ISU To Look At The 'Big Picture': "Succeeding With Students" Program Will Involve All Faculty, Staff by Diana Pounds There was a time when universities like Iowa State opened their doors and students filed in, readily filling every classroom and residence hall. Today, students are fewer and competition is fiercer. Students seeking higher education have many more options, including community colleges and company training programs. Those who once would have looked automatically to their state universities now are shopping around for an educator that meets their needs, lifestyles and financial circumstances. How can Iowa State succeed in this new, competitive environment? University officials are asking all faculty and staff to help answer that question. Over four days in November, virtually every member of Iowa State's 6,000 faculty and staff will spend three to four hours discussing the 'big picture' in higher education, where Iowa State fits in that picture, and what it can do to better serve its students. They will be a part of the most ambitious faculty and staff learning program ever undertaken at Iowa State. The organizations that make it in the next century are going to be the flexible ones, with creative staff who are always looking for ways to improve the operation, said Steve Richardson, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and chair of the steering committee for the November program. The program is called "Succeeding With Students and it is an apt name, Richardson said. "Helping our students succeed is what this university is all about. The better we are at that, the more successful we'll be as an organization." The November discussions "will help start everyone on the same page as Iowa State embarks on a fresh five-year plan," Richardson added. "We have a new strategic plan that says our first goal is to support undergraduate education. Yet, that strategic plan can be a dead document if all of us -- whether we're groundskeepers or faculty or secretaries -- don't see how we fit into that plan, how we can be part of helping our students and this university succeed." All staff, both on- and off-campus, will be asked to participate in a three- to four-hour session on one of four days -- Nov. 13, 14, 20 or 21. Nearly 150 discussion groups, consisting of about 10 employees each, will be conducted each day. The group discussions will be led by faculty and staff volunteers trained by Root Learning, a Perrysburg, Ohio, firm that produces interactive learning products for businesses. Among the firm's specialties are "concept maps," which illustrate complicated issues through diagrams and drawings and help spur discussion. Concept maps designed for Iowa State will help focus discussion on three main topics -- the environment in higher education today, where Iowa State's money comes from and where it goes, and the educational and social cycle of the ISU student. Root has provided similar staff development services to such corporations as Pepsi, Maytag, Harley-Davidson and Libbey Glass. Iowa State will be the first university to employ the firm's learning techniques. The maps will provide basic information and set the stage for discussion, and ISU employees will do the rest, Richardson said. "The maps are just a vehicle for discussion and it's the discussion that's the important thing. "We hope that by getting faculty and staff from various parts of the university together to discuss how this university works, we can forge a common, unifying experience among all ISU employees and that every single employee will gain a strong sense of his or her importance in helping our students succeed. "We also hope that the conversations that start around those tables won't just stop as people walk out the door, that faculty and staff will continue to talk in their departments about how we can meet our common goals," he said. Richardson said the Succeeding With Students program will be included in future orientation/acclimation sessions for new faculty and staff. More details on the Succeeding With Students sessions planned for November will be included in future editions of Inside Iowa State. _____ contact: Diana Pounds, Internal Communications, (515) 294- 4845 updated: 7-7-95