Building a Framework for Division-wide Assessments of Student Learning

Despite a broad literature base on activity- or program-level assessment, leaders in student affairs have few resources to support their efforts to build high-quality, sustainable, and division-wide assessment structures. Senior Student Affairs Officers (SSAOs) and their leadership teams are also confronted with myriad challenges and questions to address along the way:

• How do leaders in student affairs establish a common set of learning goals across the division?
• What steps help guide educators to deliver co-curricular programs, services, resources, and activities within their departments to support the attainment of common, intentionally-developed broad learning goals that align with the institution’s mission?
• What resources must be invested to ensure departmental leaders and educators have the skills and tools to develop meaningful assessments of their learning interventions and support structures?
• How do student affairs leaders and educators structure assessment across the division so results are adequately detailed to (1) guide the identification of strengths or improvements, and (2) ensure change is documented and stored for planning and accountability purposes?

The purpose of this live briefing is to explore the efforts of three different institutional environments to build high-quality, sustainable division-wide assessment structures. The panelists will describe the processes and practices involved in doing this work, discuss challenges embedded in this work, and provide tips to leaders in student affairs on aligning program, service, or activity-level assessments of student learning with division-wide learning goals.

Learning Outcomes

By attending this session, participants will be able to:

• describe key steps to develop sound, sustainable cycles of co-curricular student learning as measured by an end-of-session activity;
• describe how department-specific assessments help inform decision-making while demonstrating the attainment of division-wide learning goals; and
• apply best practices in division-wide assessment to develop high-quality, sustainable structures on their campuses.