| Headlines| October 16, 1996

Relevance of key performance indicators
survey questioned

A change in the way the provincial government measures performance means that much —

more attention will be paid to how students do once they leave the Post-secondary —

system. .

The focus isn’t just on n how many students a college can serve these days, but on how.

‘well those students are prepared for work or further study. aor vs
One of the first steps in this new direction is the provincial Key Performance Indicator

report, which includes survey results of recent graduates and others who have left the .

post-secondary system, and comparative rankings of B.C.’s colleges and institutes. ,
UCFV’s ranking in the 37 categories tends to be average among the 19 institutions,

. with a high of fourth in student satisfaction with the written communication skills they”.

learned, and a low of 16th in overall satisfaction that the main reason for enrolling was.
met. ‘ ; :

The UCFV administration, when asked by the | government to comment on this pilot
process, noted that it seems to have some flaws. They note in particular that the

difference in most categories between number one and number nineteen is So slight that

it renders the results insignificant.

“The indices are all so close to the norm (or provincial: average) that it is hard to s see
any noticeable significance in the figures, especially the rankings, ” noted President Peter
Jones in a letter to the Ministry. :

He also noted that the sample of more than 700 former UCFV students wasn’t broken

down into program categories, and that it’s unrealistic to lump a general studies student
in with a student in a more applied program when asking questions about whether studies
were relevant for employment. . ,

“Of course a welding student is going to say. that his or her training \ was very relevant
for their job, but a general studies student who later left the institution may not have
known why he or she was here in the first place, and so can’t honestly say that we
prepared them for a job,” Jones noted. “Thus smaller institutions with a very
training-specific focus are going to score higher in those sorts of categories.”

Jones also noted that the government has told institutions not to take these statistics

- too seriously yet, as it is still in the early stages of surveying former students and
measuring results. ;

Anyone wanting to review the survey can contact the President’s office at local 4608
or the Community Relations office at local 2819. :

Recycle! .

A reminder from a concerned employee:

- When you get a new computer at work,»
‘you can take the boxes to special recycle

' bins on campus (old Shipping/Receiving :
area or base of library ramp in Abby,
hallway i in the old building in Chwk).

When you throw them in the ordinary”
- garbage bins, they head straight for the. :
landfill.

~ Headlines deadlines
Headline Deadline
Nov. 5. Oct. 31
Nov..26— Nov. 21

Remember, if you have an event
‘to promote, Datelines comes out
weekly. Deadline: Thursdays.

Bookmarks I

It’s not enough to be able to read,
write, and do arithmatic any more.
Information skills such as being able

to use a computer and do research. -
electronically are also necessary if

you want to succeed in academia and
the world of work:

The UCFV Library will be.

" sponsoring a satellite telecast entitled .
Information Literacy: Restructuring
Learning in an Electronic
Environment on November 7.

-- Hannelore Rader, director of the ©
Cleveland State University library,

will discuss information literacy in

the context of restructuring learning -
-in an electronic environment. She will -
examine new models for developing
information skills in the electronic

age, integrating those skills into
classroom curricula, and techniques

for teaching information skills.

The satellite telecast will be held.
on Thursday, November 7, from 10
a.m. to noon in Abby G180. -

Please contact Mary Grace Grant
at local 4272 to register.

Amnesty at UCFV
Members of Amnesty International from
all over B.C. the Yukon, and the
Northwest U.S. will gather at the
Abbotsford campus Oct. 25-27 for their
annual regional meeting. .
This is the first time the group has held
its regional meeting in Abbotsford.. :
Political science instructor Ron Dart, : ©
former Pacific director for Amnesty and
still an active member, received a letter
from 1996 Nobel Peace Prize nominee
Mordechai Vanunu recently. The letter
had been written in April from Vanunu’s —

‘solitary conefinement cell in Ashkelon

prison in Israel.

Vanunu, a former nuclear technician,
is serving 18 years in solitary
confinement for revealing secrets about
Israel’s nuclear weapons program, which
Israel denies exists, to the media.

~ Amnesty International is a group that
works for the release of “prisoners of
conscience”.