Case Study
In 2002, Marie was commissioned to do a study; institution was cut 48% budget. Need to get accreditation by Middle States; could no longer meet requirements of admissions. ON warning from Middle States; lost about 200 people, 150 faculty; about 50% loss.
The survivors became a bunch of heroes…doing twice as much to make up for the 50% loss. Little authorization to recruit to replace.
In 1995, Middle States accreditation was successful. Crash was shortly after this; So dramatic that it drew attention from Middle States. For 2002, needed to prepare for next accreditation visit. Must show that they are doing assessment.
Assessment became important because Middle States revised accreditation standards to give assessment the primary focus. This is an institutional assessment. There was incomplete understanding of assessment; confusion between assessment and evaluation.
Want to establish a culture of assessment from top to bottom: administration, faculty, and students. Many folks ran for cover. Assessment must be a way of being, not just a thing for surviving an accreditation visit.
People were asked to draw assessment plans; this means everybody, not just academics. So they decided to assess the administration also.
Pacific Crest called. Made a presentation for top administration. There was a dedicated faculty, but an administration in transition. So the team made the effort to get the new president to buy in to assessment. Attacking all points: top, faculty, staff, at the same time. Dan did a presentation to faculty about process education. The proposal is to make assessment at the core of development: faculty development and administrator development.
A more systematized approach needed. Pacific Crest solicited to help. Pacific Crest gave a teaching institute on campus. Example: a case study to show how to transform apathetic students. Proseletyzing the idea of assessment and constantly spreading the word is important. They have since had two more teaching institutes. They later organized a program assessment institute for administrators. They did learning to learn camps. These show how to apply process education to both traditional and commuter students. Examples included reaching incoming, perhaps marginal students. A number of other activities that put assessment at the center: university scholars series to showcase best practices includes assessment; a curriculum design institute where people develop precollege courses for high school students to receive dual credit and develop curriculum; faculty invited by Pacific Crest to attend events at other universities, such as science faculty to visit POLGO.
Who paid for Pacific Crest? University Academic Affairs through professional development funds.
Next week will be a research institute in the scholarship of learning. This fits the teaching institution nature of the university.
Tools: blackboard, flashlight (survey mechanism), use of mottos and slogans, calendar for assessment. Statements, examples, and case studies of the benefits of assessment.
New Paltz off campus institute for four faculty associated with program design. Brought in appropriate facilitators. The weight falls not on the facilitiator but on the participants. Shared resources among a number of institutions at these institute workshops.
Assessment is now more common in the program from top to bottom. Includes seminars, program assessment, course assessment (with a couple institutes). They developed templates for various functions. They make themselves accountable at all levels. They have developed forms and methods for documenting accountability.
Documentation has been done to create a record of progress on assessment. In the case of difficulties in understanding problems, administration uses assessment to make progress on understanding the issues.
Simplicity is a good idea; getting people to start is important. But quality is the longer term goal. There is a monthly reporting of status of initiatives and plans within the university. Assessment is important to these.
We don’t want to be POLICEMEN; We want to be ENCOURAGERS
We have a document: Institutional Measures of Effectiveness. This was generated and promulgated from the top administration. The top administration generated all the important elements of this document. This follows a methodology in our text reading. Importance of top administration is clear. The worker bees bought into this readily.
Other documents: Program Assessment Institute Work
Self Study Program Assessment System: a methodology for doing self assessment and self studies. There was a lot of struggle to get the table of measures.
This is an improvement over what we had before this process began. Assessment must be a tool for improvement, a tool to help people understand how they are doing things and how to do it better. Evaluation will be there from time to time.
Quality Assessment/Quality Improvement Team set up to look at university services recently. The presence of a mindset to do assessment proceeded immediately from the top in the Team’s charge. Still some work to do to improve the mindset about assessment.
What is most important? That is the question.
There is still a need for regular assessment; people should do self-assessment
Assessment culture: Middle States wanted to see evidence of how strong the assessment cultyure is.
There will always be mistaken administrators who think they have an understanding of assessment culture when they really do not. How do we improve that?
We must convince them that they do not have perfect understanding. We now require reports and periodic meetings to use assessment. We are evaluating those who think they have assessment and assessing those who understand it.
Where we deal with those hwo misunderstand, is there a way to use an SII approach with them? We really do attack the problem from an SII approach, using it directly. The administration is led into doing a true self-assessment, even without understanding or recognizing it. They must be prompted to do this, but they usually follow along with good questions and facilitation. They must be directly engaged.
Are you assessing without their requesting assessment? Yes, the idea is make them want to be assessed. This can be done with skillful use of SII.
Who is WE in this work? The self study group that began the assessment.
Was that group composed of folks from all places within the university? Yes, it was. Marie negotiated from the administration a concession to allow her to recruit her own committee. She asked people to come and serve, but they must be self-selected. She biased this self-selection by telling them that they are qualified and needed. She appointed them ambassadors to work on these particular issues; we prodded but people self-selected. Not everyone remained. A very young body….27 years of age average from across the university. Persistence in educating people pays off.
This is not the business of one person; it is the business of everyone at all places in the university. President appointed Marie to be part of the executive staff of the university. She became the link and prophet of assessment with a ready ear at the highest level. She gained a staff and had an office with an open door policy. There are people from all levels of the university involved in this office, including students. Buy people into the process.
There are two important causes of their success:
1. They were listeners; they let people take while gathering data.
2. Transparancy. There was no activity that led to questions about honesty. Everyone trusts them. This develops an enormous amount of informal power on campus.
Documentation is important. Get it in writing, regardless of initial quality.
They recruited experts from across the campus. Reflection is a big thing. Reflection
Shifted from self evaluation to self assessment by assessing writing and process that they were engaging in
They were under the gun. Every day, the newspaper printed a negative story on UDC, easily read by Congress. Average age of faculty is 62.
Shift in behaviors, energy, growth, morale, plans … Everyone on campus is astonished by the commitment and forward looking culture. A lot is due to the use of assessment at all levels
What is the result of your accreditation visit? The team gave us excellent ratings WE had two recommendations: They should not be a line item in the DC budget. Separate governance and more autonomy.
Do you have a plan in place to maintain this level of energy and enthusiasm? Yes, we have generated an action plan to be taken; observation by visiting team and their recommendations; we work with the city government and administration to maintain this. We have developed a strategic plan for the university as a whole establishing responsibility centers with budget authority. Soon there will be a retreat for Academic Affairs. Pacific Crest is involved in this retreat. At the retreat, all levels will be represented to develop their own program assessments.
Will Middle States continue to require assessment? Yes, and we have a continuous improvement track sheet. Each unit must document their assessments regularly and continuously. We must make a deliberate effort to insure that things do not fall through the cracks.
Questions from the audience: