Miami University Hamilton

Functional Mission Statement

Purpose

• Ensuring affordable access to the academic programs of Miami University to the citizens
  of Hamilton and Fairfield counties and to parts of rural Butler County.

• To provide baccalaureate courses and technical associate degree programs.

• To provide workforce education and economic development for the community.

Institutional Emphases

 

Access

Miami University Hamilton holds shared responsibility with the Middletown Campus for providing open access to higher education to residents of Butler, Warren, and Preble Counties.

The Hamilton Campus is a full-service campus.   It recruits, admits, and provides financial aid for students.   It provides academic advising, personal and career counseling, including assessment to ensure proper course placement.   Remedial and developmental education classes are offered to improve basic skills in English, math, reading and study habits.   In addition, the campus provides tutorials, individualized computer-assisted instruction and workshops to assist students having difficulty in particular academic areas.

Hamilton offers co-operative education for technical majors.   The campus also provides a wide range of non-credit continuing education programming through contract training, public subscription courses for professional and personal enrichment, and youth programs.

Students with disabilities and those who are economically disadvantaged, non-traditional, location-bound, and/or racial or cultural minorities have equal opportunity with better-advantaged, recent high school graduates to complete degrees which optimize their chances for attaining satisfying lives and profitable employment.

Hamilton, a commuter campus, offers carefully structured programs of lower and upper division course work fully congruent with main campus requirements, providing credit equal in every respect to credit earned at Oxford.

Academic Programming

 

The emphasis in academic programs is on baccalaureate courses.   The highest enrollments are found in elementary education and business.   Majors in the social and natural sciences contribute the next largest group of students.

Significant resources are devoted specifically to workforce education and to supporting the economic development of the community.   The number of technical associate degree programs has been increased substantially to meet the needs of area employers.   A cooperative education program provides work experience for students and helps employers with their staffing needs.   Approximately 22 percent of the students are technical majors in nursing, business, computer, and engineering technologies.

An extended University program provides courses to four outlying communities in the college's service area.

Program Quality

 

Local advisory committees help ensure that program offerings are appropriate to employer and citizen needs.   Significant resources are devoted specifically to workforce education, including continuing education courses, both by public and contract subscription, to improve work force skills.

Enrollments in individual courses and programs are tracked to ensure that the campus is meeting demand and to determine if there might be problems in faculty performance, curricular emphases, or marketing efforts.   Student evaluations of faculty and courses help measure faculty performance and the quality of course offerings.   Formal peer evaluations of teaching and course materials are held regularly.

The campus is developing a comprehensive outcomes assessment program, which will evaluate all aspects of the campus, both academic and service components.

The technical programs survey their graduates soon after program completion to learn about their employment, and again several years later to learn about their satisfaction with their associate degree program.

Instruction

 

The faculty evaluation and reward system reflects the primacy of teaching.   Salary increments are based first and foremost on documented teaching excellence.   Secondary consideration is given to contributions to scholarship and professional service.   Regular faculty teaches 70 percent of all courses.

Faculty development in the technical programs is mandatory to keep the curriculum up-to-date.   Faculty are expected to provide consulting services to local business and industry.

Access to MiamiLINK, the University Libraries' automated system, is provided to faculty and staff through networked office microcomputers and to library patrons through terminals in the library.

Public Service

 

Through its baccalaureate courses, technical programs, cooperative education, and continuing education offerings, the Hamilton Campus meets the needs of Southwest Ohio's businesses and industry, labor, social services, governmental agencies and K-12 education.

Continuing Education provides non-credit personal enrichment courses for all ages, from grade school to senior citizens.   Continuing Education courses include Business and Professional Development: Computers: College and Career Preparation: Personal Enrichment and Youth Programs.   Area employees, many with associate or bachelor's degrees, take advantage of continuing education courses for professional development and to update/enhance their job skills.   Children in grades 1-6 attend Kids in College, an enrichment program for highly motivated youth.   High school students attend college planning workshops and ACT/SAT test preparation courses.

Each year 60 to 75 occupational and professional development courses are offered.   Contract training programming of local business and industry focus on computer programming and software, programming languages, production and industry management and human resource development.

The campus also serves as a cultural hub for Butler County, offering a concert series, a campus theater group, and lectures and performances by visiting artists.

Constituencies

Constituencies of the Hamilton Campus include enrolled students, recent high school graduates, employers, alumni, businesses, industries, agencies, and K-12 education systems.

Strategic Goals

These goals are identified for the foreseeable future, not a specific five-year time frame.   Efforts to meet these goals are underway.   Many of the statements are more a description of a priority than a goal, since they will be on-going through the life of the campus.

 

• Hold tuition increases to the absolute minimum.
• Increase student recruitment and retention.
• Increase the availability of student financial aid.
• Improve opportunities for success for under prepared students.
• Increase linkages and service to K-12 faculty, students, counselors and parents.

• Continue to improve service to business, industry, labor, government, and health and social service agencies.

• Improve the campus's understanding of the needs of the service area and the service area's understanding of the mission of the campus and the programs and services it offers.