Assessment Steering Committee Meeting

Assessment Steering Committee Meeting

Minutes

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

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11:00-12:00

AMC- Mississippi Room
Type of meeting / Assessment Steering Committee
Facilitator / Jim Sherohman, University Assessment Director
Note taker / Holly Evers
Attendees / HCOB: Carol Gaumnitz Cont. Studies: Patricia Aceves
COE: Elaine Ackerman Academic Affairs: Mitch Rubinstein
COFAH: Wendy Bjorklund Undergraduate Studies: Amos Olagunju
COSE: Maria Womack Graduate Studies: Melanie Guentzel
COSS: Joe Melcher Student L&D: Jim Knutson-Kolodzne
LRTS: Chris Inkster Institutional Research: Kim Oren
Gen Ed: Vacant Student: Vacant
Guest: CETL: Dan Wildeson

Topics

Approval of Minutes of April 22, 2009
motion / Motion to approve minutes – Joe Melcher
2nd- Jim Knutson Kolodzne
Motion passes unanimously.
CHAIR’S REPORT
discuss / Jim Sherohman reported the following:
·  Holly Evers emailed the committee information about the potential new HLC accreditation process. It includes two components: compliance and improvement. The compliance section portion will consist of regular submissions to an electronic portfolio, and the improvement portion will consist of goals and achievements, like the Assessment Academy or Foundations of Excellence.
·  CLA in the Classroom still has seats available.
·  Dr. Sherohman will respond to the Assessment Academy regarding the conference call this afternoon. Committee members are asked to review the draft response, if they have not, and respond to Jim directly after this meeting. The conference call will take place on either a Monday or Thursday. Members were asked to let Jim know, if they would like to participate
·  Changes to the assessment report templates and guidelines have been emailed to college assessment directors. The assessment office is attempting to create uniformity amongst all of the forms. New forms will be sent out to college directors and department chairs.
·  Chris Inkster reported that the Faculty Senate approved a motion stating, “No one, including the Assessment Committee, should be beginning or soliciting participation in any new process to align courses to the proposed but unapproved General Education curriculum.”
·  The Peer Consultant Trainers met earlier and established dates for the upcoming year’s applications and training:
o  Application deadline: September 8, 2009
o  Training dates: October 1 and 2, 2009
o  Fall Peer Consultant Retreat: November 3, 2009 (afternoon)
o  Spring Peer Consultant Retreat: March 26, 2009 (morning)
OTHER REPORTS
Elaine Ackerman reported that her contract is not being renewed. She further stated that she has enjoyed working with the committee on assessment and in other areas for the last four years.

COMMITTEE BUSINESS

discuss / Position Paper
Jim Sherohman stated that he would not finish the draft position paper this semester. He will work on it this summer, so the committee will be able to review it in the fall.
motion / n/a
discuss / BES Programs
Dr. Sherohman asked the College Directors if the list of BES Programs that they had been given were accurate. College Directors reviewed the BES assessment reporting criteria.
motion / n/a
discuss / Assessment of Assessment
Jim Sherohman reminded the committee that part of our commitment to the HLC Assessment Academy is the assessment of assessment. As a consequence, the committee discussed how to assess assessment at SCSU. It was agreed that the college assessment committees that have not yet begun providing feedback to programs on their assessment plans and reports should develop a plan to do so next year. Each college committee can decide how it would like to do this. The college assessment director will coordinate the process. Committee members can decide to provide the feedback themselves, or they can request assistance from faculty members from outside the committee with relevant assessment experience, such as assessment peer consultants. The committee’s feedback will be supportive and confidential. The feedback is intended to recognize progress and to help programs use the assessment process more effectively to improve student learning.
motion / n/a
discuss / Convocation Workshops
Dr. Sherohman reported to the committee that assessment will be proposing the following workshops to CETL for Convocation:
·  Jim Knutson-Kolodzne will coordinate a session on Student Life and Development’s new “Student Voice” assessment tool.
·  Sandy Johnson will organize a session on CLA in the Classroom
·  Jim Sherohman will organize a session on the 2008-9 Assessment Grants
·  Joe Melcher will organize a repeat of their successful session “Linking Course Level Assessment to Program Level Assessment” (with Grama Rangamani and Sandy Johnson)
motion / n/a