Improving the quality of the teaching-learning process and bringing out the best in students, faculty and staff are some of the hallmarks of the Continuous Quality Improvement Program at Penn State.

To improve the total quality of the University, students, faculty and staff work together in teams to study different processes, identify problems and find ways to improve them, said Louise Sandmeyer, director of the Continuous Quality Improvement Center.

Instead of an administrator trying to improve the classroom setting, the people close to the process --professors and students -- work on the teams, Sandmeyer said.

Carl H. Wolgemuth, associate dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Engineering, said there are three areas in which CQI focuses: the curriculum, the teaching and the learning and administrative processes.

Students play an important role on the CQI teams.

Jamie White (graduate-physics) said the student perspective is very important to the process of CQI. But it all comes down to the work of the group itself, he added.

"The bottom line is that it gives a group an opportunity to take data and figure out what will work," White said. "The team allows for significant changes."

Howard Grotch, head of the department of physics and CQI team leader for improving the teaching of physics for engineering students, said CQI works effectively to improve the quality of physics courses.

"We did a survey of students who have taken physics -- students in engineering, students who switched out of engineering, faculty and staff -- to find out how well we are teaching physics," Grotch said. "We came up with improvements for the program and are working to apply them."

Grotch's team is trying to set up a program for students "at risk" who should take remedial physics courses, set up a lab in mechanics to allow for more hands-on experience and involve students in recitation classes on a more active level.

"We have to try a lot of things to see if they work," he said. "Sometimes testing options is tricky and difficult to get right."

Laura Raiman, assistant professor of industrial engineering, includes CQI in some of her undergraduate classes and devotes an entire graduate class to CQI.

"I think it is extremely important, primarily to engineers, because everybody (in industry) is doing something related to it," she said. "Our students have been asked in interviews about CQI and whether or not they have any experience with it."

CQI is important in the university environment, as well as in business and private life, Sandmeyer said.

"If you know about CQI, you will be a better consumer of services," she said.

But CQI needs to expand in order to help students, Raiman said.

"I would like to see students take this to other classes," she said. "I think it would help to understand the University and how things work."