College Wide Assessment Plan
During the 2008-09 academic year, the Reaccreditation 2012 Committee and the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment revised and began implementation of an institution-wide assessment plan for the College. The plan is outlined in the following documents.
First, the "steps by years" document provides an overview of a larger, ongoing cycle of assessment for the College, breaking the work to be done into 4 steps that take place across 4 years. This strategy stems directly from feedback from our 2007 consultative visit from the Higher Learning Commission. As a result of this feedback, we divided the College into 4 groups (A, B, C, & D), with Group A members beginning Step 1 during the 2009-10 academic year. Each year, then, groups move forward in the assessment cycle. In 2009-10, Group A will be engaged in "identifying priorities/goals/outcomes and planning their assessment strategy". In 2010-11, Group B will engage in that same process, while Group A moves forward into the stage of "gathering evidence". And so on... In 2012-13 (our reaccreditation year), Group A will be in the final step of the cycle.
Set up as such, the cycle is intended to (a) reflect the ongoing nature of this work, and (b) help us "keep it small" (i.e., manageable). Our goal is to help departments / offices understand that this is an ongoing process of examining our priorities, raising questions, and collecting information to help us answer those questions and improve our practices.
Second, the "assessment cycle groups" document maps out the specific areas of the College and their places within the cycle.
