ASSESSMENT OF MISSION AT CHRISTIAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

1. HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE ACHIEVING OUR MISSIONS? ASSESSMENT OF MISSION AT CHRISTIAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

2. GAY H. HOLCOMB, PH.D.Director of Institutional Research and Assessment ASBURY COLLEGE

3. Recent requirement of SACS • Focus on a learning outcome central to the mission of the institution • Become intentional about a critical element of its mission. • Broad-based involvement & support • Commit significant resources, able to sustain • Topic that institution becomes known for Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)

4. Academic Excellence & Spiritual Vitality Cornerstone Project • Holiness • Scripture • Stewardship • Mission Asbury’s QEP on spiritual vitality

5. Understand Cornerstones • Core Curriculum • Personally Value Cornerstones • Creation Care • Service Learning • Christian Mission & Stewardship • Increase Student Initiative Student learning outcomes

6. Capstone Course Assignments • Furnishing the Soul Inventory by Alidade • Case Studies of Exemplars • Chapel Survey • Alumni Surveys • Co-Curricular Involvement Survey & Participation Logs • Waste Audits • Mix of qualitative/quantitative & direct/indirect measures

7. Enthusiastic buy-in • Each Cornerstone tied to Mission • Each Stu Learning Outcome, Measure, Achievement Target tied explicitly to Strategic Vision • Impacts everything we do • Cornerstone Project approved by SACS in Dec • Initial phase – no data yet • Fully re-accredited by SACS in December 2009 At the heart of who asbury is

8. JOEL FREDERICKSON, PH.D. Professor and Chair, Psychology Department BETHEL UNIVERSITY

9. Institutions generally participate in national surveys (indirect assessment) and standardized tests (direct assessment) Use this existing data to assess your institution’s mission and core values Mining existing data

10. National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) • Cooperating Institutions Research Project (CIRP) First-year survey (from HERI @ UCLA) • College Senior Survey (CSS) Follow-up to CIRP • College Student Beliefs & Values Inventory (CSBV) from HERI • Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI) • Additional CCCU items are added to this survey. Examples of Surveys

11. Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP), from ACT Major Field Tests, from ETS Defining Issues Test (DIT): Measure of Moral Thinking California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) Examples of direct assessments of learning

12. Examine your institution’s mission, vision, and, if applicable, core values. Do an audit of the various assessments your institution is engaged in. Link the two together. Linking assessments to mission

13. 1e. Included diverse perspectives (different races, religions, genders, political beliefs, etc.) in class discussions or writing assignments 1u. Had serious conversations with students of a different race or ethnicity than your own 1v. Had serious conversations with students who are very different from you in terms of their religious beliefs, political opinions, or personal values 10c. Institutional Emphasis: Encouraging contact among students from different economic, social, and racial or ethnic backgrounds 11l. Educational & Personal Growth: Understanding people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds NSSE items: Bethel’s Core Value of Reconciliation

14. Had Serious Conversations with Students of a Different Race or Ethnicity than Your Own

15. Encouraging Contact Among Students from Different Economic, Social, and Racial or Ethnic Backgrounds

16. 74. Being on this campus is contributing to my spiritual growth. • 75.My understanding of God is being strengthened by classroom and/or campus experiences. • 76.Faculty, administrators, and/or staff are helpful to me in processing issues related to my faith. • 78.This campus provides adequate opportunities for involvement in ministry. • 79.Given where I am spiritually right now, this campus is a good "fit" for me. Student Satisfaction Inventory: Bethel’s Core Value of Christ-followers

17. Being on this campus is contributing to my spiritual growth

18. Students “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with their college in: Leadership opportunities • Since entering college you have: Participated in leadership training • Students reporting “much stronger” abilities and skills compared to when they first entered college: Leadership abilities • Compared with the average person of his/her age, student rated self “above average” or “highest 10%” in Leadership ability • Considerations noted as “essential” or “very important” in thinking about student’s career path: Leadership potential • Student objectives noted as “essential” or “very important”: Becoming a Community Leader CSS: Addressing the Leadership component of our mission

19. Comparisons with other 4-year religious colleges & all 4-year private colleges • Longitudinal comparisons for: • Becoming a Community Leader • Leadership ability CSS Analyses

20. Becoming a Community LeaderLongitudinal changes

21. Combining data from direct and indirect assessments. • CCTST indicates good growth in Critical Thinking • CLA results indicate poor growth in integrative writing • NSSE & CSS data indicate that students perceive that they are growing in critical thinking Core values: Learners & truth-seekers

22. Don’t get caught up in precise definitions (the “what really is critical thinking?” conversations) Focus on using a variety of exisiting measures to assess mission. Look for a convergence of evidence Summary

