A New Day: A Comprehensive Assessment Strategy for a Division of Student Affairs

There was a period in the history of student affairs when practitioners could host their annual welcome events with few worries. There were the traditional concerns: Did we get the advertising out in ample time? Did we order enough tables? Will our student leaders return from summer break in time to represent their organizations?

Times have changed in our profession. It is no longer acceptable to assume that the event was successful, based on the number of student participants or the number of signatures received to join the Campus Activities Board. Today it is more critical to determine what students are learning by virtue of their participation in such activities. Student affairs professionals are realizing how essential engagement and learning are to the student experience and to creating a successful division.

It is a new day in student affairs with regard to assessment and learning outcomes. There has been a significant increase in the area of accountability and expectation, as they relate to higher education, from various stakeholders, (e.g., legislators, accrediting agencies, presidents, provosts, parents, students, etc.). As practitioners in our profession, it is imperative that we provide sound evidence to prove the impact of our programs on student learning and, ultimately, the contribution student affairs is making in support of the academic mission of our institutions. To that end, we must do this in a highly professional and credible manner.

We firmly believe that you cannot support the institution's academic mission and enhance a student affairs operation if you do not intentionally assess your success and failures. A culture where program and departmental review is the norm results in a more effective and student-centered operation and ultimately promotes a healthy and productive division with accountability and learning as common themes. In the division of student affairs at Northern Illinois University, we have employed two critical tactics to assist us in achieving the aforementioned goal: We have established a student affairs assessment office, and we have outlined a specific and comprehensive assessment plan to evaluate programs and services that involve students, faculty, and staff.

Student Affairs Assessment Office

A key aspect of initiating a comprehensive, division-wide assessment strategy is support for the model. Let us be clear: By "support," we mean personnel and other resources dedicated to promoting and leading the assessment strategy. We take very seriously the responsibility to support each of the 19 student affairs departments in their efforts to operationalize the assessment plan, and we have established an assessment office accordingly. The very existence of an assessment office sends an important message about the value of assessment and student learning within the operations of the division.

The division of student affairs benefits from this centralized assessment office by facilitating a systematic documentation of assessment activities, providing targeted coaching, and offering a student affairs perspective in campus-wide assessment discussions and activities. When a division is systematically documenting assessment activities, it provides assistance in identifying collaborative opportunities for measuring student outcomes. In this way, departments that might not otherwise recognize that they are conducting an activity similar to one in another department may be able to develop a mutually beneficial assessment project that ultimately documents a stronger impact on student learning.

This intentional effort to document assessment activities can identify local "experts" in various types of assessment, so that the divisional assessment office can make referrals and recommendations to others who are interested in similar projects. This allows departments to benefit from the experiences of others with similar intended student or program outcomes. Further, a division-wide perspective, which is achieved through the regular documentation of assessment activities, allows the division's leadership team to identify areas of student learning and service that are strong and those that could benefit from additional resources. Specifically, if we hope to achieve civic engagement as a divisional learning outcome, and we discover that few departments are designing assessment activities that document this learning outcome, we might be able to identify other areas that could benefit from pursuing this learning outcome, or provide assistance to areas that wish to document this student-learning outcome.

Besides a systematic documentation of assessment activities, having a centralized assessment office provides the benefit of offering individual or small group coaching in assessment projects. This, in turn, provides guidance with assessment activities from a student affairs perspective. No longer do student affairs staff members have to translate academic-affairs-focused assessment advice to their own areas of practice; instead, staff members can concentrate on their own strengths and receive assistance from colleagues who have experience in applying assessment activities and strategies to student-affairs-specific domains. This coaching also can provide individualized assistance to professionals, regardless of their expertise. Since staff members within student affairs have varying levels of interest and capacity to carry out assessment activities, having a centralized assessment office can assist in increasing staff competency in assessment activities. This allows all staff members, regardless of their current skills, to learn and apply more assessment activities to their practice.

One final benefit of supporting a centralized assessment office within student affairs is that it provides a student affairs perspective in campus-wide assessment discussions and activities. Through networking with other campus assessment professionals, and participating in the review of academic and student affairs assessment reports, we are able to contribute to the campus-wide discourse regarding measuring student learning, where ever that learning occurs. In particular, a student affairs assessment representative can inform faculty and other administrators of the work that we do to support student success, and of the on-going assessment activities in student affairs units. Additionally, participating in conversations with faculty and other administrators provides an ideal opportunity to learn from each other about the work that we all do to document what students are learning through their complete university experience. In this way, we work to ensure that the greater campus community considers the student learning that occurs in both students' in- and out-of-classroom experiences.

A Comprehensive Assessment Plan

This plan-referred to as the Assessment Strategy Grid—is rooted in the best practices promoted by Upcraft and Schuh (1996). These authors remind us that it is important to assess our functions holistically; student needs and satisfaction, faculty and staff perceptions, utilization of services, campus climate, and learning outcomes are all important measurements. The Assessment Strategy Grid, accompanied by instructional strategy sheets, plots the various assessment activities integral for the comprehensive assessment of a program or functional area. Most of the assessment activities are scheduled over a five-year period, with student learning assessment and utilization numbers captured annually. In the fifth year, the department summarizes its results in a comprehensive report required by internal university assessment procedure.

The advantages of a division-wide, comprehensive assessment plan are many. To begin with, the Assessment Strategy Grid paces the assessment activities of each department so as to avoid test or assessment fatigue. This approach assures that all departments are diversifying their review activities in the hope of obtaining a more complete and informative assessment. Additionally, the five-year format is user-friendly and strives to make assessment planning and responsibilities less overwhelming for department leadership. Directors and their staff are expected to focus on the scheduled assessment activities, and are encouraged to include them into their annual planning priorities. The grid is helpful in succession planning, as it creates clear documentation of what assessment has been completed historically, and what is scheduled and expected in the future. Finally, the Assessment Strategy Grid provides the division with a plethora of data to use in reports, to inform departmental philosophy, and to assist us in our service to students.

Closing Remarks

As student affairs professionals continually seek to identify the learning that occurs during the activities, services, and initiatives they lead, we advocate for a centralized, comprehensive assessment strategy to guide us during the process. Through the commitment of resources (personnel and monetary) and strategic leadership, we can (and should) weave assessment practices into the daily practice of our profession. With a top-down commitment and daily focus on this critical aspect of our work, coupled with a comprehensive strategy for departmental assessment practices, any division will find deeper meaning in its work, heightened respect in the academy, and a more informed approach to the critical decisions we make in our support of student learning and success.

References
Upcraft, M. L., & Schuh, L. H. (1996). Assessment in student affairs: A guide for practitioners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Author Information
Brian O. Hemphill, Vice President for Student Affairs
Brandi Hephner LaBanc, Assistant Vice President, Planning and Operations
Amy Franklin, Director, Assessment and Training