I. Maintain and strengthen our instructional programs. CONTINUING (CWU-I, CWU-III, CWU-IV, CWU-V, CWU-VI, CWU-VII)

II. Increase support of faculty development activities. CONTINUING (CWU-II, CWU-III, VI, CWU-VII, CWU-X)

III. Improve the physical resources available to our faculty and students. CONTINUING (CWU-VII, CWU-X)

IV. Actively assess the effectiveness of our faculty, students, and instructional programs. CONTINUING (CWU-IX)

V. Strengthen our regional service capabilities CONTINUING (CWU-V, CWU-VIII)

VI. Recruit and support high quality faculty and staff within the college. CONTINUING (CWU-II, CWU-III, CWU-IV, CWU-V)

VII. Seek ways to enhance and support the involvement of students within college programs. CONTINUING (CWU-I, CWU-II)

There is wide variability across the departments of the College of the Sciences in their academic planning processes. Departments vary in the formality of planning, the degree to which change is planned, the degree of involvement of the whole faculty, the thoroughness with which learning objectives have been discussed and written, and the degree of follow-up assessment and response to feedback.

All departments complete an annual strategic plan that reports their planning processes. All departments discuss their major curricula and staffing prior to adopting changes. These discussions take place during the academic year but an increasing number of departments hold a daylong retreat meeting at the beginning of the year. Most larger departments have a curriculum committee and some have an assessment committee that study those two processes and recommend action. Several departments have recently developed intermediate and terminal assessment procedures and a few have used those data to make changes to their curricula and methods.

The strategic plans of many departments point out that an increasing amount of administrative and faculty time is occupied by learning new requirements, writing, submitting, and rewriting budgetary, curricular, instructional, assessment, and accountability reports and requests. One department pointed out, accurately, that devoting time to these processes reduces the time a faculty member can invest in activities that will further his or her career, such as teaching and research excellence. Compounding this discontent is the chronic underfunding of our college’s activities: Extensive planning and reporting has appeared to result in no response from higher levels of the administration that would enable us to carry out our plans. We should become more efficient at assessment and planning activities at the faculty level.

The time dedicated to assessment and planning could be reduced by repeatedly presenting brief training sessions in departmental settings, providing respectful assistance, and posting helpful examples to the web. This is different than conducting a daylong workshop once a year in a central location during a quarter break period. The tactics we use so successfully to bring education to placebound students could be used on campus to introduce faculty, chairs, and administrators to new reporting requirements.

At the college level, there are formal and informal facets of our planning process. The formal annual planning cycle begins in winter quarter with a call for departmental staffing requests and budget estimates for the coming year. By this time, departments have engaged in their own strategic planning discussions and submit their updated strategic plans with narratives that explain their staffing and budget requests. The dean and associate dean read the strategic plans and collate the staffing and budget requests for discussion with the college committee of department chairs. Requests for increased faculty and staff support are prioritized based on written support in the strategic plans, presentations during chairs committee meetings, and less formal discussions with chairs and interested faculty members. They become an important element in the budget presentation made by the dean in the spring of each year.

Planning for our college’s productive program of research and scholarship involves anticipating needs for equipment, technical assistants, released time, travel, and collaborative consultation. The college’s research seems more stable and less affected by short term funding crises than the instructional program, so more proactive planning is possible. We encourage faculty-student research teams by supporting grant writing activity, by providing grant matching commitments to the best of our ability, by advocating for the expansion of technical support positions, and by lending our support to equipment upgrades and capital improvements that provide a favorable setting for scholarly activity. Our ability to internally fund scholarly activities is practically nonexistent.

Formal curriculum planning takes place throughout the year but peaks just before deadlines for catalog publication and the January cutoff date for consideration by the Faculty Senate. The curriculum is the primary instrument of the faculty and the college’s role is to help actualize the faculty’s aspirations, given the constraints of funding and the need for a balanced presentation to our students. Curriculum changes may stem from new developments in a discipline, faculty or student interests, requirements of certifying or accrediting bodies, or collaborative relations with other departments or colleges. Substantial curriculum changes and program additions or deletions are usually preceded by discussions between the dean, associate dean, department chairs, extended university center personnel, and representatives of other colleges or departments that might be affected by the proposal. The dean’s office helps with preparation of curriculum change forms and serves as an intermediary between proposing departments and administrative reviewers. Every effort is made to inform others of curriculum developments and arrive at an efficient and proficient presentation of the new curriculum.

