Academic Affairs

NEASC (www.neasc.org) had a daylong event in Boston on Tuesday to more or less do a reality check about public disclosure, assessment, institutional effectiveness and, oh yes, accountability. The meeting was equal parts helpful and frustrating. My frustration was with my colleagues who still can’t get beyond what they see as the unfairness of the accountability movement. It’s here, it’s been here, it will be here. (And I don’t think for a second that any leadership changes in D.C. will have a dramatic impact on all this.) We simply must play in this world, and no amount of complaining is going to change that. I’ve vented, and now I’ll move on.

People on campus have asked me about my bulldozer push into the world of assessment. I should note first and foremost that I advocate for assessment because I think it is the right thing to do. I have seen departments and programs reinvented in miraculous ways when the faculty came together and embraced assessment. I think we have a responsibility to measure what our students are learning and how effective all of our units are in meeting the outcomes we set for ourselves.

The external forces are huge here, too. There is nothing inherently wrong in the people who fund us (legislators, taxpayers, parents and students, themselves) holding us accountable. Without a doubt, much of the work on accountability in higher education has failed to consider the goals and processes of higher ed. But the goals are not insidious.

If I’m pushing for better assessment on our campus, it’s because I think it’s the right thing for us. If I’m pushing particularly hard, it’s because of the external forces at play. The Secretary of Education is applying huge pressure for colleges to get their act together around assessment. But in the end, it’s not just politics, it’s pragmatism. Our NEASC visit is right around the corner. We’re fast coming up on the self-study. We need to demonstrate that we have a command of institutional effectiveness and that we are making improvements based on the information we’re collecting. And so we shall.

I think we actually have a solid infrastructure in place. As we’ve prepared for the 4-credit conversion, we’ve revised all of our programs and made them assessment ready. Awesome! We’ve been doing a fair amount already. Much of what we need to do is better coordinating of work we do and institutionalizing these processes. And, of course, people are in very different places around this.

Which brings me to the helpful piece of the NEASC meeting. Demonstration of institutional effectiveness is still largely driven by the institution itself with the guidance of the regional accrediting body (in our case, NEASC). The meeting on Tuesday gave us better guidance and some options. I will write about the Voluntary System of Accountability being promoted by AASCU and NASULGC, but I’m impressed with how the VSA helps us to frame and control the debate. The current report is worth a read (http://www.nasulgc.org/vsa-8-31-06.pdf).

So, we don’t have a choice. That really doesn’t matter because it’s the right thing for Keene State College, and this is the right time.

Tags: academic priorities, accountability, assessment //