Quality Enhancement Plan

What is a QEP?

A Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) is a core component of accreditation through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). Each university is required to identify a focused area to improve student learning or student success, develop a plan to address it, and assess its impact over time.

The QEP provides an opportunity to strengthen educational experiences across campus through intentional planning, implementation, and continuous improvement.

Our QEP: Foundations for Your Future

The current QEP, Foundations for Your Future, focuses on preparing East Texas A&M University students for success in the workplace and lifelong career management.

The initiative centers on three core career readiness competencies:

  • Career and Self-Development
  • Critical Thinking
  • Professionalism

These competencies are developed through meaningful, hands-on, and reflective experiences across both academic and co-curricular settings. Through these experiences, students identify their strengths, understand areas for growth, make informed career decisions, and build habits of professional excellence.

Goals

  1. Prepare faculty and staff to integrate career readiness competencies into curricular and co-curricular experiences
  2. Increase student engagement with career readiness competencies in curricular and co-curricular experiences

Student Learning Outcomes

Students who participate in QEP-aligned experiences will be able to:

  1. Identify personal strengths and areas for growth in alignment with clearly defined career objectives. (Career and Self-Development)
  2. Apply learning to new problems based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information. (Critical Thinking)
  3. Act effectively in a work environment by displaying dependability and accountability for one's own performance. (Professionalism)

Assessment Materials

To view these links, you will need to log in to Microsoft OneDrive using your @tamuc.edu email address (not @etamu.edu).

Resources

Foundation for Your Future QEP Grant

The Foundations for Your Future QEP Grant supports projects, activities, and initiatives that enhance student career readiness at East Texas A&M University. The grant is available annually to students, faculty, and staff to support efforts that align with QEP goals and student learning outcomes. Funding may be used for activities such as student travel, research projects, and career readiness programming.

Awards are typically up to $1,500 per project, with the possibility of additional funding based on the scope and impact of the proposal.

Criteria

Proposals should include:

  • A description of the project and its alignment with QEP goals and student learning outcomes
  • A clear explanation of how the project supports career readiness
  • Supporting rationale, including relevant research or best practices
  • Identification of the project category

Application Process

  • Applications are submitted annually through the designated application link – Click here to apply
  • The QEP Leadership Team reviews submissions and selects award recipients
  • Priority is given to projects that demonstrate strong alignment with QEP goals and measurable impact

FAQs

What are the SACSCOC requirements for a Quality Enhancement Plan?

SACSCOC Standard 7.2 requires that each institution have a QEP that includes:

  • A topic identified through institutional planning and evaluation
  • Broad-based support across the institution
  • A focus on improving student learning or success
  • Committed resources to support implementation
  • A plan to assess outcomes

Where can faculty and staff find information about QEP-aligned courses or events?

Please contact [email protected] and a member of the QEP Leadership Team will be happy to assist.

How was the QEP topic selected at East Texas A&M?

Beginning in 2018 and leading up to the university's 2024 reaffirmation of accreditation, the university gathered input from students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni, and local employers. These conversations aligned with guidance from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) career management, digital literacy, and oral communication as primary needs. Following the identifications of the top three skills that either were the most lacking from graduates (employers) or were the largest focus for graduates (students), a campus-wide survey identified Career Management as the top concern, and the QEP committee, representing all colleges and support services across campus, honed the final topic selection into our theme: Foundation for Your Future. The QEP focus on helping students create a Foundation for Your Future aligns with the university’s first strategic priority and goal: Ensure Student Preparedness.

This focus aligns with the university's strategic priority of ensuring student preparedness.

How has the QEP developed over time?

Foundation for Your Future launched in the 2024-25 academic year with the integration of career readiness into 122 courses. In September 2025, SACSCOC announced a review of the Principles of Accreditation to include a study of the QEP for relevance and to evaluate if it is meeting today’s needs. This review included taking action to temporarily hold all institutions harmless for their participation in the QEP during the study, for at least the length of the Principles revision, anticipated to conclude by December 2026.

In response to Year 1 implementation findings and in light of SACSCOC's review of the QEP requirement, the ETAMU leadership team initiated a strategic pause to evaluate lessons learned and reframe the initiative under a unified vision. The revised framework builds upon strong foundational work while simplifying implementation, enhancing assessment alignment, and deepening faculty and student engagement. The QEP remains grounded in ETAMU's institutional mission to prepare career-ready graduates through relevant, experiential, and reflective learning

Key updates include:

  • Transitioning from a focus on Career Management (original NACE 14 Marketable Skills) to a focus on Career Readiness to reflect NACE's transition from its previous 14 Marketable Skills model to its 2023 Career Competencies.
  • Refining the QEP SLOs to clearly align with core NACE competencies that reflect career readiness dimensions embedded across curricula and developed through experiential and reflective practice: Career & Self-Development, Critical Thinking, and Professionalism.
  • Adopting a streamlined assessment approach involving use of unified reflection prompts and rubrics for assessment of QEP SLOs.
  • Implementing Suitable for artifact collection and administration of the NACE pre- and post-assessments of core career readiness competencies.
  • Strategically restructuring QEP governance to accomplish Foundation for Your Future's central goals – 1) preparing faculty and staff to integrate career readiness competencies into curricular and co-curricular experiences, and 2) increasing student engagement with career readiness competencies in curricular and co-curricular experiences

The QEP continues to support ETAMU's mission of preparing career-ready graduates through relevant and experiential learning.

Committee Members

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