The College of the Sciences contributes heavily to the general education curriculum. Our college-level role in planning the curriculum focuses on encouraging active faculty participation on the general education committee, working with chairs and faculty to plan for and assess the impact of proposed changes on staffing and budgets, seeking resources to support changes, and supporting initiatives for interdepartmental and interinstitutional cooperation in general education offerings. We hope to assure funding of our college that recognizes the importance of the general education program.

The principal venues for planning are the COTS Chairs Committee, ad hoc task forces appointed by the dean, and the discussions involved in writing and revising our department and college strategic plans.

A university plan for departments to undergo formal review, including a visit by an external evaluator, every five years has fallen into disuse in recent years. However, all departments submit annual strategic plans reporting their goals, accomplishments, disappointments, and many aspects of a complete self-study. There are no other formal, routinely employed means of evaluating the effectiveness of our planning decisions. A science faculty that is very active in teaching, research, and research mentoring, combined with growing numbers of students and relatively flat funding, has created an environment where every added faculty or staff position is badly needed. The most difficult planning decisions involve maintaining a roughly equivalent balance of deprivation within a department and across the departments in our college.

We learn about curriculum planning successes and failures through our ability to match our offerings to student demand for given courses or majors, through the end-of-major assessments of our departments, through the professional and graduate school experiences of our graduates, and from the independent judgment of accrediting and certifying bodies. Some of this evidence comes to us as quantitative data, such as course enrollments or student satisfaction surveys, some is qualitative, such as the comments in a professional accrediting report, and other evidence is very anecdotal, such as hearing that a graduate has won a prestigious award. More orderly record keeping of all of these indicators would improve our planning process. Establishing a history of strategic plans provides the beginnings of a more orderly process.

In the near future our evaluation efforts will focus most closely on (a) our ability to meet student coursework needs related to recent revisions of the general education program, particularly in computer proficiency, mathematics, and realignment of natural and social science requirements; (b) encouraging the application of more consistent and regular assessment procedures to coursework and programs offered within the college; (c) ensuring a smooth transition of chemistry, biology, and science education into the new science building and the upgrading of facilities/equipment for physics, geology, geography, and mathematics, (d) hiring and supporting tenure-track faculty in Law and Justice, especially at university centers; (e) recruiting, supporting, and appropriately evaluating the large number of recently-hired faculty; (f) implementing and assessing recently adopted programs, (g) expanding participation of college faculty in distance learning opportunities and cooperation with community college programs; (h) increasing faculty and student participation in research, internship, and field experience programs, and (i) evaluating the results of administrative and staffing changes in the dean’s office.

The most common result of the planning process is curriculum change. For example, several special topics courses were added to the curriculum this year, a new graphing calculator requirement was implemented in the mathematics department, and a new cognitive psychology course recognizes the ascendance of this perspective. Beyond curriculum change, we have limited ability to alter the course of the college’s programs in response to assessment evidence. The dean and associate dean use personal contacts, attendance at faculty and student activities, and letters of support to encourage desirable developments. When funds make it possible, more tangible encouragement is forthcoming. For example, faculty and students will make use of the equipment purchased for the new science facility, but there is convincing evidence that substantial increases in technical support positions will be necessary. In the same vein, space limitations and equipment deficiencies are hampering the full potential of the student/faculty research plans of Lind Hall departments, geography, geology, and physics.

1. Faculty excellence: Newly hired faculty have maintained the high quality of instruction and student involvement established by senior faculty. During 1997-98, nine tenure-track faculty members were hired in four departments. In 1998-99, fourteen tenure-track faculty members were hired in eight departments and searches are underway for seven new and replacement people to join the tenure-track faculty in 1999-2000 (I.B). We have assertively sought women and minority candidates for these positions (I.D; VII.A).

