Goals and priorities

Ensure the Diversity and Inclusion (DI) category within WES courses is represented through all WES level 2 and 3 categories.

Target efforts for collaboration and articulation agreements between WMU and community colleges with high enrollment of underrepresented students.

Establish a published standard for awarding degree credit for Join Service Transcript (JST) across WMU.

Offer degree programs that are more in line with Military training/military personnel.

Launch of the Military Ally program, where at least 12 faculty or staff are certified to provide a safe space for military-connected students.

Strive to remove barriers to our diverse populations in two parts: self-evaluation and creation of an online suggestion box for students.

Use disaggregated student success data to make decisions supporting progress toward the elimination of equity gaps in participation and outcomes.

Increase cultural awareness by offering experiential learning for TRIO participants.

Continue to highlight for students and Writing Center staff the systemic biases and privileges in language and ways that writing assistance can violate and denigrate a student's language norms if the focus is on "correctness" and "remediation" instead of the students' effective communication of meaning.

Provide department chairs with WES information and tools to make strategic course decisions and educate their instructors about WES requirements.

Create videos on the Alpha program website to accurately communicate what the program is about and how it benefits students.

Educate the WMU community and Kalamazoo County about TRIO.

Spread awareness to students regarding the TRIO program.

Highlight the ways TRIO students are impacting WMU.

Familiarize staff and students with the resources that are associated with the 8 dimensions of well-being. Include university resources in UA& SC meeting.

Align all Merze Tate College units’ assessment plans with the Thriving Framework.

Establish connections and relationships with internal and external stakeholders such as University colleges, K-12 districts, and regional outreach locations.

Improve communication collaboration with MarCom and Admissions. Track communication touchpoints and streamline communication for all demographics (students, families, on-campus stakeholders) to ensure communication is effective and timely.

Articulate the services offered by S3 to all university constituents, though social media, website, participating in events, sharing about G2C success, attending new faculty and TA orientations, and creating a “Who can help” tool.

Engage in a focused outcome-based assessment that requires faculty and student input in order to better capture and share what we do.

Explore department name change to the Writing and Rhetoric Center or something similar, as a way to help faculty, staff, and students recognize how our rhetorical approach helps writers.

Develop dynamic programming borne directly from the needs/interests of students, i.e., programs including professionals from the community.

Re-launch the Military Transition course: UNIV 1030 for Fall 2023.

Articulate, through qualitative and quantitative data, how Merze Tate College programming adds value to students’ growth personally, academically, and professionally.

Lay foundation for internships for all students.

Expand service-learning offerings into community engaged learning.

Identify needs of second-year students and develop plans to begin meeting those needs.

Develop student leaders’ career-readiness according to NACE competencies.

Intentionally collaborate across the college and the campus to maximize effectiveness of our work and heighten our impact on student thriving through more intentional connections with other MTC units, WMUx, and faculty.

Support opportunities, such as sharing a meal, for staff and student staff and graduate assistants, to develop comradery and learn about each other.

Create Wellness Wednesdays.

Leverage existing technology and collaborations to scale reach.

Value and care for our team so they can value and care for our students, by using connection questions during one-on-ones, building a connected staff team, connecting outside of work, leaning into staff strengths to support each other, increasing DEI training, and addressing employee turnover.

Seek partners to collaborate with regarding our rhetorical approach to writing/literacy development and assistance in hopes of devising protocols/policies that will help our students and will continue to use, promote, support, and connect students with MTC programs.

Increase the number of completed WMU institution and program level agreements with area community colleges.

Ensure that WMU is a Top 50 Military Friendly school as ranked by Military Times.

Identify – and demonstrate progress on – key performance indicators for Merze Tate College, ensuring they are relevant to University stakeholders.

Provide proactive career development and employer presentations and workshops.

Host/support equitable employer events across majors and colleges.

Intentionally represent the diversity of the university with off-campus personnel placements.

Support parents/families with resources and connections as their students transition to WMU.

Collaborate with rhetoricians/writing program administrators and others on campus to devise a WMU Best Practices statement about the use of Grammarly, Citation Generators, and Paraphrasers in order to assist students (and faculty) learn from them and learn how to use them to help instead of hinder or complicate their writing development.