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Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)

 

As part of our reaffirmation of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), Methodist University has developed a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). QEP projects are designed to focus on an aspect of student learning, must be campus-wide in scope, and involve students, faculty, staff, alumni, and administrators.

After consultation with students, staff, and alumni, the faculty of Methodist University voted in the fall of 2007 to adopt the following as our Quality Enhancement Plan:

The QEP committee is now pleased to present our QEP document (updated April 14, 2009) for faculty, students, staff, alumni, and friends of the University to read. Having been successfully being approved by the SACS On-site Committee during its March visitation to campus, Methodist University’s QEP will enter the first year of its implementation in August 2009. However, as the QEP is an evolving campus-wide initiative, we still welcome comments and suggestions; please contact our new QEP Director, Arleen Fields, at or contact committee members at

Additionally, please see the QEP @ the Library Web site for our blog and other QEP related materials and information.

If you don’t have time to read our entire QEP document, you might want to read our QEP at a Glance document below.

QEP at a Glance

QEP History:
The selection of the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) at Methodist University involved a lengthy, campus-wide dialogue about academic direction and change. It began as a disparate list of desired improvements solicited from and championed by individual faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Although initially an ambitiously inclusive but vague and incompletely articulated proposal, it finally emerged as a focused, widely supported, well-researched, well-funded, and accessible initiative to improve the reading skills of students by developing a campus-wide culture of reading.

QEP Plan:
Our plan to create a culture of reading utilizes the existing freshman seminar course, IDS110: The Methodist University Experience, which has recently been revised to include a common freshman reading assignment. This assignment is a recently published book chosen from popular literature, selected for its thought-provoking potential. Our QEP will build on this course in several ways. Students will be required to enroll in a genre-based Reading Circle in the freshman or sophomore year. The object of these circles is to encourage students to read self-selected material outside of their assigned coursework. To support this goal, the Davis Memorial Library is creating a collection of fiction and other popular works. To support the development of a culture of reading, we will continue to set up "Reading Nooks" around campus to create reading friendly environments in academic and recreational settings.

QEP Assessment:
The project, which has the slogan "Get Between the Covers," will be assessed both formally and informally at many levels, including the individual Reading Circles and student reading improvement and attitudinal changes. Instruments will include NSSE, Nelson-Denny, and the College Base, rubrics for assignments in IDS 110 and the Reading Circles, as well as internally generated attitudinal questionnaires and surveys.