In 1994, Michigan Technological University (hereafter referred to as Michigan Tech or MTU) embarked on a new strategic planning process designed to increase the involvement of multiple University constituencies in planning for our future. After significant deliberation, we chose eight strategic goals to guide us in accomplishing our mission and vision. The self-study process required for reaccreditation by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA) provided us an opportunity to examine this strategic planning process and evaluate our progress toward the eight strategic goals.

Accordingly, we have designed our Self-Study Report around our eight strategic goals as well as around the five NCA criteria. We begin in Chapter 1 with an overview of Michigan Tech, including a response to concerns identified by the 1988 NCA Evaluation Team. In Chapter 2, we examine Criterion 1: Purposes. We proceed in Chapters 3–12 to examine the eight University goals (including two subgoals), with particular attention to the ways in which accomplishing these goals address all five NCA criteria. Accordingly, we have organized each "goal chapter" arond the five criteria, abbreviated as follows: Purposes, Resources, Accomplishments, Continuous Improvement, and Integrity. Each goal chapter concludes with an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to that goal, and an action plan for addressing them. Because we are developing our distance education potential, we dedicate Chapter 13 to a request for approval for institutional change.

These 13 chapters lay the groundwork for an overall evaluation in Chapter 14 of how well we meet the five NCA criteria. We conclude in Chapter 15 with an analysis of our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and an action plan for integrating the results of this self-study process into our strategic planning process.

Addressing the GIRs and Criteria for Accreditation

The General Institutional Requirements (GIRs), Basic Institutional Data forms (BIDs), and Federal Compliance Requirements constitute separate appendices (1, 2, and 3, respectively) to this report.

The Self-Study Process

The self-study process is discussed in detail in Chapter 1. A chart that outlines the structure and committee memberships for the self-study process appears in Appendix 4. A Resource Room was created to house documents gathered by various self-study committees and utilized in their reports. Appendix 5 presents the Resource Room classification system used throughout the self-study to identify the location of documents available for review on campus. Documents will be identified by number in brackets—for example, the Strategic Planning Document is identified as [2.1D1].

Because we have not organized this report around University departments, colleges, or schools, we provide self-study reports prepared by the five colleges and schools and the Office of Research and the Graduate School in Appendix 6. In addition, each academic and administrative department in the University conducted a self-study, and their reports are available in the Resource Room [2.6]. Extensive reports on each University goal, prepared by University Goal Committees, are also available in the Resource Room and on the world-wide web (WWW) site.

While we have endeavored to provide a Self-Study Report which is readable and concise, we recognize the limitations of print media in an electronic age. We invite you to read a more dynamic and graphic version of this report, with links to many university web sites which tell Michigan Tech’s story in pictures as well as words, at http://www.admin.mtu.edu/admin/nca/report. We will rarely, however, cite specific WWW links in this printed report, for editorial reasons. To access our Self-Study web page directly, please go to http://www.admin.mtu.edu/admin/nca.

Two comments on editorial decisions are in order:

• We have identified departments as follows: Human Resource, Information Technology, etc.
• We have adopted the following conventions for years: academic year 1995/96; fiscal year 1995/96; multiple years 1995–97.

NEXT