Through one-year professional leave awards, university has recognized the superior faculty development plans of Susan Lonborg (Psychology), Anne Denman (Anthropology), Paul James (Biology), John Alwin (Geography). James Harper (Mathematics) and Michael Launius (Political Science) have been granted partial year leaves. Lisa Weyandt (Psychology), Robert Jacobs (Political Science), Boris Kovalerchuk (Computer Science), and Roger Yu (Physics) have been granted research leaves sponsored by the Office of Graduate Studies and Research. (I.C)

By June 1998, a performance evaluation of nearly all faculty members within the college was completed as part of a small merit increase. By March 1999, all tenure track faculty and faculty eligible for promotion received a performance review from their colleagues, department chairs, and the dean. (I.E)

2. Faculty-student partnerships: Science faculty and their students collaborated as scholarly partners through the McNair Scholars Program, grant-supported research assistantships, international and domestic field experiences, and field placements in professional settings. Eight of twelve 1998-99 McNair Scholars were majors in COTS departments. (IV.A)

Collaborative work is published in juried journals and reported at national and regional professional meetings. On campus, student research is featured at our annual Symposium on Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE), coordinated by an interdisciplinary committee headed by Roger Yu, Physics. (IV.A)

In most COTS departments, departmental student associations or honor societies provide faculty-student contact. The CWU chapter of the Society of Physics Students, for example, was one of 15 (out of 620) chapters to receive an Outstanding Chapter award, for the fifth consecutive year. In chemistry, psychology, and law and justice, student groups raise funds to sponsor student travel to regional and national meetings to present faculty-student research and to attend the conference. (IV.D)

3. Research excellence: The traditional strength of COTS departments in research, grant support, and scholarly publication was maintained during 1998-99. Grants awarded to COTS faculty generated approximately $581,000, 35% of all funding received by the university for external grant and contract awards. Especially noteworthy are (a) Project Teach, an NSF-sponsored collaboration of Central Washington University with Green River Community College to identify and nurture future science and mathematics teachers, (b) a NASA grant to study variations in sea level change along the Cascadia margin: (Geology), (c) a Department of Interior grant to strengthen Native American management of natural and cultural resources (Geography), (d) the LINK program, which has developed a training program in Mexico for social service students (Sociology), and (e) geographical studies of five reaches of the Yakima River (Geography). The College’s active research profile was reflected in publication and participation in regional and national meetings by faculty members in all departments. In several departments, summer profit funds were applied to support of faculty professional development as well as student travel to regional and national professional meetings. (I.C; VII.D)

Throughout the year, the biweekly Natural Science Seminar series, organized by Biological Sciences faculty and students, provided a forum for interdisciplinary presentations and discussions among faculty and students from all COTS disciplines and the entire academic community. Departmental lecture series in Geography, Geology, and Physics further enhanced the university’s extracurricular offerings. (IV.A)

4. Instructional support and curriculum development: Several departments implemented course and scheduling changes, including new courses designed to serve as capstone or senior assessment courses. Final approval was given to the interdisciplinary BS in Primate Behavior and Ecology, BA in Asia/Pacific Rim Studies, and an interdisciplinary BA in Public Policy.

5. Diversity and international perspectives: Our goals related to cultural diversity and internationalization were addressed by the Link Project, a major interdisciplinary international study project funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). A major interdisciplinary symposium series, the Forum on Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, was presented throughout the year. It featured outstanding speakers and discussion sessions in four two-day sessions. The Anthropology Department led the interdisciplinary steering committee of this series. We continue to offer many courses meeting the general education requirement for diverse cultural perspectives.

6. Community outreach and service: The college has been active in expanding offerings at extended university centers, especially in our Law and Justice, Psychology, and MS-Organization Development programs. Faculty in Chemistry, Psychology, and Organization Development have delivered courses with extended university centers via technology-assisted distance education. A web-based course is under development in the Geography department.

Several hundred local schoolchildren have visited the laboratories of the new Science Building and the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI). CHCI also hosts distinguished visiting scholars of primate behavior, sponsors weekly educational "Chimposiums" for the general public. Major support for CHCI activities was received from the Earthwatch Foundation.

Several COTS faculty members serve on community and state boards and commissions. Chemistry is very active in the Washington Community College Chemistry Teachers Association, thus providing better articulation between the colleges. Biological Sciences and Chemistry continue to serve the wider community by providing environmental and water testing. Mathematics Department faculty continue to work with public schools in mathematics education development. Every year, Jan Rizzuti (Mathematics) leads a team of CWU women science faculty in "Expanding Your Horizons," a day of science career presentations to middle school girls. In 1999, 115 middle school students, 8 faculty, several women professionals from the community, and more than 30 CWU students participated in "Expanding Your Horizons."

A unique event this year, the dedication of the new Science Building, brought Governor Gary Locke to the campus and focused public attention on the sciences at Central Washington University.

