SCHOOLS RECEIVE ACCLAIM

Northeast Missouri State University's liberal arts program has been touted as one of the best in the nation.

The University of Missouri-Rolla is among the nation's leaders in engineering.

Southeast Missouri State University has received national acclaim for its redesigned teacher-education program and its university-studies and writing-across-the-curriculum programs.

These programs are proof of successful reforms that have taken place in higher education, educators say.

Northeast Missouri State University at Kirksville has been called the "public Ivy League school." Jack Magruder, vice president for academic affairs, said the school gives students "an opportunity to have a liberal arts and science education that is the quality of an expensive, private school at a public-school price."

Northeast was officially designated as the state's liberal arts university in 1985. It has a very selective admission policy that limits enrollment. "We are reasonably selective," said Magruder. "We can only accommodate 1,600 freshmen."

The school has a total enrollment of about 5,800.

Northeast's high admission standards mean that the institution has "just an outstanding, academically-able student body," he said.

The university uses a comprehensive assessment program that gauges student learning and a writing competency program. Freshmen students are tested in the areas of critical thinking, writing skills, and mathematics and science reasoning. At the end of the sophomore year, the students are given the same test again.

Students at the various grade levels are surveyed about a wide range of campus operations: from parking to food service and quality of instruction, Magruder said. Normally, about 40 percent of the students participate in the survey. Magruder said it helps school officials chart improvements or changes in programs and operations. "We constantly want to know how the students view their experience with us," he said.

"We require every student in every major as a senior to take a national standardized test in their discipline," said Magruder. The tests are administered to assess students' learning in relation to national standards, he said.

"Last year we had 77 percent of our people scoring above the 50th percentile," said Magruder. "What that tells us is that we are offering a program that will allow a student to choose a graduate school and compete nationally," he said.

Rolla's sharply defined mission focuses on engineering and science. John Park, vice chancellor of academic affairs, said: "All of our programs tend to build on the science, engineering and technological focus of the campus."

Even the school's liberal arts courses supplement the science and engineering theme, he said. About 80 percent of the students major in engineering and science fields. "We really serve as Missouri's technological university," said Park.

"We perhaps uniquely serve small industry in the state both by providing well-prepared scientists and engineers and in transferring technology developed on campus to the industrial needs of the state," said Park. "I don't believe there is any other institution (in Missouri) that has put so much of its energy into a single focus."

The redesigned teacher-education program at Southeast, which was implemented within the last several years, stresses field-based experiences and expanded "practice teaching" for education majors along with close collaboration with elementary and secondary schools.

"Our teacher-education program is a flagship that everybody wants to know about and that has a lot of assessment components in it," said Southeast President Kala Stroup. "We go all over the country and talk about it."

Southeast's unique university studies program replaced the more traditional general-education system of courses. John Hinni, dean of the school of university studies, said the program is "a model for the nation" and one that has attracted a lot of interest from other schools. Implemented in fall 1988, the program requires that students take 48 hours of specified courses spread over all four academic years.

Hinni said that students in the past thought of the old general-education courses as "introductory" courses that had to be taken before they could begin studying in their major fields. The university studies program ties together a wide variety of academic disciplines by emphasizing reasoning skills, communication skills, understanding of other cultures, and social and political responsibility.

"There is more to a university experience than learning how to get a job," said Hinni. For example, in the past Southeast had an "art-appreciation course," he said. "Now we have a category called artistic expression. In that category there are courses in art but there is also a course in ceramics that emphasizes communication."

He said the ceramics course focuses on the fact that pottery served as a vehicle for some of the earliest means of communication.

Hinni said it took seven years to develop the university studies program, which involved redesign of courses from top to bottom. "Every course is new and every course is designed around objectives," said Hinni. "The way it is taught is as important as what is taught."

Freshmen students are initially exposed to the program through a freshman seminar that "introduces the idea of a liberal education and introduces the objectives," said Hinni.

A major component of university studies is a writing outcomes program, commonly known as writing across the curriculum. Started in 1986, it emphasizes "the importance of writing and gives students experiences that will help them improve their writing," said Dennis Holt, who directs Southeast's writing program.

Holt said all Southeast students are required to take at least one English composition class depending on how they score on a writing placement exam. After they take the composition course or courses, students are tested to assess their writing skills, he said.

The university's Writing Center at Kent Library assists faculty in development of writing assignments for particular classes. The center also tutors students to help them improve their writing.

"A lot of the faculty are requiring students to come up here and have someone check their papers before they submit them," Holt said of the center. The tutoring is provided by three employees with master's degrees in English and five graduate assistants.

When the program began in 1986, about 680 students used the Writing Center. This academic year, more than 1,600 students have been assisted by the center, Holt said. "That's a positive indication that the students are finding what we have up here is very useful," he said.

A third component of the writing program is assessment. "All students must pass a writing proficiency test in order to graduate," said Holt. The test is administered to students in their junior year. In the three-hour test, students must write two essays on a given topic.

On average, about 12 percent of the students fail the essay test, Holt said. Students who fail the test either must retake it or complete a detailed writing assignment in order to graduate. In most cases, students take the test again, he said. The Writing Center tutors work with the students to help them prepare to retake the essay test.

A campus survey this month showed that 85 percent of Southeast students believed all college graduates should be able to communicate effectively in writing regardless of the career they choose, Holt said.

The writing-across-the-curriculum program has resulted in increased writing assignments in classes, he said. In 1986, "long papers" were assigned in 32 percent of the courses; by 1988, the percentage had increased to 49 percent.