One of the things that I love about working in higher education is the balancing act between cultivating creativity and innovation while still reinforcing tradition and history. Our students are every day grappling with the past in order to push into the future. As educators, we try to get our stud…
In the field of student affairs, we know assessment and data-based decision-making are important. A key step in the assessment cycle is reporting: sharing results and decisions with stakeholders. In the Center for Student Engagement (CSE) at George Washington University, we set out to improve how we…
At the end of the spring semester, I sent a survey to Student Affairs Staff at my institution to get information about their professional development needs in the area of assessment. In addition to asking directly about those needs, the survey also posed some questions that were indirect indicators…
Recent posts on the SAAL blog have examined the importance of intentionality in the assessment cycle. The posts hit on one of the most significant hindrances to good assessment practice in student affairs work, specifically, that assessment initiatives require intentionality to be effective. Unfortu…
The first assessment project that I ever worked on took me down a rabbit hole. It was a major survey project that asked our first year students about their experiences during their first semester on campus. Not only did we wind up with a good response rate, but we also had a number of dedicated pa…
Working with graduate students is great. There are a host of reasons for this, but one primary reason for me is that they keep you on your toes professionally. They ask tough questions that drive one to reflect on one’s own practice, think critically about the use of theory, and adopt different lens…
As data and assessment become more important across the university, making strong connections and collaborations with key partners should be a top priority for every Student Affairs assessment professional. My colleague and fellow SAAL blogger, Melinda Stoops, shared her view on The Power of Coll…
I’m not a programmer, coder, and/or software engineer. Sometimes I wish I was - the magical things that can happen when one understands the inner workings of creating things that work for computers is something I’ve always been impressed by. However, since I’m not a computer marvel, I’ve found great…
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” (Helen Keller)
I recently sent a survey to all Student Affairs employees at my University. Within minutes, I received an email from a staff member reporting that she completed the survey, but had difficulties with a specific questi…
A few years ago, I interviewed for my first job in student affairs assessment and to start the conversation one of the interviewers said to me, “So…you’re a data person.” At the time, I did not know how to respond. Certainly while I was in graduate school I developed a strong background in quantita…
I was recently chatting with a colleague about performance measures. They were sharing with me a less-than-positive experience having been in an organization that used performance measures in connection with their strategic plan. As we spoke I was reminded that performance measures can be a mixed ba…
I was an assessment ninja.
As a consultant, I could swoop into a campus, help re-establish, re-evaluate, or refine their assessment practice, and leave unnoticed. Nothing left behind but happy villagers and the memory of a moment in time when data started to inform practice. My campus collaborat…
Recently, I was asked to talk to a K-20 partnership group about ways to think about student success that might exist in a “bigger picture” context that might go beyond our educational systems. This audience included administrators at our university as well as school officials such as superintend…
In the not-too-distant past, my family and I spent about a year of our lives immersed in the experience of Hamilton. This included listening to songs from the musical every time we got into the car, a school project featuring Alexander Hamilton, an appearance of the Schuyler sisters in a talent…
As we continue to explore how we thread intentionality throughout the assessment cycle, we reflect on our selection and use of assessment measures, analyzing and sharing results, and utilizing results towards data-driven decision making and improvement. Within each stage of the later half of the ass…
A term we frequently start with when hosting assessment trainings or workshops. While we teach about assessment as being most effective when its integrated into the day to day work of our roles, what we oft…
Simon Sinek is known for his philosophy of starting with why. When writing this post, we thought through our why. Why do we do assessment work? What makes us tick in this field? How do we help others engage with assessment practice in meaningful ways, even in the face of limited resources …
I still have many notebooks stored in my office with weekly “Work To-Dos” with subheaders of “Events,” “Advising,” “Assessment,” and “Diversity & Dialogue.” In my role within an Office of Student Activities, I coordinated and led the department’s assessment processes, and additionally created and fa…
Student learning is messy. Developing a culture of evidence and effectiveness can be messy. Assessment is messy. Our cycles and double-looped spirals make is seem so tidy, but assessment is not research. We are not bound by the Scientific Method many of us learned growing up. For many, what we hope …
Gathering around a table, real or virtual, with assessment practitioners to discuss the trials and triumphs of assessment work in student affairs is a powerful experience; it is also how the idea for this blog was developed. Each month, the SAAL Professional Development Committee (PDC) comes togethe…
