The University currently has 19 administrative centers with permanent staffs and facilities, three associated with the central campus, 15 administered by the School of Continuing Education, and one, Athens, is a branch campus. Five of the SCE Centers are Residence Centers located on military bases in California and Alaska, four five are regional campuses in California (also known as Professional Development Centers or "PDC’s") serving southern California counties (and San Fernando Valley), one serves Education programs throughout California from its PDC base in Upland, one PDC serves non-traditional-age undergraduates on the central campus (CAPA), and one is ULV’s Distance Learning Center (ULV Online).
Although each center is designed to meet the specific needs of the students in the location it serves, they all share certain characteristics. All centers, except the ones in development, have a full-time director, academic advising staff, and support staff. All centers, except ULV Online, have offices, classrooms, academic computer centers, and appropriate laboratory facilities. Students at all centers can utilize Wilson Library through an 800-number and FAX, access the Wilson catalog and numerous library indexes online, and read hundreds of journals in full text on their own computers. All centers link directly into the University’s central student records system, and all are connected by telephone, FAX, and by modem. The academic programs of all centers are directed, supervised, and monitored by regular contracted faculty, and all centers offer courses taught by regular contracted faculty as well as part-time faculty. In addition to their close connections to academic departments, the academic deans, and the Vice President for Academic Affairs, all centers are served directly by such centralized offices as Accounting, Alumni Relations, Data Processing, Financial Aid, Human Resources, Payroll, Placement, and the Registrar.
Linked to the 19 administrative centers are some 100 satellite classroom sites in hospitals, public schools, businesses, police departments, and other facilities convenient to students where they meet for class, some of them in Asia and Latin America. Most of these sites are administered by SCE administrative centers, but about 20 are the meeting places of central campus Doctor of Public Administration and Doctor of Education clusters. These sites depend on their administrative centers for counseling, libraries, computers, and scheduling. Typically, they consist of no more than a classroom where students and faculty meet for class, and where academic advisers and registration clerks visit on a regular schedule. Communication between the administrative center and central campus departments, on the one hand, and the site's students and faculty, on the other, is generally by telephone, FAX, and post.
The educational cluster sites operated by the Doctor of Public Administration, Doctor of Education, the Education Department, the Philosophy and Religion Department, and the School of Business and Economics are primarily single-program classroom educational sites, and their quality management is addressed in Part V, Quality Management for Programs. Few additional site-specific QMS questions remain to be asked about these sites because they are essentially classroom locations for a general program administered from the central campus. Quality is assured in the D.P.A. and Ed.D. programs by the active participation of regular contracted faculty in every classroom and in all other phases of the programs. Quality is assured in these and the other programs through overlapping QMS procedures applied to the courses, faculty, schedules, and programs at these educational sites. To some extent, this is also true of the educational sites administered by the SCE Education and SCE Health Services Management administrative centers because they also are single-program centers where regular contracted faculty teach, and they are supervised closely by full-time program chairs.
Most SCE administrative centers, however, offer more than one program and are more than classroom sites. With permanent administrative and classified staffs, regular faculty, multiple program offerings, libraries, textbook operations, advising services, commencement exercises, and more, they are, in some senses at least, semi-independent branch campuses of the University. For this reason, additional QMS procedures are necessary and appropriate to evaluate these centers (including their satellite educational sites) as a whole, separate from and in addition to the evaluations made of courses, faculty, programs, and other features of the centers. Consequently, the procedures contained in Part VI relating to off-campus educational sites apply primarily to the 14 SCE administrative centers. CAPA is largely unaffected by these procedures even though it is an administrative center, because its central campus location means that it is constantly being observed and evaluated and it has ready access to all the facilities available to central campus programs. Similarly La Verne College of Athens, which has an Associate Dean and a score of regular contracted faculty in residence, carries out most of the communications and review functions on an on-going basis.
The University wants all academic departments with programs or courses offered at a center to be in regular contact with the center's director and faculty. Regular contact includes not only telephone, FAX, post, e-mail, and other forms of communications; department, regional, and other meetings; and personal visits in both directions; but also the appointment of faculty liaisons, program chairs, special assignment faculty, and department associates assigned to specific administrative centers.
2. It is the responsibility of the Vice President for Academic Affairs to see that all faculty, regular contracted as well as part time, and all administrators at SCE administrative centers have access to FAX and e-mail communications.