7. Administrative reorganization and coordination: A full-time associate dean position was established and filled by Warren Street (Psychology). Dean Anne Denman returned to her faculty position in the anthropology department and Dean John Ninnemann came from Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado to take over leadership of the college. The offices of the college moved to new temporary quarters in the Science Building. All of these transitions were accomplished smoothly and with good will. Communication across the college has been enhanced by the establishment of a college web site, at www.cwu.edu/~COTS/

Working through the Executive Committee of College Chairs group, we adopted more consistent reporting formats for strategic planning, staffing plans, budgets, equipment, and computing requests.

A college policy manual was assembled and adopted by the end of the year, complementing the university's faculty code and departmental policy manuals. We constructed major new tracking systems for course offerings, hoping to support our case for increased funding support.

Complete explanations of each department's disappointments may be found in its strategic plan.

1. Virtually the college's entire budget is devoted to salaries and even so, our base allocation fell short of our needs by about $450,000. By virtually any index, the College of the Sciences is less well funded than the other schools and colleges. There is no funding of the general education program separate from funding our major programs. Much of our effort during the year is devoted to documenting our needs and searching for sources of infusions that will provide funds for the current quarter's needs. Thus, any goals that rely on funding beyond salaries were likely to be disappointed.

New faculty positions, faculty development activities, startup costs for new faculty, faculty search expenses, computer and other equipment, travel, graduate assistantships, student employment, goods and services, student field trips, staff support, and minor remodeling improvements were all curtailed or completely scrubbed this year. This continues a trend of at least the last three years. In some cases, departments continued to pursue their goals by replacing teaching assignments with alternate assignments. This solution moves us toward our academic goals but makes it appear that our faculty members aren't teaching full loads, thus degrading our appeal for full funding. With our greater need to document our efforts, we have started to quantify faculty activity that has traditionally been done voluntarily, such as individual instruction, and thesis service. In the long run, we may corrupt the enlightened environment and mentoring relationships of a fine university. Funding for the university library and for International Program participation is inadequate. Funding to support medical and family leaves is nonexistent.

The college's administrators are placed in the position of constantly limiting, withholding, and restraining, with few opportunities for tangibly rewarding, encouraging, and providing. Despite the pervasive corrosive effects of inadequate funding, we have maintained a sense of solidarity and mutual respect within the college. This is perhaps one of our greatest accomplishments of the last few years.

2. No meaningful salary increases have been available to our faculty for almost a decade. Extraordinary promotion increases this last year boosted the salaries of a few faculty and the expectations of assistant and associate professors eligible for a promotion in the future. Full professors continue to languish in the doldrums of their rank, receiving only the legislated cost of living scale increase but no increases for ordinary or meritorious service. Salary compression produces a recurrent morale problem in that many energetic faculty hired in the last several years are still being paid their starting salaries, which are frequently the same or less than the salaries of newly hired faculty. Five out of six comparable institutions have higher faculty pay scales and there is no prospect for improvement in sight, even though our state is experiencing unprecedented prosperity. State legislators have recently raised public questions about the university's stewardship of salary allocations, further lowering morale and raising faculty apprehensions about the university's administration.

3. The potential of the Center for Teaching and Learning to lead a university-wide collaborative program of teacher preparation continues to fall short of its promise. We may not have been assertive enough in representing the interests of the sciences in the teacher preparation, and underfunding has left us too willing to let other units carry out parts of our role. We would like to be more effective partners in teacher preparation.

Our 12 departments have surveyed faculty code requirements, desirable criteria, and existing practices for promotion, tenure, salary adjustment, and post-tenure review. Each department has adopted a written set of standards and procedures for each form of review. Every department either has a personnel committee or acts as a personnel committee of the whole. The personnel committee and the department chair deliver separate independent recommendations on promotion, merit, and tenure decisions. Most departmental strategic plans mention quarterly administration of the Student Evaluation of Instruction (SEOI) measure as an essential part of every performance review.

The dean's office, in consultation with the executive committee of department chairs, has completed a college policy manual that complements departmental policies on these matters. The numbering of sections of the COTS Policy Manual changes as new sections are added, but these matters are currently referenced in Section 7.The college policy manual is being prepared for presentation on the COTS web site at www.cwu.edu/~cots/docs/. Departmental standards are available at department offices and at the dean's office. Some are available on departmental web sites but these documents are not usually of interest to the web-browsing public. Departmental web sites may be accessed through www.cwu.edu/~cots/depts/.

