ASSESSMENT

Priority Meeting Notes
February 17, 2004

Attendance: Frank DeSalvo, Jane Tuttle, Jonathan Ng, Diana Robertson, Sean McCarty, Emily Malin, Jim Daugherty, Ann Eversole, Vince Avila, Joann Keyton.

Next Meeting: March 2nd 1:30 – 2:30pm Provost Conference Room

Upcoming Meetings: March 16, March 30th, April 13th, April 27th In Provost Conference Room from 1:30 – 2:30pm

Notes:

Joann is checking with Jim Henderson at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs on their assessment initiatives: what worked and what didn’t.

Frank is going to check with John Wade of the old Student Affairs Research Committee to inquire about the focus groups they did with students regarding their awareness and assessment of student services.

We discussed the need to have students define student success is as well as the measures of student success that Dr. Roney shared with the staff in August. Jane & Frank will ask Dr. Roney for confirmation of those goals.

We agreed that the offices in student success contribute to success in both direct and indirect ways. We need to find a model that addresses the fundamental tasks of recruitment, retention and graduation. We began to frame a model that would ask offices to identify the areas that they contribute to (recruitment, retention, and/or graduation) and then whether they make direct or indirect contributions to the goals of Student Success.

From this model, we can have offices identify the programs/services that contribute (directly or indirectly) to each of the overarching categories (recruitment, retention, graduation) as well as to the success factors (currently have the August ones from Dr. Roney). From that review, the office could write down the programs they offer, then the objectives that they hope that program/service meets, and then assess whether the objectives are being met.

There was some discussion about having parents as part of the equation of measuring student success in the future evolution of the model but that wasn’t seen as a high priority for this group. Additionally, it was hoped that the model we develop could help offices identify future student needs or trends. Further discussion was about a normative model of evaluation or a deficiency model. Both have merit and could be helpful.

Finally we wondered if there were articulated standards for retention rates and timeliness to graduation rates and if knowing these would help offices plan. Since there are other priority groups dealing with these issues, we need to check with them to see if our work compliments theirs.

Joann volunteered to work on a schedule for testing our model with the directors of some offices. It was proposed that each work group member be responsible for interviewing the directors of two Student Success Offices. We will need to get the success goals before it is ready to go. We acknowledged that we would need to broadly define the three components areas of the evaluation (recruitment, retention and graduation).

At the next meeting we need to check calendars and see who is available for the scheduled March 30th meeting.

DRAFT GRAPHIC OF MODEL