UM system introduces color-coded progress chart

Initiatives' progress will be tracked by green, yellow and red dots.

By Krystin Arneson

Published Feb. 12, 2010

UM system President Gary Forsee introduced a new plan to increase transparency and measure the goals set at last month's UM system Board of Curators meeting.

The chart of "system accountability measures" looks at data from the past several years on a variety of measures, such as student retention, applicant acceptance rates and diversity, and uses them as a starting point for future goals. The goals are listed as targets in their own column.

Forsee said the most unique thing about the project isn't the chart itself but the way progress is measured.

"The 'indicator' column will indicate progress made toward the three-year target with a colored stoplight," UM system spokeswoman Jennifer Hollingshead said.

A green dot will be placed in the indicator column for successful completion, a yellow one for "making progress" and a red dot for no progress.

This gives the university system a way to describe and convey the whole of what the institutions do, Forsee said.

"The main point is that there's a requirement, more so than perhaps ever, for the university to be very open and transparent in what we do for the state," Forsee said. "We're a very complex organization."

He said tough economic times have exacerbated the movement for increased transparency.

"This whole issue of outcomes is a way of saying from federal and state governments that we expect those who receive funding to show what you have done with funding," he said.

Faculty Council Chairwoman Leona Rubin said part of the benefit of having a standard tracking method for each campus is it's an easy way to provide data to the Board of Curators and state constituents.

"It helps to have data that is trackable over an extended period of time and that gets reported with a similar format," she said.

The team valued quality more than quantity when compiling the list of measurements and benchmarks, Forsee said. One initial challenge was narrowing down the options and ideas for measurements.

"You could list 500 measures and list so much data that you wouldn't have time to digest it," he said. "We spent more time trying to make sure we had the right categories."

Forsee calls the 80 measures that made the cut "meaningful reference points" designed to show substance and emphasize the four parts of the system's mission: teaching, research, economic development and service.

Each campus might be looking at the same types of measures, but targets have been custom-fit to each to reflect their individual characteristics.

Progress toward the targets will be reviewed annually and charted.

"Many of these measures are annual, so this will be kind of an annual snapshot," Forsee said. "I would expect that as the results come in there will be a conversation with the group who originally put it together."

Rubin said the measures would probably "speak for themselves," but some data might not be enough to really get an accurate view of progress.

"The important part was determining what measures actually correlate with progress," she said. "Some might still argue that these measures do not tell the entire story."

Additionally, some measures are missing targets, such as the freshman applicant acceptance rate.

"As a state school we accept all students that qualify," Rubin said. "The fluctuation (in benchmark data) therefore would represent the relative number of applicants that qualified, and you cannot really set a target for such a measure."

Forsee said nothing was set in stone with the system because this is its inaugural year.

"It will be a very interactive discussion, but the first year is a work in progress," Forsee said. "This year will be about becoming comfortable with this."