SWOT - October 28, 2009
  

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SWOT
Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications
May 2009
STRENGTHS: What advantages does ALEC have?

 

TEACHING

  1. Research and discovery in theoretical development and application of teaching and learning

    • On-line Teaching

  2. Significant impact on the educational mission of the college

    • ALEC graduates 29% of the COALS graduates (2389 out of 8272, OISP FY 07-08)

    • University Studies - Leadership Studies

    • 4 undergraduate and 6 graduate degrees offered

  3. Collaboration on and off campus.

    • TCE faculty teach undergraduate and graduate courses

    • TAMU Residence Life (Leadership Living Learning Community)

    • TAMU Corps (Leadership Certificate Program)

    • TAMU Student Activities (section of ALED 340 for student leaders)

    • TAMU Multicultural Services Department (ALED 289 Larke & Elbert)

    • National FFA (collaborative academic leadership course)

    • Prairie View Partnership

    • Angelo State

    • Moscow State AgroEngineer

    • 2+2 Blinn

    • Joint EdD (Doc At A Distance)

  4. Interaction with secondary agri-science teachers and TCE county faculty

    • Instructional Materials Service group

    • TCE Program Planning and Evaluation unit

  5. Awards

    • Montague Scholars

    • Top 25% recognition

    • Distinguished Professor

    • SLATE Awards

RESEARCH

  1. Faculty have recognized expertise in social science quantitative and qualitative methodologies

    • Participation on USDA SSSC

    • Participation on W-1006 Multi-state Research Projection Agricultural Literacy

  2. Faculty have recognized expertise in contextual applications in agricultural communications, evaluation and accountability, leadership education, planned change, planning and needs assessment, research methods, and teaching and learning.

  3. Partnerships to provide and contribute to responsible leadership, and provide services that address global learner, community, and industry needs:

    • USDA Higher Education Challenge Grants

    • Neuhaus-Sheppard Awards

    • NIH grant - College of Veterinary Medicine

    • Hurricane Ike Disaster Case Management Evaluation Project

    • USAID/HED – with the University of Namibia

DIVERSITY – 31 faculty (college, research, extension)

27 white

19 male

11 professor rank

2 Hispanic

12 female

7 associate professor rank

2 Black

 

9 assistant professor rank

 

 

2 senior lecturers

 

 

2 assistant lecturers

Tenured 14

Tenure Track 5

Non-Tenure Track 12

ENGAGEMENT

  • Hispanic Leadership Forum

  • SLOAN Scholarship

  • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

  • Agrileader

  • Partner University - UT-SA, UT-Pan American, A&M Kingsville, A&M Corpus Christi

  • TAMU Greek Life (development of leadership seminar series)

  • 1,500 Texas agri-science teachers, 105,000 Texas agri-science students

  • 700 county faculty and 1,000,000 4-H members

  • 4 of 5 major professional journals have ALEC editors or board members

  • USAID/HED Africa-Us Initiative

  • Texas Department of Agriculture, TAMU Congressional Internship Programs

  • Texas Education Agency, FFA, 4H

  • TAMU: Residential Life, Corps of Cadets, Athletics, Student Activities, Multi-Cultural Service

  • Abriendo Puertas

WEAKNESSES: What could ALEC do to improve its effectiveness?

 

FUNDING

  1. Create and hire key staff and graduate student positions with Instructional Educational and Enhancement Funds (IEEF).

  2. Increase external funding opportunities (grants) to fund staff and graduate assistant positions

    1. Increase scholarship and funding for faculty and graduate students, especially PhD students.

  3. Enhance Instructional Materials Service (IMS) longevity by adopting an operational paradigm that is visionary, contemporary, and market driven.

  4. Explore merit and equitable salary ranges by institution, academic discipline or function of position

    1. Based on exploratory results, provide equity in faculty salaries

    2. Seek to lead the discipline and institution in faculty salaries.

  5. Hire appropriate staff for grant management and academic advisors.

 

FACULTY AND TEACHING

  1. Increase graduate teaching assistants in relation to Weighted Student Credit Hours (WSCH) production.

  2. Enhance minority graduation to mirror demographics of Texas (2006 grad data).

     

    White

    Black

    Hisp

    Asian

    Nat. Am.