The college has adopted a standard Structured Performance Record to provide a template for faculty to report accomplishments in place of, or in addition to, department-specific forms. The Structured Performance Record and cover sheets for each type of performance review portfolio (promotion, tenure, merit, etc.) can be found on the college web site, in the policy manual, and are available in the dean's office and department offices.

Faculty are reviewed every year prior to the award of tenure, prior to promotion, and prior to the award of merit. Post tenure review, to occur every three years, has usually been insured by faculty interest in applying for merit increments, but these have not been offered regularly in recent years. Thus, the regularity of post-tenure review has been jeopardized. If this circumstance does not change, a schedule of reviews will be instituted.

Non-tenure track faculty members ordinarily have no duties other than teaching. The college policy manual requires that non-tenure track faculty conduct student evaluations (SEOI) for every class and submit them to their department chairs for review (Section 7.9). Unsuitable instructors are identified from time to time and their contracts are not renewed. Satisfactory teaching results in more course assignments. Our greatest commitment to non-tenure track instruction is in our Law and Justice program in centers away from Ellensburg, where we diligently monitor teaching quality. Some departments have identified excellent non-tenure track instructors, who are maintained on full time teaching contracts.

In 1998-99, no faculty development funds were available from the dean's office.

A survey of departmental strategic plans will uncover the nearly unanimous opinion that faculty development funds are inadequate but that some support of development activities is possible. Virtually all faculty development funds are derived from summer session profits and are largely passed directly to departments for their administration. Thus, departments might be able to provide stipends of $100-$400 for travel and workshop registration. In 1998-99, about $80,000 in summer profits was distributed to COTS departments to augment their budgets. These funds, about $600 per faculty member, were used for everything from faculty travel to computer equipment to new telephone and Xerox charges. Regularly budgeted funds for faculty development have been virtually nonexistent. Personnel emergencies, such as unplanned disability and medical leaves, and mandated incentives for teaching a class via distance education technology, are also unfunded.

The Office of Graduate Studies and Research will match departmental travel funds if the faculty member is presenting scholarly work to a conference and if the traveler's request is made before matching funds are exhausted. Faculty development funds are also available from some other administrative offices but they are for activities that serve administrative ends, not scholarly ends. Fully funded travel to workshops and seminars on academic assessment, accountability, general education, and team building serve as examples.

We have maintained a tradition of providing modest support for newly hired faculty. While we have not been able to provide equipment upgrades for existing faculty, we provided minimal startup equipment for new faculty, including a basic computing package.

The ability of the college to nurture faculty scholarship has diminished under the pressures of budget and other program support needs. Scholarly vitality continues to be part of the faculty member's commitment to the university and his or her discipline, however. Much can be done without any special funding in the time each of us has outside of our teaching responsibilities. Departments routinely provide phone, mailing, Internet, and duplication support for scholarly projects. Extended blocks of time are available through reassigned teaching time, quarter-long leaves funded by the Office of Graduate Studies and Research, annual professional leaves, and external grant programs.

The college assists faculty scholarship by helping to develop and review grant applications, administering grant funds, and decentralizing a large portion of indirect cost funds. We will help to pay for extraordinary publication expenses, such as charges for illustrations. We hasten to congratulate noteworthy faculty accomplishments and support faculty efforts such as the biweekly Natural Science Seminars. Research is instrumental in merit and promotion decisions but, because research is such a visible scholarly product, care is also taken to give appropriate attention to service and teaching achievements.

Like support for faculty development, most of the encouragement for faculty service activities arises from the faculty member’s department and colleagues. Among the noteworthy service efforts of our faculty this year are: service as chair of the Faculty Senate; service as chair of the university General Education Committee; service as executive director of the NASC accreditation process; chairs of the Faculty Senate committees on academic affairs, budget, and assessment; director of the Douglas Honors College, organization of "Expanding Your Horizons," a day of science career presentations to middle school girls, and organization of a year-long seminar series on race and ethnicity.

At the college level, service is encouraged through appropriate recognition of service activities in merit, tenure, and promotion reviews. We also review and promote of the activities of applied research and public service institutes, such as the Central Washington Archaeological Survey, the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute, the Community Psychological Services Center, and the Applied Social Data Center.

Instruction at extended university centers combines teaching and service. The college supports programs such as Law and Justice, Science Education, and Psychology at our extended university centers. We coordinate adjunct faculty contracts, advocate for increased faculty for these programs, prepare appropriate HECB materials for new programs, and try to smooth the course scheduling process.

