Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)

What is a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)?

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

The work on our current QEP was written as a requirement of the SACSCOC reaffirmation of accreditation. After consultation with students, staff, and alumni, the faculty of Methodist University voted in the Spring of 2019 to adopt the following as our new Quality Enhancement Plan.

The Passion Project: Making Connections Through Writing

History of the Passion Project as a QEP

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 writing skills of students by developing a campus-wide culture of writing in areas students have an individual passion for.

The Project

Our plan to develop improvement in writing focused on the courses MUJ 1100, MUJ 2200, and MUJ 3300. The courses were taken in a sequence, typically from the Freshman through the Junior years. The objective of these courses was to encourage students to write about a self-selected area of interest outside of their typically assigned coursework.

QEP Assessment

The project, which has the slogan “The Passion Project: Making Connections Through Writing,” was assessed both formally and informally at many levels, including the individual Methodist University Journey classes as well as through student writing samples from the Freshman writing seminar courses.

QEP Impact Report Status

The QEP Impact Report was completed and submitted to SACSCOC on March 1, 2025 as part of the university’s 5th year interim report. SACSCOC reviewed the assessment of The Passion Project and deemed the report adequate, confirming the successful implementation and institutionalization of the program over the initial five-year period.