TO: Montana Board of Regents

FROM: Roger Barber, Deputy Commissioner for Academic & Student Affairs

RE: Campus Quality Reports

DATE: September 21 - 23, 2005

In September 2004, the Board of Regents unanimously endorsed item 124-101-R0904 that defined "Quality" for the Montana University System and the measures that would be used to determine whether quality was being achieved. The measures that were adopted were:

1)       Number of graduates;

Percentage of graduates employed or continuing their education;

Employer satisfaction with graduates;

Average GPA and ACT score of entering students.

2)       Student scholarship;

Numbers of students who participate in research and activities similar to the ones listed under faculty scholarship;

Faculty scholarship, using numbers of articles, books, creative endeavors, competitive research grants, presentations, etc.;

Student honors, including national awards, licensure pass rates, etc.

3) Expenditures per FTE student;

Student/faculty ratio;

Number of courses and SCH per faculty member.

4)       Tuition as percentage of median family income;

Percentage of students who receive financial aid/scholarships, and average amount;

Partnerships and outreach (a narrative from each campus);

Number of students admitted, by residency and ethnicity;

Number of patents and technology transfer agreements.

Thanks to Jim Rimpau, from Montana State University, for developing a template to report on these measures. We asked each campus to complete the template, and have provided these to you for your review. These are campus reports--unedited and not validated by my office. Some reports are quite detailed and some are quite sketchy. One campus, MSU Northern, was not able to complete the template.

Since this is our first attempt to report on the quality measures, your feedback would be helpful. If this is the type of report you contemplated, then we will work at ensuring the completeness and accuracy of the data and then post the reports to the Regents web site. If this format is not what you had in mind, then we will go back to the drawing board.

If you have questions regarding the project, I will be happy to try and answer them. Jim Rimpau will also be available to respond to your questions, as will the other campus data gurus.