Notre Dame College...Becoming the finest, small, Catholic,
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Notre Dame College Self-Study Report

Chapter 6: Engagement

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• Self-Study Home
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• Abbreviations - Acronyms - Glossary
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  Self-Study Website

Self-Study Report

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Criterion One - Mission and Integrity
• Chapter 3: Criterion Two - Preparing for the Future
• Chapter 4: Criterion Three - Student Learning & Effective Teaching
• Chapter 5: Criterion Four - Acquisition, Discovery, and Application of Knowledge
• Chapter 6
  • Criterion Five - Engagement & Service
  • Capacity to Serve
  • Engagement
  • Responsiveness
  • Value
  • Considerations
• Chapter 7: Conclusions

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  Higher Learning Commission Final Team Report

Core Component: Notre Dame College has the capacity and the commitment to engage with its identified constituencies and communities.

Notre Dame College’s structures and processes enable effective connections with its communities.

The increased use of technology has had a major positive impact on Notre Dame College’s capacity to forge effective connections with the communities it serves. A Website Director was hired in 2003 and has made vast improvements in the College’s website. Department sites have been expanded and kept current. A web development team comprising highly qualified student assistants aid in the timely updating of information on the site. Events, new program initiatives, and other campus developments are prominently displayed on the Notre Dame College homepage with links to additional information.

e-Falcon, an electronic newsletter for faculty and staff, is now published weekly by the Advancement Office, keeping employees apprised of the latest developments on campus. The creation of a campus intranet, designed to improve internal communications, has aided in developing a more connected campus with enhanced capability to reach students, faculty, and staff.

E-mail and other computer services have also been greatly enhanced, with the Information Technology Department providing timely upgrades for computer equipment and prompt service for technical difficulties experienced by faculty, students, and staff. The cumulative effect has been the gradual shifting of emphasis to these electronic communication tools, not as a replacement for more traditional forms of communication such as the College magazine, brochures, letters or phone calls, but as a complement to these means of making a connection.

• Online courses are offered through the Education Department’s TEEL^® program throughout the state of Ohio, expanding its availability to a larger number of students. The Library provides services to remote TEEL^® students through a customized library orientation packet, e-mail, voice-mail, and a library card.

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  An effort has been made to improve and standardize campus publications, catalogs, brochures, flyers and advertisements.

  Online and blended courses are offered through the Center for Professional Development, expanding the accessibility of Center offerings to students.

• The use of technology enables the College to meet requests from people around the world at no cost. For example, the Library received a request for information from a doctoral student in Australia wishing to incorporate information from an exhibit held at the College in 2005 in her research. Materials were sent via e-mail to accommodate the request.

• In 2003 Archives scanned and uploaded historic photographs and documents to the Ohio Memory Project website. Sponsored by the Ohio Historical Society, the bicentennial project website makes thousands of images available via the Internet.

• Notre Dame College students write blogs that provide a candid account of daily life on campus as a means of attracting new students.

An effort has been made to improve and standardize campus publications, catalogs, brochures, flyers, and advertisements. The College contracts with two independent graphic artists who understand the College’s identity and translate it into printed material. The result is a consistent and easily recognized look of printed material. This effort to improve communications can be seen throughout the institution. In addition, state-of-the-art computers and printers enable departments to produce quality promotional materials internally. This provides an alternative method to communicate with prospective students and their parents, donors, alumni, and the community at large.

• An electronic version of Notre Dame Today, the College’s magazine, is available with expanded versions of stories. Earlier issues will be archived on the alumni website.

• The Advancement Office utilizes software that allows customization of the message in direct mail pieces based on giving history, graduation year, and other key variables. In addition, the forms of communication such as magazines, personal letters, postcards, e-mail, newsletters, invitations, and phone calls are also chosen based on these variables.

The Career Services Center has established many liaisons with the local business community. The annual Career Fair brings corporations from the Cleveland area to the campus each February. These include the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Metro Parks, National City Bank, and WEWS TV.

The Career Services Center utilizes Falcon.Net, a computerized database that links Notre Dame College students with professional positions in the local community. Employers can post listings at no cost on Falcon.Net and submit listings to Career Services for posting.

Employers who participate in the Cooperative Education program benefit in two important ways. By scheduling a co-op experience during a high volume business cycle or during a special project, the company can employ students to fulfill their needs. This provides students with interesting and high value experiences. These experiences also provide the student and the business with the opportunity to determine if there is a longer term match or a full-time position upon the student’s graduation. If so, the company saves recruiting, orientation, and training expense by hiring the co-op student.

Notre Dame College’s co-curricular activities engage students, staff, administrators, and faculty with external communities.

The College provides a number of co-curricular activities that establish relationships with external communities.Civic and service opportunities for students, faculty, and staff are well-publicized through e-mail announcements and flyers. In addition to this, departments carry out the mission of the College in their day-to-day operations, recognizing that these small acts collectively have a large impact.

• The Spring, 2006 exhibit, “Moving Minds: The Verse and Vision Project” was an interdisciplinary collaboration between Notre Dame College’s creative writing and graphic design classes and the Poets and Writers League of Greater Cleveland. Students, responding to posters created by artists from the Cleveland Chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, created their own original poems and designs. Then they shared their works with established poets in the community who provided valuable analysis and evaluation. Response to the event was overwhelmingly positive from the students and the guest poets. There were many requests to repeat the exercise next year.

• In 2004, students enrolled in Advanced Composition: Expository Writing (English 110) interviewed residents of a local nursing home and researched the time period referenced. Not only did students learn to interview and write about their learning, they gained exposure to the viewpoints and memories of individuals from a different era.