3. It is the responsibility of the Vice President for Academic Affairs to see that every administrative center has at least one special assignment faculty or department associate in residence or at least one faculty liaison assigned to it.
b. Centers in California outside the LA area are linked with department associates.
c. Centers in California with sites both inside and outside the LA metropolitan area are linked with program chairs who act as faculty liaisons. Business and Health Services Management are also linked with department associates, and these two as well as Education are also linked with full-time faculty who regularly teach off campus.
d. Centers outside California are linked to central campus academic departments with special assignment faculty.
b. For departments responsible for programs or courses offered at a particular off-campus center but which do not have special assignment faculty, faculty liaisons, and/or department associates assigned to the center, it is the responsibility of the department chair and appropriate program chairs and faculty specialists to keep in touch with center directors where the courses/programs are offered and with faculty who teach these courses and in these programs.
6. It is the responsibility of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the deans to promote and support annual university-wide meetings of part-time and regular contracted faculty in each discipline and center-wide faculty meetings attended by contracted faculty from academic departments.
Each visit becomes a center review, either formally or informally. Depending upon the visitor's speciality and responsibilities at the University, center reviews are tailored to promote collegiality and the mission of the University. Central campus administrators generally visit off-campus centers with specific tasks and goals in mind, as do center directors who visit the central campus. Faculty are often asked by the Vice President for Academic Affairs and/or the dean(s) to review particular aspects of certain programs, specific part-time faculty performance, or the adequacy of classrooms, libraries, labs, and other facilities. When program reviews are being conducted--and particularly when the University is preparing for visits from WASC, the Teacher Credentialing Commission, the California State Bar Association, or another outside accrediting agency--complete formal site reviews are conducted by visiting faculty and administrators using guidelines set down by the appropriate outside agency.
The QM Office maintains a database of the major center visits and reviews.
2. All administrative center directors plan and budget for visits to the central campus at least annually. Directors of centers in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area make weekly or semi-weekly visits to attend meetings, meet with faculty and key administrators, and conduct ULV business. Directors of California centers outside of the L.A. region generally visit the central campus for meetings, retreats, and workshops four or five times a year. Directors of centers in Athens and Alaska generally make annual visits.
3. Regular visits for collegial reviews, faculty meetings, and workshops are planned and budgeted for faculty liaisons, department chairs, program chairs, and faculty specialists. Such faculty in departments heavily involved in off-campus programs usually make four to five visits to off-campus centers each year. Most of these visits involve both program reviews and site reviews.
A visit by the Program Chair of International Programs, School of Business and Economics, is scheduled to review ULV's programs in Europe at least once every four years.
4. When travelling faculty visit Europe or Alaska, the University endeavors to schedule visits to ULV centers there for collegial reviews, meetings with faculty and administrators, and reviews of libraries, labs, and other facilities. ULV supports such visits, and the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the deans, or department chairs provide guidelines for the reviews.
5. Whenever the opportunity arises for central-campus faculty to teach at an off-campus center or for special assignment faculty to teach at the central campus, academic and financial arrangements are made to facilitate faculty exchange. In Business, Education, Health Services Management, and Public Administration central campus faculty teach in off-campus programs each term. Generally speaking, one special assignment faculty member teaches at the central campus each year.
6. Deans, department chairs, and center directors are jointly responsible for arranging and supporting meetings of each center's faculty at least twice a year and for seeing that regular contracted faculty attend these meetings.
7. The Vice President for Academic Affairs and the deans are jointly responsible for convening and supporting a university-wide annual meeting of part-time faculty and seeing that contracted faculty faculty in appropriate departments attend.
8. When trustees express an interest in visiting centers, arrangements are made to facilitate a visit.
9. The Director of QM is responsible for maintaining a database of site visits.
The addition of a satellite educational site to established administrative center is generally an administrative decision for the center director with the concurrence of the SCE Dean. The center director must inform the academic department and the Vice President for Academic Affairs. The new educational site must be reported in ULV's annual report to WASC; in some cases a substantive change report needs to be submitted.
The addition of an administrative center or a satellite educational site outside the United States presents additional legal, cultural, administrative, linguistic, and financial problems that make them, as the Chinese character for crisis implies, both an opportunity and a danger. Consequently, when working in foreign countries and U.S. territories, additional precautions must be taken and safeguards instituted beyond those required for centers and sites within the 50 states. Special care must be taken no matter whether La Verne is setting up its own program or site or is entering a joint venture with another institution or group.
b. A detailed budget for the center
outlining the estimated revenues and expenditures for the first three years,
covering all of the following:
2). Equipment specified by the faculty responsible for the programs to be offered at the center laid out in an itemized list, including rentals, if necessary. This may include overhead projectors, computer display devices, and student-accessible computers.