24. TIMOTHY DETWILER, Ph.D. Associate Provost for Traditional Programming Cornerstone University

25. Cornerstone University • 2650 Students • 1200 Traditional - 1000 Adults • 250 Seminary - 200 Seminary (Asia) • Began in 1941 • A faith-based institution • Grand Rapids, St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Detroit, Holland • Worldview, information literacy, civitas and spiritual formation mark the programs

26. Mission Statement University Assessment Plan Campus-wide Learning Objectives Core Curriculum Design A Specific Core Course

27. Mission Statement To empower men and women to excel as influencers in our world for Christ by offering a student-focused learning community where Jesus Christ is central. Cornerstone University

28. One of the main purposes of a mission statement is to guide decisions about organizational priorities in a systematic manner. Once an organization has identified what it wants to accomplish, it has to determine how to accomplish those things and how to measure the success of those activities. (Nancy Kidd – NCA Director) Mission statements

29. Effective organizations are the momentary results of constant reassessment and redesign. When the effectiveness of organizations is not tested, they rapidly tend to become unresponsive and inefficient. Rodney Stark

30. A public frame for the assessment efforts • Resonate deeply with the cultural memory • A stimulus to initiate change • Referring to a mason’s level • A leveling instrument or a plumb line • Placing our “stones” in order and keeping them in line Academics/Spiritual Formation

31. Mishqelet Project

33. Essays (pre/post experiences) Exams Experiential Aspects (self reporting/observational) Electronic Discussion Board (rubric) Journal (rubric) Capstone Project Portfolio “Civitas”Direct Assessment Methods

34. Student Satisfaction Survey (EFS, SSI, CSS) Experiential Reflective Journals Alumni Surveys Course Evaluation Forms Professional Evaluation of the Program CivitasIndirect Methods of Assessment

35. Link to mission Link to core curriculum learning objectives Link to the Humanities Division ENG 212 ENG 212 Writing In Culture

36. Institutional leadershave the major role in determining whether assessment results are important in making improvements. Unless top-level administrators believe that planning and assessment data are linked and important in strategic and logistic decisions, the assessment program in general will be brought into a dead-end. (IACBE) The Key to it all

37. The end of virtually all assessment activities (except for some accountability initiatives) is the improvement of student learning, campus programming and institutional enhancement – in other words “organizational development”. (Nichols & Nichols) Mission driven Assessment

38. Assessment is a strategy for organizational • Accountability • Distinctiveness • Accreditation • Effectiveness • Reflection • Development Organizational development

39. MORE IMPORTANTLY, assessment is a strategy for understanding, confirming and improving student learning and educational quality based upon an institution’s mission. Organizational development

40. Your Context Your Mission, History, Culture, Vision, Goals

41. Assessment is a matter of institutional responsibility, integrity, and mission.

42. DAVID W. KALE, Ph.D. Director of Assessment and Professor of Communication MOUNT VERNON NAZARENE UNIVERSITY

43. MVNU Vision Statement: An academic community of faith preparing Christ-like leaders for life long service and global impact. The purpose of this assessment project was to help students assess their own leadership development. In the process we wanted to see the degree to which institutional vision was reflected in student thinking about leadership. ASSESSING STUDENT LEADERSHIP

44. To achieve this, I worked with student leaders to develop a rubric with which they could assess their own leadership ability. I started by having all leaders list aspects of leadership they would like to use to assess themselves. I then compiled a master list with all the leadership aspects included in their lists. ASSESSING STUDENT LEADERSHIP

45. I then presented the total list to them and asked them to vote for five on the list they wanted to use to assess themselves. Based on their voting, I then constructed a rubric using their top five dimensions. You have a copy of the rubric I constructed in the materials which were distributed to you. ASSESSING STUDENT LEADERSHIP

46. As I have found in using this method of rubric construction in other settings, the method itself is an important assessment procedure. What aspects of leadership do our students consider so important that they want to use them in assessing their own leadership abilities? ASSESSING STUDENT LEADERSHIP

47. Compassion Empowering Communication – listening Honesty Empathy ASSESSING STUDENT LEADERSHIP

48. We were particularly interested and pleased to see compassion as the #1 leadership ability chosen by our students. This certainly ties in to the vision statement’s emphasis on developing Christ-like leaders. One of our staff members who had done his doctoral studies in leadership indicated that he had never seen a list of leadership qualities that included compassion. ASSESSING STUDENT LEADERSHIP

49. While we were very pleased with the orientation of the list toward empowering and meeting the needs of others, we also had some concerns with the list. Leadership characteristics such as problem solving, ability to motivate others and creativity came in between 15th and 20th on the list. This gave our student development staff some information about the kinds of training student leaders needed. ASSESSING STUDENT LEADERSHIP

50. Another concern we had with the rubric is that when the student leaders used it to assess themselves, they gave themselves very high marks right from the start. We therefore had a ceiling effect which negated our plan to have students assess themselves at the beginning and end of the academic year to chart their development during that time. ASSESSING STUDENT LEADERSHIP