Finding A Voice

Welcome to the Southern Miss QEP (Quality Enhancement Plan)
Finding a Voice: Improving Oral and Written Competencies

The University of Southern Mississippi selected Finding a Voice: Improving Oral and Written Competencies as its SACS-designated quality enhancement plan based on input from the University community, alignment with the strategic plan, and demonstrated need for the project.  

The need for a comprehensive, institutional-wide initiative to improve oral and written communication skills was based on four factors:  percentage of students needing remediation in writing, national comparisons of scores on the CAAP exam in writing, graduate exit survey data, and new requirements in the general education curriculum for writing and speaking.

Upon a review of the literature and of best practices, the QEP Leadership Team worked with faculty from the English and Speech Communication to design three primary interventions:  faculty development in methods to strengthen students’ communication skills, the creation of a university Speaking Center, and the expansion of the Writing Center.  The plan also called for more effective assessment of oral and written learning through rating of student papers and presentations, faculty surveys, student surveys, and logs of student usage in the centers.

The University committed over 2 million dollars to the project in the first five years of the effort, including the development of speaking and writing facilities in Hattiesburg and the Gulf Coast.  The full QEP document as presented in 2006 is linked below.

QEP 2006-2007 (PDF, 103 pages)