The project will unfold in three phases:

1. Selection of participating institutions:
   

        In October 1997, Ellen Wert, Margaret (Peg) Miller, William Plater, and Barbara Cambridge met with prospective provosts from four selected Urban 13 institutions, at which time three institutions committed to participation: Georgia State University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Portland State University. At the same time, on the recommendation of Ralph Wolff and because of the desire for a Western States participant in the project, Barbara Cambridge contacted the provost and president of California State University at Sacramento, who indicated their commitment to the project.

2. Solicitation of interest from regional accrediting associations:
   

        In October 1997 Peg Miller and Barbara Cambridge contacted regional accreditors to solicit their participation. All five regional accrediting bodies contacted expressed interest in the project.

3. Establishment of the role of university presidents/chancellors:
   

        Gerald Bepko, IUPUI Chancellor and Vice President for Long-range Planning for Indiana University, will convene by videoconference the presidents or chancellors of the six participating schools to discuss the role of the chief executive officer in the success of the project. Particular attention will be given to uses of current campus advisory boards in development and local review of institutional portfolios.

4. Selection of members of the National Advisory Board and the Institutional Review Board:


        Participating schools will be asked to review the proposed members for the two boards. After selection of invitees by the project staff, letters of invitation will be extended. Invitations will be sent until the boards are fully constituted.

5. Selection of campus project directors:

        August 6-8, 1998: The goals of this meeting of a team from each campus (provost, campus project director, institutional researcher, and other designated members) members of the two advisory boards, and the project staff will be to draft the first working definition of "urban public comprehensive institution" and to begin to develop a portfolio template.
        Before this meeting, provosts and campus directors will have identified campus groups which will work on the project and prepare a status report on current student learning goals, key features of the campus learning environment, and current assessment practices. In addition, provosts will bring to the meeting the accrediting guidelines and state performance indicator requirements applicable to their campuses.

        October 1998: Provosts, project directors, and institutional researchers will meet at the fall Urban 13 meeting. With campus input, a working definition will be revised. A portfolio template will be more fully developed. The group will decide on core indicators that apply to all campuses on which they will seek institutional affirmation during the ensuing months. IR personnel will meet separately to discuss data collection.

        December 1998: During a videoconference hosted by IUPUI, campuses will refine the definition of "urban public comprehensive university." They will continue to develop the categories of goals, indicators, good practices, and enabling environment.

        April 1999: During a meeting at another participating institution, participants will decide on a limited number of common indicators and measures. They will further refine the portfolio template.

        August 1999: This annual summer meeting of the campus participants, project staff, NAB members , and IRB members will have four objectives:

• Achieving consensus about the definition of urban comprehensive university as an institutional category useful for multiple purposes
• Achieving consensus about the portfolio template to be used in the next phase of the project
• Sharing information and lessons from campus activities during Phase I
• Planning the work of Phase II

All project participants study one another’s processes for aligning goals, learning environment, and assessment measures; hallmarks and barriers identified by each institution; new practices which they might adopt; and the evolving institutional portfolio template. The IRB will participate for the full meeting; the NAB will participate for one day of the meeting. Participants will plan any cross campus visits and IRB visits for the coming year.

1. Each university will conduct a campus-wide discussion of core goals and institution-specific goals that support the mission of the urban public comprehensive university. This discussion should also go beyond the campus to involve important local external constituents, such as the business community and state policy-makers.
   
2. Each university will conduct an inventory and evaluation of existing practices that support the core goals, around which the campus will design its portfolio. The portfolio will demonstrate the alignment of the core learning curricular and pedagogical practices, and the enabling environment, with the whole governed by the mission of the urban public comprehensive university.

        Within this more comprehensive audit, each institution will feature two hallmark practices as illustrations and examples of its commitment to undergraduate learning.

• Good practice hallmark. This strategy will be a central, campus-wide active learning strategy that demonstrates the campus’s commitment to student learning. Examples include a redesign of bottleneck introductory courses in a technology-based format, service-learning in all disciplines, undergraduate research engaged in by most students across disciplines, extensive student participation in learning communities, or undergraduate portfolios that accentuate and assess integrated learning.

• Enabling environment hallmark. This strategy will be a campus-wide practice that supports a comprehensively-developed learning environment for student learning. Examples might include integration of academic and student affairs to support student learning with documented results, use of cross-functional teams for problem solving, funding mechanisms that support cross-disciplinary general education curriculum development and assessment, or effective shared governance.