    Intnl

    Unkno

    State (2000)

    71%

    11.5%

    32%

    2.7%

    0.6%

     

     

    387

    12

    34

    4

    3

    3

    4

    COALS

    1721

    29

    108

    30

    7

    99

    22

    % of COALS

    22.5%

    41%

    31%

    13%

    43%

    3%

    18%

  3. Create continuity with TCE and COALS to enhance ALED 441 (extension course).

  4. Establish a 2-year graduate teaching rotation and 5-year course for graduate courses.

  5. Increase faculty and staff diversity.

  6. Establish credible standards for undergraduate and graduate student entry into department programs

  7. eLearning Certificate (suspended)

 

SERVICE

  1. Seek service opportunities to recruit underrepresented students.

    1. Utilize MANRRS

  2. Collaborate across the University to provide expertise for projects, budgets, evaluation, instructional methodology, etc.

 

RESEARCH

  1. Grant management planning

  2. Increase scholarship of faculty and graduate students, especially Ph.D. students.

  3. Increase visibility for evaluation projects with other COALS units.

  4. Establish reputation for expertise in evaluation, instructional methodology, communications, etc.

    1. Become part of line item in project budgets from other departments, programs, centers, etc.

  5. Increase collaboration for information education technology components of research grants.

 

EXTENSION

  1. Increase e-learning opportunities and training of Texas AgriLife Extension Service faculty through ALEC unit.

  2. Include IT personnel in ALEC Texas AgriLife Extension Service for administration and updates of TeXas system.

  3. Increase student workers to support faculty preparation for new Texas AgriLife Extension Service employee training, etc.

  4. Move Texas AgriLife Extension Service Emergency Management component to more aligned department.

 

OPPORTUNITIES: What are the opportunities facing ALEC?

 

TEACHING

  1. International influence or options at undergraduate/graduate level.

  2. Certificate programs to enhance graduate degrees.

  3. Convert appropriate ALEC graduate courses with online formats.

  4. Promote University Studies-Leadership degree plan and new course ALED 201 to increase undergraduate enrollment to 300 students; currently at 111 after 2 years.

  5. Stabilize teaching of International Agriculture graduate courses to increase graduate Weighted Student Credit Hours (WSCH).

  6. Explore academic advising staff as a budget line item.

  7. New faculty position: International Agricultural Education.

  8. Pursue funding from former students and friends.

 

RESEARCH

  1. Identify departmental research agenda.

  2. Assist and evaluate COALS departments with learning assessments (via ALEC 625).

  3. Enhance global leadership research via leadership workgroup.

  4. Integrate into Iraq project with Borlaug Institute.

  5. Use the WFSC IGERT approach as a model to develop future ALEC IGERT programs.

  6. Capitalize on national “AGED” Research Agenda (unveiled May, 2007)— CTE Research Agenda, and Logic Model (2008).

  7. Utilize students and faculty to investigate client and stakeholder needs and actions.

  8. Pursue additional grant funding from all sources.

 

SERVICE

  1. Continue to support student events, such as “Leadership Forum,” to enhance student development.

  2. Continue presence and recruiting for ALEC and COALS at State and National FFA Conferences.

  3. All service activities to be enhanced by underlying research questions.

  4. Develop AFNR teacher-mentoring program for 1-3 year teachers.

  5. Develop AFNR summer in-service workshops to provide training within the new TENS.

  6. Provide leadership camps for high school students.

  7. Provide hands on camps/training for high school students.

  8. Formalize community service completed by faculty to enhance research in leadership and service learning.

THREATS: What obstacles does ALEC face?

 

TEACHING

  1. Examine program standards/rigor.

  2. Reversal of ALEC/TAMU mentality that bigger student population is better (only if #3 is met).

  3. Balance teaching needs of 1,000+ undergraduate students and 150 graduate students with research obligations of faculty.

  4. Reduce class size (teacher/student ratio) while maintaining large WSCH production.

  5. Find classrooms with positive teaching/learning environments.

  6. Make best use of professorial time when GA dollars are scarce.

  7. Review advisor/student ratios to maximize student and faculty contributions

 

RESEARCH

  1. Insufficient IDC when traditional social science research does not allow for large IDC commitment

  2. COALS lack of understanding of the scholarship of social science research by biological scientists.

  3. Insufficient assistantship funding to compete with peer institutions. Need to increase funding through grants

  4. Misunderstanding of TCE evaluation results as research findings Misunderstanding on grant management

 

 

SERVICE

  1. Over commitment by some department faculty members to service

    1. Reduce service commitment

    2. Develop a plan to recognize the value of service (recruiting, visibility for ALEC, and support for other units).

    3. Spread service opportunities throughout ALEC.

  2. Translating ALEC research findings to other units in TAMU Agriculture (teaching methodologies, service learning, assessment, etc.).

 

DIVERSITY AND FLEXIBILITY

  1. Attract faculty who reflect under-represented populations. Recruit students – best and brightest worldwide

 

OTHER

1. Faculty and staff retention