Excellence in teaching is at the center of personnel review and is a sine qua non for advancement in any form. Most of the encouragement for faculty teaching activities arises from the faculty member’s students and and colleagues. Teaching is regularly assessed by the SEOI. One or two departments are inaugurating programs for beginning instructors of classroom visits and mentoring relationships with more experienced instructors. Faculty members frequently make presentations to professional organizations on teaching methods.

At the college level, good teaching is encouraged through appropriate recognition of teaching in merit, tenure, and promotion reviews. The primacy of excellent teaching is recognized in our involvement in SOURCE, Parents’ Fund Awards for Excellence in Teaching, and the high value we place on individual instruction, small classes, and scholarly partnerships with students in all disciplines.

Instructional resources vary widely across science departments. Individual department strategic plans accurately use terms ranging from "well above disciplinary norms" to "a bare minimum." New construction or remodeling is often the occasion for equipment upgrades, so those teaching in the new science facility will have access to $3.5 million in contemporary teaching and research technologies. Although the building has been open only a year, the availability of multimedia classrooms and computer-assisted laboratories is already altering instructional techniques in some classes. The biology and chemistry departments are the chief beneficiaries of these new facilities, but both departments point out that there is insufficient technical staff to responsibly maintain their new equipment.

In other buildings and at extended university centers, there may be little or no modern multimedia classroom equipment and space in one building, Lind Hall, is increasingly cramped. The Department of Teacher Education Programs returned to Black Hall from the Psychology Building this year, increasing space for the psychology, law and justice, and political science departments. At extended centers, distance education technology classrooms are being established or shared with nearby institutions. At the centers, access to computer laboratories has been deficient but some gains were made this year through new equipment funding at the university level and cooperative agreements with community colleges. For those with access to appropriate equipment, the university provides helpful classes in presentation software and Internet techniques every quarter.

This year's announcement by Computer and Telecommunications Services that they would no longer support computers comparable to Intel 486 or earlier machines has caused widespread distress, since many of our departments and faculty have computers of that vintage. The campus sorely needs to establish a regular computer upgrade cycle.

Other forms of instructional support, such as student travel funds, funding for guest speakers, and field trips, are often supported from departmental summer profits or by appealing to one or another temporary funding initiative, such as diversity, accountability, or accessibility programs. Noncomputing instructional equipment has been neglected: Thus, some of our departments mention increasing problems with conventional classroom demonstration equipment, television monitors, video playback equipment, and overhead projectors. The dean’s budget cannot currently fund instructional equipment improvements.

The essential points of the previous section also apply to scholarship resources although the term "inadequate" is used more frequently to describe scholarly resources than instructional resources. Inadequate travel support, computer equipment, and scientific equipment are cited. In its strategic plan, one department pointed out that, for each professional trip he or she takes, a faculty member's out-of-pocket expenses are about equal to the 2% annual pay raise the legislature seems to have settled on in recent years. Reassigned teaching time is generally adequate but we have yet to see if a new budget allocation system at the provostial level will affect how departments treat alternate assignments. Some support has been available from external grants. Our faculty have been more successful in winning grant support specific to scholarly activity than specifically for instructional activity, although most grant awards serve a dual function on our campus.

Other comments on the adequacy of scholarship resources may be found in the sections above on "Faculty - Development" and "Faculty - Scholarship."

Overview: The college has begun to explore this medium of instruction. We have had, or currently conduct, classes in Wenatchee (anthropology, psychology, chemistry, science education), Yakima (chemistry, law and justice), and SeaTac (law and justice, organization development program) via technology-based distance education. A review of department strategic plans would reveal lukewarm interest, if that, in developing technology-assisted distance education classes. The departments that have tried distance education courses report mixed satisfaction. Those which have not cite scheduling conflicts, inadequate time to prepare a new course format, already-heavy course loads, possible reduction in their service and scholarly work, objections of local community colleges, and inappropriate course content as reasons for their reluctance.

The most common scheduling conflict is that on-campus classes are most heavily enrolled in the daytime but distance-sited classes are typically needed at night. The university is starting to explore web-based instruction to cope with this difficulty. There is widespread opinion, however, that simply hiring a qualified adjunct instructor will insure greater reliability, continuous updating, personal contact in real time, equal learning, and greater student satisfaction than distance education. Web based instruction permits more flexible access than either adjunct or interactive video courses, but faculty members have questions about the assurance of intellectual property rights for courses they create. With additional training, time for course development and interaction with students, and development opportunities at the university and college levels, our faculty may become more enthusiastic about distance learning and computer-based technologies.