3. Each university will identify impediments to the alignment of the core and   institution-specific learning goals with campus environment and develop a   plan to remove impediments. These barriers might include misplaced  emphasis in the faculty reward structure, overemphasis on majors over  general education, lack of structure for campus-wide curriculum decisions, insular administrative units, or lack of consensus on assessment measures. Each university will address one comprehensive barrier during the project and develop a timeline for completing the removal of additional impediments. Participating universities may decide to focus on a common barrier during the project.

From September 1999-January 2000,From September 1999-January 2000, each campus will

1. Meet with a representative of its regional accreditation association to discuss the evolving institutional portfolio’s use in accreditation
2. Modify and document modification of the learning environment based on what it is learning in the project
3. Continue to focus on its hallmark practices, fully implementing and documenting them
4. Arrange a spring pre-audit with its IRB assigned member and members of the local community

From February 2000-July 2000,From February 2000-July 2000, each campus will

1. Modify and document modification of practices based on what it is learning in the project
2. Modify its portfolio as it develops information
3. Conduct a pre-audit of the portfolio with its IRB member and local QAAB Board
   

2. Phase II All-Project Activities 

1. August 2000 - The second annual summer meeting will feature analysis of the institutional portfolios. Each campus will bring six copies of its portfolio to the meeting. Prior to the meeting, the project staff will assign to small discussion groups formed for the purpose one or two cross-cutting problems that are evident, display of evidence, readability/usability, and adaptation to needs of multiple audiences. Groups will work on these problems at the meeting and prepare written reports with their recommendations about how to deal with them.
   
2. Also prior to the meeting, the staff will decide on consultants to work with the small groups and to help campuses address other problems at the summer institute. For example, if campuses wanting to achieve consensus on measures for assessment of critical thinking need help, Dave Porter from the Air Force Academy, which has done extensive work on developing instruments in that area applicable to military students, might be brought in. If representing institutional mission for the media is problematic, Rick Love of the Knight Foundation might be able to supply an educational journalist to consult with project participants.
   
3. The Urban 13 provosts have invited this project’s participants to report at each of the fall and spring meetings of the Urban 13 during the course of this project. Meetings could, therefore, be attached to both Urban 13 meetings. The needs of the project by that time will drive the content of the meeting, but certainly project participants will want to compare portfolio contents and format. Also the institutional researchers who are generating data will want to agree on their methods, interpretations, and presentations.
   

3.  Phase II Project Staff Activities

1. The project associate director will continue to be responsible for communication among the project participants, especially on the Web.
   
2. The project director will participate in each of the pre-audit meetings to collect information of benefit for all campuses.
   
3. The project staff will prepare for the publication of lessons from the project. Preliminary lessons from the project might appear in the AAHE Bulletin, newsletters of organizations and associations represented on the advisory boards, and campus newsletters. Plans will be laid for the monograph which will present the institutional portfolio model.
   
4. The project staff will consult with directors of the regional accrediting associations about ways to disseminate lessons from the project at the association’s annual meetings and board meetings which consider accreditation standards and practices.
   
5. The project staff will meet with SHEEO representatives about ways to incorporate lessons from the project into state indicators and performance measures.

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1. Between September and January, members of the IRB will read the institutional portfolios and conduct the on-site audit.  Each review will have an accrediting association observer.
   
2. Institutions will revise and refine their portfolios depending on conclusions from the review.
   
3. Institutions will continue to devise ways in which their protfolio can be used for various audiences and will share parts of the portfolio with those audiences for initial feedback.
   
4. Project staff will work with institutions to determine appropriate dissemination vehicles for the project model.  Possibilities include an AAHE monograph on institutional portfolios, workshops at regional and specialized accrediting meetings, hosting the annual Urban 13 meeting, presenting sessions at other higher education meetings (such as AACU, NASPA, ACPA, ASPA, and AREA), and presenting sessions at meetings of disciplinary associations.
   
5. The project will culminate in a day-long conference preceding the June 2001 AAHE Assessment Conference.  The NAB, the IPRP, project staff, and participating institutions will all report on outcomes of the project.  Invited participants in the all-day conference will include members of audiences who will benefit from institutional portfolios, especially targeting external audiences; however, an open invitation will be extended to people in higher education, especially constituents in urban public comprehensive universities.