Criterion Five: Engagement and Service Core Component 5a: The organization learns from the constituents it serves and analyzes its capacity to serve their needs and expectations.

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	Environmental Scanning As noted previously, the Criterion 5 committee examined numerous reports, surveys, strategic plans and mission statements for each of the academic units, and reviewed UMKC’s centers and institutes. Our goal was to assess the alignment of the academic unit plans and missions with UMKC’s four mission areas, as well as with Criterion 5’s four core components.
These examinations and reviews by the committee provided an important means of assessing the critical connections between academic units and their students and faculty, and the impact of outreach efforts on UMKC’s internal and external communities. For example, many academic units cite leadership development as part of their mission statements, yet many students responded in surveys that they feel inadequately prepared to be leaders. Developing the future workforce is another frequently cited component of academic missions, and yet student surveys again point to deficiency in their education related to ethical reasoning. While the surveys overall offered positive feedback, in as much as students responded that they valued the quality of their education, several gaps remain between what the University says it does and what it may actually accomplish and how those intentions and accomplishments are perceived by the public. (A broader discussion of teaching and learning at UMKC can be found in Criterion 3.) Assessment methods were also reviewed by the Criterion 5 committee. Each academic unit has specific tools designed to assess the unit’s capacity to meet constituent needs and expectations. For example, the School of Biological Sciences [SBS] conducts annual reviews of faculty, and the faculty regularly reviews the Dean. In 2006, a panel of external scientists evaluated the research of SBS, which is reviewed every five years by external and internal reviewers. The review processes for the School of Computing and Engineering [SCE] include Town Hall meetings with students, advisory council reports, alumni meetings, and a triennial alumni survey. Other schools such as the Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration, and the schools of Law, Dentistry, Medicine, and Pharmacy use accreditation evaluations, while the School of Education uses employer surveys and certification tests such as PRAXIS. The School of Nursing employs both accreditation evaluations and the results of nursing licensure tests at the undergraduate level and certifying examinations at the masters’ level. Community advisory committees also serve as a valuable tool in assessing constituent needs, as do interactions through participation by the various Deans and faculty members on community boards and committees. The electronic resource room Web site has a listing of the various advisory committees associated with the academic units. The committee’s review also focused on UMKC’s ability to communicate adequately to its various constituents and found that this is an area needing improvement, not only in celebrating the achievements of faculty and students to an internal audience, but outwardly to the Kansas City community and beyond. Much like its engagement and service efforts, the majority of UMKC’s communication occurs at a decentralized level. While a centralized office for University communications currently exists, timely response and consistency in information distribution continues to be problematic. Several years ago, a person from the centralized office was assigned to each academic unit. This provided the necessary link to ensure that information was fed to the media and to UMKC’s constituents on a regular and timely basis, and also served as an important link when the press had a specific question. The centralized office has reduced or discontinued many of its former services, leaving the academic units to handle their own marketing and public relation efforts. For those units without sufficient resources to hire a communications person, information to constituents has remained fragmented at best. This has led to the public being either uninformed or misinformed about many of the University’s contributions and accomplishments. In response to this problem, a departmental restructuring, designed to better coordinate UMKC’s communication needs, has occurred with a re-alignment of strategic positions in public relations assigned to the Office of the Chancellor. Today, UMKC’s Department of Public Relations [PR] continues to promote our mission through a variety of media by developing and maintaining relationships with reporters and editors at local, state and national media outlets, as well as with external constituents who have a vested interest in the University. PR also works with our academic units, departments, schools and centers to ensure UMKC’s messages are consistent and accurate, and target the public through multiple venues. In addition, the PR team provides media training (oneon- one and group), crisis communications counsel and SWOT analysis. Communication practices include news releases, online news features, video, photography, UMatters (an electronic publication for staff and faculty), UMKC Experts Guide and social media sites (Twitter and Facebook).
The University Communications [UComm] department reports to the Provost and Academic Affairs officer. In addition to providing our academic units and departments with a variety of graphic design and editing services, UComm oversees the design of the University’s Web site. In 2008 and 2009, the UComm team began a massive project to redesign the Web site. The project’s first phase was completed on June 30 with the launch of a new front page. Phase I also included the redesign and launch of several academic units’, departments’ and divisions’ Web sites and the creation of a new development server, in addition to the University’s production server.