10. Public Disclosure
Wesleyan is a leading liberal arts university with a long record of academic achievement and a commitment to innovation in curriculum and teaching. Wesleyan's print and online communications fully and accurately describe the university, its programs and facilities to audiences of students, prospective students, and other members of the interested public. Our publications are updated annually to ensure their currency. We are committed to publishing in a clear and accessible manner all information that is relevant to informed decision-making by these constituents, as per the revised NEASC standard.
Wesleyan has a good, thorough, and accurate catalog that describes its educational mission and objectives, expected educational outcomes, the curriculum, major courses of study, co-curricular opportunities, academic regulations (including requirements for degrees and policies related to transfer of credit) and courses offered over a three-year period. It describes policies governing leaves of absence, withdrawal, readmission and refunds of tuition. The catalog includes a full roster of current faculty, including departmental affiliation, title, degrees held and institutions granting them. University officers' names, titles, and highest degrees attained are included, as are the names of trustees. The catalog is updated and republished annually.
Wesleyan publishes exhaustive course listings online. A powerful online tool called the electronic portfolio enables students and their faculty advisers to plan individualized courses of study utilizing the online database.
Wesleyan publishes an annual directory of faculty and staff. Our annual online student handbook describes academic regulations, academic resources, administrative offices, student life resources, student activities and governance, regulations concerning student conduct, and other University policies.
Wesleyan’s admissions material describes the curriculum in detail and highlights opportunities for students to undertake in-depth research projects across the disciplines. It includes information about the size and characteristics of the student body, the campus setting, the range of co-curricular and non-academic opportunities available to students, and the institutional learning and physical resources from which a student can be expected to benefit. Wesleyan publishes a financial aid brochure that describes the availability of aid.
Wesleyan has published most of the following information on an ad hoc basis, in order to inform decision-making about its programs. In the spirit of the new NEASC standards, it will make publish these data annually:
- Statements of success of students in achieving educational goals, as these are developed by the faculty.
- Rates of retention and graduation and other measures of student success.
- Expected amount of debt upon graduation.
- Principal affiliations of the governing board.
Wesleyan increasingly uses its web site as a communications vehicle with all constituencies. All information about Wesleyan published in print form is available online as well. The Wesleyan website has won praise for its navigability, and we continually incorporate user feedback to improve its functionality. We are developing an online catalog of information available about the University, as well as a mechanism for addressing online inquiries.
In the past two years, Wesleyan has created two online newsletters—one for the campus and the other for alumni—to keep constituents abreast of the accomplishments of students, faculty and alumni, as well as briefed about institutional strategy and direction.
Over the past four years, have refined Wesleyan's visual brand and extended it to the web, as per the recommendation contained in the last reaccreditation report.
As part of our effort to create public understanding of and support for liberal education, and for Wesleyan in particular, we continue to place stories about our teaching and research in the general media. We systematically comb the academic departments in search of stories, as well as faculty who can serve as experts on issues in the public domain. Our analysis of Wesleyan's news placements mirrors the scholarly and research productivity of our faculty in that it far exceeds that of our peer institutions.
