Go Beyond the Classroom - QEP

Community Engagement

What is a QEP?

Go Beyond the Classroom: Community-Engaged Learning, ETSU's Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), is an integral part of ETSU’s reaffirmation and accreditation process with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). The current QEP topic was approved by the ETSU University Council in December 2021 and will be implemented across a five-year period.

QEP Annual Reports  

A successful QEP will:

  • Be a topic identified through on-going institutional assessment and planning.
  • Focus on learning outcomes and/or the environment supporting student learning and accomplishing the mission of the institution.
  • Demonstrate institutional capability for the institution to successfully implement and complete the QEP.
  • Include broad-based involvement of institutional constituencies in the development and proposed implementation of the QEP.
  • Identify a plan for assessing student learning achievements.

 

Why Community-Engaged Learning?

 

One of the pillars of ETSU’s Strategic Plan is that the institution will lead the region forward through community engagement and service.

Community-Engaged Learning is the integration of academic coursework and intentional community partnerships that fosters student reflection and application of classroom learning. It will build upon ETSU’s long-standing mission of improving the quality of life of others through regional stewardship and elevate the institution’s impact in community engagement.

 

 

QEP - Goals, SLO's, and Student Success

Definition: Community-Engaged Learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities for reflection designed to achieve desired learning outcomes. (Jacoby, 2015)

QEP Goals


  1. Provide infrastructure and resources for student leaders, faculty and staff, and community partners to support long-term success for Community-Engaged Learning.

  2. Expand student involvement in Community-Engaged Learning opportunities across the undergraduate curricular and co-curricular experiences.

  3. Describe the impact of student involvement in Community-Engaged Learning on student outcomes for various student populations (target populations: Pell recipients, male students, and underserved students).

QEP Student Learning Outcomes


  1. (Connecting): Students will make meaningful connections between their Community-Engaged Learning experiences and academic course content

  2. (Influencing): Students will critically reflect on how Community-Engaged Learning influences their future aspirations.

  3. (Contributing): Students will articulate how Community-Engaged Learning prepares them to make productive contributions in a diverse society.

QEP Student Success Outcomes


The Student Success Outcomes for Go Beyond the Classroom will impact two of ETSU’s goals and outcomes for student achievement as required by SACSCOC Core Requirement 8.1: Student achievement: 

  1. ETSU aspires to retain 85 percent of first-time, full-time degree-seeking undergraduate students from fall-to-fall, and

  2. ETSU aspires to graduate 60 percent of all incoming degree-seeking undergraduate students within eight years as reported in the IPEDS 8 Year Outcomes measures.

Commonly Used Terms

  • Go Beyond the Classroom: The name of ETSU’s QEP is Go Beyond the Classroom. In the narrative, Go Beyond refers to the QEP and its specific community-engaged learning activities 

  • Community: Community is a group (e.g., people, industry, entity) external to the university that shares characteristics such as geographical proximity, special interest, need, similar situation, or values (ETSU Community Engagement Task Force, 2020).
  • Community Engagement: Community engagement is the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial creation and exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2022).
  • Community-Engaged Learning: Community-engaged learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities for reflection designed to achieve desired learning outcomes (Jacoby, 2015).
  • Critical Reflection: Critical reflection is the practice of making meaning out of a purposeful combination of experiences and academic content. Critical reflection prompts students to analyze, reconsider, and question their experiences in relation to the complexity of issues and content knowledge.Critical reflection must be continuous, connected, challenging, and contextualized (Eyler, Giles, and Schmiede, 1996; Jacoby, 2015).
  • High-Impact Practices: High-impact practices (HIPs) are active learning practices that have been shown to be beneficial for college students resulting in increased rates of student retention and student engagement (Kuh, 2008).
  • Office of Community Engagement: Administrative home of the QEP and the QEP director, housed in the Office of the Provost.
  • Pre-QEP Service Learning Courses: Courses existing prior to the QEP that are coordinated by the Office of Service Learning in the Clemmer College and create service-learning placements for students enrolled in certain courses including Introduction to Service Learning.
  • Target Populations: Three specific ETSU student populations with retention and degree completion rates lower than average for all students. These include Pell Grant recipients, male students, and underserved students (American Indian or Alaska Native; Black or African American; Hispanic/Latino; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; two or more races). The terms used to describe the populations are the same as ETSU’s institutional definition for each. 

 

If you would like more information about the Go Beyond the Classroom QEP or access to a copy of it, please email communityengage@etsu.edu