• History students worked as docents at the James A. Garfield home in Mentor, Ohio and the Lake County Historical Society.

• Members of the campus community assist at the Cleveland Food Bank.

• Each spring the Resident Association Board (RAB) sponsors Sibs and Kids Weekend. College students bring younger family members to campus for a weekend. RAB also sponsors a Halloween celebration for neighborhood children. Local children are invited to visit residence halls to collect candy from students.

• Recognizing that old furniture removed from the newly-renovated residence halls was in relatively good condition, the College donated it to local charities.

• In the past few years the Library has donated over 1,000 boxes of books to Third World Books and its sister organization, Books for Africa. The Library also donates books and equipment to inner city schools, community centers, nursing homes, missions, and prisons.

• Notre Dame College student-athletes make connections with external communities when they travel to contests. Striving to set a good example, members of the women’s basketball team visited an elementary school to talk about good sportsmanship. The children even requested autographs afterwards. Locally, the men’s baseball and women’s lacrosse teams provide free skills clinics at the YMCA where children are introduced these sports.

Notre Dame College’s educational programs connect students with external communities.

Students are connected to external communities through a number of educational programs. For example:

Education students who earn a bachelor’s degree enroll in 12 hours of student teaching. In addition to this, the program includes field-based experience in diverse settings (cultural, racial, and socioeconomic). Placements are made with the College’s PK-12 partners, a group of local schools that work with the College’s Education Division.

Notre Dame College, recognizing the value of professional work experience, requires all students pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree to participate in a co-op, internship, or practicum.

• Notre Dame College is located in a geographical area known for its major research universities and hospitals. Students are strongly encouraged to apply for summer research positions at these facilities. These experiences provide the student with additional learning opportunities, work experience, career exploration, and in some instances, academic credit from the College.

• Students enrolled in a Youth Ministry minor must complete an internship or cooperative education experience in an office of youth ministry in a church or parish.

• The College’s Travel Abroad program awards academic credit and provides opportunity for cultural enrichment. Students and faculty have traveled to Italy, Greece, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Spain, and the British Isles.

• Notre Dame College’s history and political science students connected with external communities through the activities of Political Action for Students Today (P.A.S.T.). P.A.S.T. sponsored a Meet the Candidates Night in 2005. They also planned a letter-writing and question and answer session with Ohio Senator Eric Fingerhut designed to demonstrate the importance of writing letters to state representatives to effect positive change.

• In March, 2003, five students from Social Justice (TH 450) class lobbied for continued financial support for higher education at the Ohio State House in Columbus.

• For three years, Accounting students have participated in “Accounting for Kids” sponsored by the Ohio Society of CPAs. The students visit middle schools to promote business education through activities and games.

Notre Dame College’s resources – physical, financial, and human– support effective programs of engagement and service.

Over the past few years the College has witnessed a period of enormous growth and change. Record enrollment and monies from grants and key donors have enabled the College to complete several projects that improve service to its constituencies. These include:

• Expansion of the Keller Center in 2003 added a new weight room that includes Nautilus and cardiovascular equipment and free weights. A training room, locker rooms, and offices for the Athletic Department staff were also new features of the renovation.

  In Fall, 2006, an additional weight room was created on the ground floor of Harks Residence Hall to accommodate additional athletic teams and increased student enrollment. It includes a practice facility for the new men’s wrestling team.

• For Fall Semester, 2006, the former dietetics lab was converted into a forty-seat science lecture room featuring a demonstration table as well as a ceiling-mounted projector allowing instructors to use PowerPoint presentation or incorporate information from the internet into their lectures.

• The Legacy Walkway and Quinlivan Circle, dedicated on October 16, 2005, greatly enhance the beauty of the campus and connect the buildings with heated walkways that stay ice-free during snowy weather. The Quinlivan Circle is named in memory of Dr. Frances M. Quinlivan, Professor Emeritus of Notre Dame College.

• During the Spring and Summer of 2005 the entire second floor of the Clara Fritzsche Library was completely remodeled with new carpeting, ceiling, lighting, and repainted and realigned shelving. Office and classroom space was added for the College’s new Nursing program and for the Academic Support Center for Students with Learning Differences.

• The former audio-visual area of the Library was transformed into a Classroom, a forty-seat state-of-the art electronic classroom with a laptop for each student, two SMART Boards and a whiteboard designed to increase the campus-wide instructional capacity of the College and promote active learning.

• The Falcon Café, a coffee shop located in the Clara Fritzsche Library, opened in September, 2005, and features Starbucks drinks.

• A new temperature controlled storage facility for the Library was created from part of of the garage beneath it.

• Campus parking was expanded, with a 75-space parking lot created behind the residence halls. A new driveway was also built, allowing convenient access from Green Road,a busy four-lane street, and the Regina High School’s parking lot which the College utilizes for overflow parking.

• Responding to the need for more residence space, garden level suites were created in the lower level of Providence Hall.

As the student body grows, the number of full-time faculty must increase. This is being accomplished gradually and judiciously. Visiting professors in education, chemistry, mathematics, and business were hired for the 2005 – 2006 academic year.

In addition, staff members have been added in key areas. In the past few years, the Advancement Office staff has doubled in size, seeing the addition of a campus writer and editor, an advancement consultant and restoration of the position of grant writer.

Recognizing the need for more skilled library professionals, a new fulltime library intern position was approved in 2004. This position enabled the library to expand its morning and evening hours in response to requests by faculty and students.

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