Gavin Henning
Professor of Higher Education, New England College
In 1986, the year I graduated from college, one of the hottest books in bookstores (on bookshelves, not on Amazon since it didn’t exist then), was All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulgham. Throu…
The SAAL Blog is meant to be a place to highlight diverse voices and perspectives of assessment professionals from all skill levels. Over the course of the next year, you will hear from our blog writing team as we reflect on trends in assessment, respond to SAAL programs and events (i.e Structur…
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Education and assessment have always been an integral part of my professional life. I earned a BA from a teacher's college to become a secondary school teacher, followed by a master's in educational administration and a PhD in higher education …
“You don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you are.” Yogi Berra
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I have always loved the Berra quote because it is so true, and has been my experience in life. I am the “Grandma” on the SAAL Board, having been involved in a…
To take a leadership role in Student Affairs assessment, you have to be a pretty interesting character. First, you have to want to work for students as an advocate in advancing their experience. You need to be happy doing this by influencing the work of others. A lot of our success relies on other…
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“You’re a wizard, Harry,” explains Hagrid, saving him from the infamous cupboard under the stairs and escorting him to Hogwarts. After years of living with his Muggle aunt and uncle, wondering …
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I’ve always been hesitant to take on a leadership role for an organization because I fear not being able to give my very best to all of my competing personal and professional responsibilities. However, when I was notified that I had been nominated …
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Like many who find themselves working in student affairs assessment, I sort of stumbled into the field not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into. I worked in the creative fields of architecture and advertising befor…
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As I sat in our new SAAL board onboarding meeting, I could not help but think, “what in the world am I doing here?” Here I was, someone who has only been working professionally (at all) for one year, and my ex…
Eight years ago, in 2015, SAAL put out a call for volunteers to compile topical resources to aid student affairs assessment pros. Content was sorted into seven topics: assessment culture, assessment planning, consulting and critique, success criteria and targets, critical approaches and ethics…
My grandfather said, “agua es la vida,” which translates to “water is life.” It is a crucial factor in maintaining what we possess. As a Student Affairs Assessment professional, I use my farming background daily; with precision and conscientiousness, I work tirelessly to build future leaders who…
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We have received a variety of nominations for our new Board for 2023. As an organization built to serve you, we ask for 10 minutes of your time to read this email and engage with our election process to:
The SAAL Board is grateful to the community for their engagement during the past few months. It has been an exciting time as we make progress on the implementation of a new strategic plan, evaluating and updating the board structure, and aligning the bylaws with our future direction. While the bylaw…
Over the last several weeks, we have shared with our members and partners the strategic planning process that SAAL has engaged in over the last few years. As we launch a new organizational structure and re-align our purpose and goals with the current needs of student affairs assessment professionals…
The single strongest element of Student Affairs Assessment Leaders is the people that make up our organization. People are our greatest resource.
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The talent, curiosity, commitment and engagement of our commun…
One of the beautiful things about strategic and assessment planning is translating challenges into opportunities.
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The aspirations of our members and the challenges of our board have translated into three strategic focus areas and objectives. As you rea…
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Each of us has grown, evolved and learned from the changes influencing our personal and professional lives over the past few years. At times, these changes were planned, but many were not. Looking to the future for our organization and community, the SAAL boa…
This blog provides a summary of the data analysis and results from the 2022 open course that ran February – April 2022. Reporting this year resulted in 166 total pages (!) opening with a 5-page executive summary and followed by reports for the Welcome Survey/User Profile, Quiz Results, A…
As an assessment professional for the past five years, I have had the opportunity to experience several assessment cycles. We use the following assessment cycle visual to describe our efforts and the progress we hope to make on our campus.
When I first described the assessment cycle, it was t…
As we find ourselves in the month of May, it’s officially been one month since the 2022 SAAL open course ended. At the conclusion of the course, instructors typically gather to reflect on how the course went this year, spend the early summer reviewing course data, and then strategizing for course ch…
