Standard 2.11 is nothing new for degree programs that are subject to program accreditation, but the majority of programs at big comprehensive universities are not nationally accredited.  These programs have largely based desired program improvement on what students have learned prior to, or at the time of, graduation.  Some may be using exit or alumni surveys, but many of these efforts do not actually collect post-graduation data on the appropriateness of a degree’s learning outcomes or the impact of learning on future educational, career, or civic success.  It may not even be post-graduation, and certainly not longitudinal.  Unfortunately, if a programmatic accreditor is not giving a detailed mandate, busy faculty are not going to take the time to ponder the value of adding another assessment lens, refining an existing one, or eliminating ineffectual ones as part of on-going assessment.     Sacramento State (CSUS) saw the value for all programs to consider what success looks like for its graduates, and the importance of building capacity to gauge that success and use data for improvement.  Furthermore, merely providing training would not achieve the needed shift in assessment culture and capacity around institutionalizing post-graduation efforts.  Trainings tend to devolve into cascading questions on why these strategies are not needed or do not work for a particular discipline.  Therefore, CSUS instead opted to create a learning community to engage faculty in a clean slate process.  This presentation will present findings on meaning of post-graduation success by degree, chosen data collection methods, deliverables to close the loop, and timelines to gauge impact.

Amy Liu, Consultant, Office of Academic Program Assessment (OAPA), CSU Sacramento
Amy Wallace, Associate Vice President for Academic Excellence, CSU Sacramento
 

Strategic institutional goals can be too abstract to allow adjunct faculty – who often have minimal exposure to goal-setting processes due to the part-time nature of their role – to see their direct contribution to the goals’ success. So, at institutions where adjunct faculty are the largest student-facing population, tailoring faculty development to build their understanding of and capacity to contribute to these goals helps ensure their engagement in important institutional work (CFRs 2.6 and 3.3). This session describes how a university employed the adjunct faculty voice to create an annual faculty development curriculum that drove measurable changes in instructional practice. Part of a spectrum of student support initiatives, these changes led to improvements in student retention.

Teresa Kuruc, Vice President, Faculty Affairs & ALO, University of Arizona Global Campus
Shawna Brown, Manager, Faculty Affairs, The University of Arizona Global Campus