Conference registration

Welcome and opening remarks

Assessment Challenges

The unprecedented challenges for colleges to become more accountable for student learning outcomes has continued to grow even with the Obama administration. Accreditors are now under pressure from policymakers, employers, and the public to ensure that students achieve certain kinds of learning at an acceptable levels. How did we get here? What can we do now in response to increasing accountability? What are the external pressures and challenges on institutions? In this session, we will consider the range of forces impinging on higher education institutions and programs from both the outside-in (accountability) and the inside-out (upholding standards of professional competence).

• How has it come to this point?
• Where is it going?
• Public demand for more transparency

Break

Assessment for Accreditation and Improvement

How do you create an authentic culture of evidence for which improvement is the central tenet? How do you ensure that assessment adds value to student learning and also serves accreditation purposes? How do you benchmark the quality of your students learning? This session will address issues related to going beyond a compliance mentality and engaging faculty and students in assessment that promotes more effective teaching and more profound learning.

Networking reception (included in registration)

Continental breakfast (included in registration)

The Politics of Accreditation and the Drive for Accountability

Accreditation is increasingly "up for grabs" with government, regional agencies, and institutions increasingly in conflict over what colleges need to account for and why. We'll discuss how to frame these issues on and off campus to contribute effectively to the public discourse on demonstrating the value of higher education to students, external communities, and state and federal legislators.

Break

Tools and Techniques for Assessing the Quality of Learning

Selecting the appropriate tools for assessing academic programs and student learning can be challenging. In the past decade, a wide range of assessment resources have become available, including general and field-specific examinations and performance assessments, survey instruments related to student experiences, software tools and platforms for collecting and organizing assessment results, and benchmarking systems and data resources for external comparisons. This session explores the range of options available and examines criteria for deciding whether to use externally available tools and resources or develop assessment instruments and resources locally. Additionally, we'll discuss effective ways to involve faculty and students in selecting and implementing assessment tools and resources.

Lunch (included in registration)

Engaging Campus Colleagues

This interactive session will address obstacles to faculty engagement and techniques for overcoming them. You will identify those barriers and brainstorm how to overcome them.

Assessment for Accountability: Working up a Checklist

We'll discuss the value of an accountability checklist and begin to develop one for your institution. We'll also develop some pitfalls in creating checklists. A checklist from the New Leadership Alliance's certification project will be provided as an example you might adopt or adapt to your institution.

Break

Now What? How to Close the Loop

Following through on the findings from assessment is surprisingly difficult, yet this is where the real benefit to the institution lies. We'll explore the assumptions that get in the way of closing the loop, and then design an assessment infrastructure that supports follow-through right from the start.

Continental breakfast (included in registration)

Making Accountability Coherent

Authentic and effective assessment involves a range of activities by a variety of faculty and staff that take many different shapes and forms. Communicating coherently about these efforts to a range of external audiences is a significant challenge. This session will describe several frameworks for effectively organizing assessment activities on a campus for accreditation as well as for more general public accountability purposes.

Break

Final interactive session/wrap-up and final Q&A