December 1,
1999
Report to the Faculty from
the Assessment Task Force
Pursuant to the mandate by
the PSC Strategic Plan, Goal XI.A.5, to wit, "develop and recommend an
administrative structure for operations of the assessment program," this report is our initial attempt to
suggest such a structure. It is our
hope that the faculty will give this suggested structure some thought during the
remainder of December and also January and give feedback to the Task Force. We realize that there are many effective
models for administering assessment because we have surveyed a number of them
from comparable institutions. The
hard part about making a recommendation to you is that PSC operates under rather
severe budget limitations. In many departments there is a feeling that there are
not enough faculty lines to do our job right. Some would say there is a top-heavy
administration. However, if
assessment is to be done, some resources will be needed to support it. Whether this is to entail another
administrative office or release time for one or more faculty, the budget will
be affected and the greater is faculty involvement, the more "volunteer"
committee time we must give and the less time we have for our students. If we had a multimillion-dollar
endowment, we could easily make recommendations knowing that resources would be
there to fulfill them. Alas that is
not the case, so out of whose "hide" will the resources come? We will have to wait and
see.
Here is our first suggested
administrative structure:
1.
Assign responsibility for
assuring that outcomes assessment is carried out to the office of the Dean of
the College or Associate Dean.
2.
Create an Assessment
Committee composed of faculty, appropriate administrators (e.g. Dean of the
College, Registrar), and students.
This group would have the role of overseeing all campus-wide assessment
projects. They would decide on such
matters as 1) the college goals to be assessed in any given year, 2) the
method(s) to be used in such assessment, and 3) how the assessment would be
integrated into the academic calendar.
They would also disseminate reports to appropriate groups on the results
of assessments. Such reports would
include raw data, some interpretation and probably suggestions for changes in
our academic process. The actual
administration of assessment instruments (if any) would be handled by personnel
from the Dean's Office. Proper
operation of the assessment process would have the dual roles of providing input
for our continuous quality improvement process and also providing evidence to
our accrediting agency of our dedication to such a
process.
3.
Departments would be
expected to carry out assessment of the outcomes of their programs as a part of
the existing program review process.
That is, assessment should be ongoing in departments so that adequate
data will be available when the program review takes place every six years. Departments would have full flexibility
to decide what types of assessment methods are most appropriate for their
programs, remembering that assessment is best done by multiple methods rather
with than a single instrument. They
should be able to depend upon the Assessment Committee and administrative
institutional research people for assistance and guidance as necessary in
planning and carrying out their assessment projects.
As
an addendum to this recommended administrative structure, the Task Force did
realize that Item D of Goal XI, does state that "The President shall consider
the feasibility of establishing and institutional research office to support the
college-wide assessment effort."
Task Force members are nearly unanimous (completely?) in the view that
the college needs better preparation and coordination of institutional
research. In the long run that
probably means establishment of an Office of Institutional
Research.