3). Library facilities. Library support for the center should include a percent of revenue (minimum 2%) committed to building a collection and providing access for students and faculty.
4). Facilities rental.
5). Recruitment.
6). All other items needed to run the program.
d. A complete description of the programs to be offered at the proposed center.
e. Résumés of key personnel (including part-time and regular contracted faculty who will teach in the program and faculty liaison, department associates, and special assignment faculty, if any).
f. A marketing plan for the center, along with a cost breakdown for the plan.
g. A list of competitors in the service area with an analysis of how ULV will be able to successfully compete in the market.
b. If the new center is planned outside established ULV service areas or involves additions or changes to established programs, the Vice President will present the proposal to the Dean's Council and then to the department, academic affairs committee, or ad hoc task force of faculty appropriate to evaluate it. He will also set in motion WASC substantive change report. No such center has been established since the Encino campus of the college of Law in 1983.
c. The Vice President and SCE Dean will also take the proposal to the Executive Vice President and the President.
b. The Vice President of Administration and Finance, the President, and the Board of Trustees must approve.
c. The new center must be appropriately budgeted.
d. The director and other key personnel must be hired, facilities rented, equipment purchased, etc.
e. If the Vice President for Academic Affairs judges it necessary, a substantive change report must be prepared, submitted, and approved.
2. After consulting with the appropriate program chair or department, if necessary, the center director should take plans for the new educational site to the SCE Dean or his/her designee.
3. If the SCE Dean is concerned that a substantive change report to WASC might be required, he/she must consult with the Vice President for Academic Affairs.
b. It is the responsibility of the center director to prepare the substantive change report using WASC guidelines.
5. The center director or SCE Dean must inform the academic department and the Vice President for Academic Affairs of the addition of the new educational site.
6. The Vice President must include the new educational site in ULV's annual report to WASC.
2. In addition, the following must be addressed, either in separate documentation or as part of the basic requirements above:
b. The probable position that the government of the place will take toward the opening and operation of a La Verne center or satellite site within its jurisdiction and its recognition or non-recognition of degrees granted by ULV. Is the government likely to be sympathetic or hostile? Will it recognize ULV degrees?
c. The probable position of the US government toward the opening and operation of the ULV center/site.
d. The existing and probable competitors for ULV's programs in the land, both domestic institutions and other foreign schools like La Verne.
e. The program(s) which will be offered with substantiation that their content has been approved by the appropriate department(s) and their college(s) or school(s) at the central campus and that, in addition, the department(s) and the respective dean(s) have approved the offering of the program(s) outside of the United States at the proposed location.
f. The projected revenue return to the University.
g. The ease or difficulty in which currency can be taken out of the place. Can ULV bring revenue back to the central campus and put them into the general fund? If so, what are the procedures, limitations, and problems?
h. A complete outline of wages, salaries, and employee benefits, including legal requirements for disability, unemployment, severance, etc. What is the probable salary structure for faculty and staff relative to existing schedules at the central campus? What benefit packages are required and/or expected? What kinds of unemployment and other employee taxes must be paid? Can compensation be paid in the local currency or must it be in US dollars?
i. The responsiveness of the center/site and its programs to ULV's Mission.
j. The activities or proposed activities of other ULV administrative and/or academic units in the place.
The deletion of a satellite educational site attached to an off-campus center, like the addition of such a center, is generally an administrative decision by the center director with the concurrence of the SCE Dean. The center director must inform the academic department and the Vice President for Academic Affairs of the deletion. The deletion must be included in ULV's annual report to WASC.
2. If the Dean agrees, the matter is taken to the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Vice President of Adminis-tration and Finance, and the President.
3. If all agree that the deletion is required, the center director prepares a detailed plan for the orderly shutting down of operations. The plan must include provision for current students to continue towards their degrees.
4. If the SCE Dean, the vice presidents, and the President approve of the plan, it can be put into operation.
5. The SCE Dean or his designee is responsible for informing the appropriate faculty bodies of the deletion.
6. The Vice President for Academic Affairs is responsible for seeing that a substantive change report is prepared and submitted to WASC, if necessary.
2. If the director and dean concur, the site may be deleted.
3. The center director or SCE Dean needs to inform the academic department and the Vice President for Academic Affairs of the deletion.
4. The Vice President must include
the deletion in ULV's annual report to WASC.