curricular and curricular activities indicate the embodiment of values and skills. In ’05-06, co-curricular transcripts indicate that approximately 2,000 students participated in a club or ministry each semester, as shown in Student Development Counts.

Recommendations to the President

1. Make Co-curricular transcript available to students through the Record Office as soon as possible (ITS is writing software for official publication).
2. Release an annual "State of the PLNU Student" report that includes data from CIRP, NSSE, Student and Spiritual Development annual assessments, senior exit interviews, etc, which is distributed to the entire campus, so that student-impactful decisions are well-informed.
3. Intentionally connect the goals and practices of chapel and the academic classroom to understand textual interpretations, Christian discipleship, and preparation for “vocation.”
4. Intentionally connect co-curricular activities with academic objectives.