No Man is an Island

1. No Man is an Island How to foster collaboration and teamwork in assessment Brigham Young University Dan Chandler Cynthia Wong Farris Child

2. Session Outcomes Attendees will: • Learn about the creation of the BYU Advising Assessment Resources Group. • Evaluate your campus dynamic to determine if this is something that could work for you. • Create a list of pros and cons about doing this on your campus. • Begin an action plan for how to create a similar group on your campus. FD

3. The Story • NACADA Assessment Institute, February 2013 • Now what? An idea emerges • Dialogue • Proposal • Advising Assessment Resources Group Summer Retreat • Monthly Assessment Meetings • Rotating Leadership DD

4. NACADA Assessment Institute, February 2013 • Any professional development experience can ignite the discussion DC

5. Dialogue • We valued the conversations during and after the sessions as the best parts • We wanted to continue those conversations • We realized we could learn so much from each other if only we had a venue to share • What should we do about it? CC

6. Determining Outcomes • Advisors on campus will have a means to work with others through the assessment process • Advisors on campus will create a network of advisors working toward assessment • Advisors will learn best practices in advising assessment through structured discussions CD

7. The Proposal • Form a university committee • Send someone to the NACADA Assessment Institute each year • Secure funding for a day long assessment retreat • Create a leadership structure • Chair Elect, Chair, Out-going Chair • Initiate monthly meetings to follow retreat DD

8. Provisionary Approval • The AARG became a group not a committee • Departments were left responsible for their own funding to the Assessment Institute • We secured funding for a day long retreat • The structure changed to: • Facilitator Elect, Facilitator, Out-Going Facilitator • Monthly meetings were approved DC

9. Advising Assessment Resources Group Summer Retreat • Get to know you activities • Vocabulary building • Group work to get to know each other better • Key note speaker • Break-out sessions • Creating/tweaking learning outcomes • Advanced assessment strategies • Lunch • Conclusion • Monthly meeting discussion • Explanation of future leadership opportunities • Invitation for continued collaboration CF

10. Retreat Assessment Results • 91% of respondents agreed that it was what they had hoped it would be. • 95% agreed that it was what it was advertised to be. • 100% agreed that they learned something new at the retreat. • 100% agreed that they were able to network while at the retreat. • We received mixed results about the content of the breakout sessions. • The feedback indicated that our wrap-up session could have been more succinct and part of lunch. FF

11. Retreat Assessment Results Overall Comments: I look forward to this group and I really hope we can use it to be hands-on and brainstorm together as a group. I think there is a lot we can accomplish if we actually can be concrete in what we spend our time doing. Good idea for the retreat. Thank you for putting this together!!! It was great, and I hope it continues. Ithought the retreat was very well-planned and executed. I would like to see the PowerPoint or any hand-outs that were given in the Assessment 101 session. Thank you for your efforts to provide informative and instructional information. I believe we have a lot more to learn and I look forward to the additional training. I am anxious to come to the next meeting. I think by then we will have cleaned up what we have and would like to have an opportunity for feedback. I appreciated both of you taking the initiative to put this together. The only thing I can say is carry on! It wasn't explained that this was an assessment group or committee in your advertisement, that it would entail monthly meetings. I enjoyed the retreat, but don't know that I have the time to attend monthly meetings. FD

12. Monthly Meetings • We used the NACADA Monograph, Guide to Assessment of Academic Advising as our textbook • We met monthly for one hour at the same time and location • We started meetings by having discussions on a selected chapter and then highlighting certain parts of the text to fill in time and build on understanding of topic DD

13. Monthly Meeting Assessment Results • Example of Need for Continuous Assessment • 80% of respondents said it was worth their time, and that they learned something new. • 70% of attendees thought that the meetings helped them carry out assessment more effectively. • We received overwhelming feedback that we needed to talk more about what was actually happening in our offices and less about assessment theories. • Respondents shared concerns that more people in our advisement community were not participating. • Some participants who attended felt intimidated by others’ knowledge of assessment. DC

14. Conclusions • Things we learned • Things we will do differently CD

15. Questions for Panel Cynthia Wong Facilitator Cynthia_Wong@byu.edu 801-422-2723 Dan Chandler Out-Going Facilitator Dan_Chandler@byu.edu 801-422-3862 Farris Child Facilitator-Elect Farris_Child@byu.edu 801-422-3042 Check out this presentation at http://ua.byu.edu/uaa

16. If this seems like something that would work for you… • What is the climate of assessment on your campus? • What is the structure of your campus and how does this help or hinder moving forward? • Who on campus could be a great ally in putting a group like this together? • What offices on campus already exist to help? • What administrative buy-in is needed and/or support needs to be gained? • Who specifically would you need to work with? • Who on campus would be hesitant to join? • Why? • What could be learned from their hesitations and incorporated to make the group better? DD

17. Pros/Cons, or is this really worth it? • Begin to create a pros/cons list of reasons this would or wouldn’t work. • If the cons list gets out of control ask yourself – Where am I getting my data points? • Make sure you figure out who is your biggest ally and begin the dialogue with them. DD

18. Create an Action Plan • What would I do Monday morning if I were going to begin this adventure? • Who would be the first person I would talk to? • Who are the people on campus who would be the most likely to be fully supportive and could help me in moving forward? • Who is the first administrator I need to talk to about this? • What would I say and/or write to them about this? • Who on campus might be the most opposed to this? • What could I learn from their concerns and how would I even broach the subject? • What next? Do I follow the model laid out in the presentation or is there some better way that I should proceed? DD