Relation to Department Mission: Like all units, the College of the Sciences is dedicated to providing educational opportunities to the state's people. When the state first decided to have more than one university campus, it committed itself to the principle of distance education. Technology assisted distance education can extend access farther than ever. Some coursework in the sciences may be less suited to distance presentation than that of other units. For examples, field courses in geology, anthropology, and geography, lab courses in the natural sciences and medical technology, and personal counseling practicum courses are either unsuitable to this medium or would have diminished effectiveness. Lecture-discussion courses may be equally suited to either format.

There are financial incentives to the instructor for teaching a class by distance education. Unfortunately, the dean's office is not funded to support these stipends and, because our base budget in 1998-99 was about $400,000 less than our actual teaching salaries, we did not actively encourage faculty to undertake distance education classes, since the stipends would have increased our deficit.

Comparability to Campus-Based Programs: We make every effort to insure that a distance education course is identical to the same course presented on campus.

The Student Evaluation of Instruction instrument is administered to all students in distance education courses. A campus ad hoc committee has compared grades of "studio" and distant students and has conducted focus group inquiries about the experience of students in distance education courses. Results of these assessments may be viewed in the assessment section of Standard Two of the 1999 NASC accreditation report. In their strategic plans, departments reported equivalent student learning and mixed student satisfaction with distance education courses. The most common faculty complaint is time lost and student discontent due to technical failures.

In this section we are asked to describe each program we propose to offer through distance education. It will be rare for an entire degree or certificate program to be offered via this medium. However, we are currently offering our Master of Science in Organization Development degree in Ellensburg and SeaTac largely through distance education. The Law and Justice Department is exploring distance presentation of a criminal justice major, in collaboration with a consortium of institutions of higher education.

Single courses in psychology, anthropology, chemistry, law and justice, and science education will continue to be presented via distance education technology. The Computer Science Department has expressed an interest in developing some distance courses. We have, however, no manifest and coherent plan for program presentation via distance education technology.

Computer Replacement Plans: Our tentative plan for computer replacement would be to establish a three-year or four-year cycle for replacement of faculty office computers. If $2500 is allocated for each new computer, the annual cost of this plan would be $82,500 to $110,000. Additional costs may be incurred for software upgrades. Savings may be realized by replacing processors but reusing monitors, printers, keyboards, zip drives, and other peripherals and adding RAM as necessary. There are currently no funds with which to carry out this plan.

Computer Support Required for Curriculum Changes: The departments of mathematics, computer science, law and justice, geography, physics, psychology, and sociology have made specific requests for modern computing equipment to implement curriculum changes and to take advantage of new ancillary materials being developed by faculty members, professional organizations, and textbook publishers.

A special case should be made for the curriculum support needs of the computer science department. Here, the computer itself is the fundamental subject matter of the curriculum. Constant upgrades are necessary to support the department's courses that satisfy the computer literacy requirement of the general education program and the department's major and minor programs. External funds have been used for some equipment upgrades but the university should be mindful of the special instructional needs of this department. The reader is referred to the computing section of the computer science department for complete equipment plan.

Computer Support Required for Grant Activity: Needs in this area seem to be largely met by existing hardware and software. The Department of Geography specifically mentioned needed improvements in image processing equipment, however.

Sharing Computing Resources: Computer resources are commonly shared with allied disciplines and building neighbors. For example, laptops for fieldwork are shared among geology, geography, biology, anthropology, and physics. Resources on the new scientific server are shared. Student computer labs are maintained in most buildings and their resources, including technical assistance, are shared with faculty members.

For the most efficient utilization of computing equipment, the University should develop a coherent plan for redistribution of hardware that has outlived its usefulness in a "high-tech" department but would still be useful in a "low-tech" department or an administrative office. Such a strategy would extend the useful life of equipment and allow the University to meet more needs more efficiently.

Sharing Needs: The university has established shared access to a campus server with the logical name Athena. PC users often call it the G drive. Some COTS departments do not have access to Athena and no extended centers have access. Those who do have access are using Athena to transfer files and store files for university-wide access. The university should connect the remaining units to this resource.

The web is being used more and more for shared access to materials. We need professional support to enhance our use of the web.