Minutes
Meeting of the Assessment Committee
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Academic Affairs Conference Room (2122), Founder's Hall 3:30 p.m.
Present: Butler, Crocker, Cutler, Elliott, Jackowiak, Moore, Powell, Van Ingen, Wadkins, Wheeler, Wilke, Wozniak
Absent: Bishop, Hodge, Hoehner, Lomicky, Unruh
The meeting was called to order by Glen Powell, committee chair.
- The meeting opened with a welcome to Jon Wheeler, representative from Student Life. Wheeler is the most recent addition to the committee and will help in the effort to build links between academics and student life.
- Powell distributed copies of the 2004 Annual Assessment Report, which he just finished. He felt that January would be a good time to evaluate the previous year and plans to do the same in years to come, in order to have yearly installments of a narrative history of assessment for the time between the last NCA visit and the 2007-2008 NCA visit. Committee members were encouraged to review the report and notify him if anything seems to be missing or inaccurate.
- Butler reported that the student assessment committee met for the first time last week, with at least one student representing each college. The student assessment committee is an important step in developing an assessment culture at UNK, as it gives a voice to the students, who are involved in the assessment process on campus. The committee is chaired by Tanis Saldivar, Wozniak's graduate assistant. She is the only member that will be graduating this year, and before the end of the year, they will elect a new chair. They began by considering the pieces of assessment that the students were interested in and wanted to explore. They looked at the General Studies faculty survey and thought it would be profitable to conduct a similar survey for student perceptions of General Studies. They are currently in the process of finalizing the survey and contacting the General Studies Assessment subcommittee for review and approval and hope to distribute it before the end of the year.
- Butler has shifted her focus from General Studies assessment to Continuing Education assessment. She has begun working with Steve McGahan and Gloria Vavricka, and she distributed a copy of the matrix they have developed, which shows who is responsible for reporting particular data. They have started presenting this to the Continuing Education committee. The next step will be to write a plan and identify a period to collect data, with the first report expected in October of 2007.
- Wozniak distributed copies of the matrix he and Butler developed and explained the significant progress that has been made on General Studies Program assessment this year. He announced that as of July 1, he will no longer be Director of General Studies, and in the next few weeks, a search for a new director will be initiated.
- Powell briefly spoke to the Governance subcommittee, asking them to email him the list of assessment challenges they have identified as they work toward a commonality of interpretation in building the new strategic plan.
- Butler briefly spoke to the Report subcommittee, distributing copies of the checklist as well as particular UNK department reports the subcommittee identified in the last meeting as good examples.
- Powell distributed a list of the top 30 institutions as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. Twenty-six of the 30 use the NSSE, whereas only four of the ten institutions immediately surrounding UNK in the rankings use it. Cutler has been doing research about how to use the NSSE data, especially in comparison to other institutions. It is possible to purchase a data comparison report from NSSE for $345 that uses a customized comparison list. A comparison will be done with two customized lists. One list will be with top Midwestern schools and another will be with top schools from across the nation. These comparisons will be used to determine how UNK matches up with aspirational schools as well as to examine how those schools use the scores to facilitate planning.
- The meeting ended at 4:25, with Powell opting not to break into subcommittees this time, due to the length of the meeting and the absence of many members of the Report subcommittee.
Respectfully submitted,
Kim Elliott, Scribe
Glen Powell, Chair
