Progress Reports

The strategic plans of both the Board of Regents and Iowa State call for evaluation and the development of performance indicators by which progress on stated goals and objectives could be assessed. To that end, an Annual Progress Report that includes data on key indicators of progress is prepared and submitted to the Board of Regents.

Iowa State’s current annual report to the Board of Regents includes an assessment of progress on 31 performance indicators. Included among those are:

• One-year undergraduate persistence rate
• Six-year undergraduate graduation rate
• Number of undergraduate students enrolled in a Learning Community
• Number of FTE students per FTE tenure/tenure-eligible faculty
• Three NSSE survey benchmarks of effective educational practice
• Diversity indicators of student population, faculty and staff
• Percentage of undergraduate student credit hours taught by tenure/tenure−eligible faculty
• Number of academic programs ranked in the top 25th percentile
• Number of National Academy members
• Number of new technologies licensed
• Sponsored funding $ per FTE
• Private gift income
• Average faculty salaries

As a subset of the overall measures of progress, a set of key benchmark measures serve to assess Iowa State’s progress on competitiveness with peer institutions. These benchmark measures represent various characteristics of the nation’s major land-grant universities, and have been developed with significant input from a representative group of institutions belonging to the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC).

Performance indicators for the 2005-2010 Strategic Plan have been adjusted to include:

1. Total Enrollment
2. U.S. Students of Color
3. Tenured/Tenure Eligible Faculty
4. Faculty Diversity
5. One-Year Retention Rate
6. Six-Year Graduation Rate
7. Student-to-Faculty Ratio
8. Class Size
9. Academic Challenge
10. Active Learning
11. Student-Faculty Interaction
12. Enriching Education
13. Sponsored Funding
14. Citations
15. Doctorate
16. Faculty Salaries
17. Iowa Sales
18. Iowans Served
19. Supportive Campus
20. Faculty and Staff Survey

Measures 1-4 relate to all strategic plan priority areas and goals. The next eight measures (5-12) focus on education, the first priority area of the University’s new strategic plan. They provide a measure of the institution’s progress in strengthening undergraduate, graduate, and professional education to enhance student success at Iowa State and beyond. Items 9-12 as well as item 19 are from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSEE), which annually assesses the extent to which undergraduate students are involved in educational practices empirically linked to high levels of learning and development. Indicators 13-16 relate to the University’s goal of increasing the number of graduate, professional, and research programs ranked among the nation’s best, and 17 and 18 measure the University’s impact on state economy. The final two indicators assess the quality of the University as a place to learn and work.

Benchmarking enables the institution to monitor progress and effectiveness in key areas and, in areas where progress is not evident, serves as a catalyst for improvement. The institution periodically evaluates these benchmarks, and, when appropriate, suggests additions or adjustments, particularly when a new Strategic Plan calls for such a change.