Closing the Loop

This diagram came from Arizona State's assessment website
But, I could have made it myself. You don't have to look very far to realize that colleges and universities across the nation are talking about assessment.

By next Monday each program administrator and I will have reviewed program assessment documents, the ubiquitous ABC forms, for all the programs (22) in Arts and Sciences. As a result of our SACS team's visit on September 11, we are doing some fine tuning to our report and the supporting materials.

At the moment we are tightening our outcomes and the measures we have identified to evaluate them. We are clarifying the language. We are making sure that every measure listed on a C form has a criterion for success. We want to make sure that we know how to determine whether a student has missed, met, or exceeded expectations.

Is this closing the loop? Not yet. As the diagram at the top so clearly demonstrates, we will not close the loop until May when we look back at the data we collected, analyze it, recommend changes based on our analyses, and make the changes. So, we are almost an entire year away from closing the loop.

The same process is happening in the Core Curriculum. Very soon there will be a meeting of all faculty teaching in the Core. The assessment process will be the centerpiece of the meeting. We will show what needs to be collected and what sort of analysis should take place. The conclusions reached in May 2010 will impact content, form policies, and dictate pedagogies for the next academic year.

Assessment is neither meatloaf nor moonbeams--neither comforting nor visionary. However, there can be great satisfaction in doing it well. Embedded in the process is freedom. Knowing the truth from the data we collect gives us the impetus to chart our course for the future. We are actors not victims.

The School of Arts and Sciences has really embraced assessment. We are life-long learners, and we are learning the necessary techniques and entering the discourse community of institutional effectiveness. I have contended all along that anyone who would teach well does assessment through every semester and in every planning cycle. We teachers are always thinking about what worked in a particular class and why. And, furthermore, we make changes in content, methodology, and delivery all the time. We close the loop.

Full-Time A&S Faculty List...

..is finally up on the college website.

It's taken me all day, several false starts, and new directions in the middle of the process.

I used the information in the catalog, which I assume is correct--spelling, degrees, and titles.

Here's the link.
http://artsandsciences.king.edu/index.php?id=676

Let me know if you see any errors.

Experience. D.C.

“You fill up my senses, like light in a forest…”
Not quite…

Diesel exhaust,
Hot dogs grilling on a vendor’s cart
Popcorn,
Starbucks’ coffee brewing at a corner store,
Whiffs of perfume,
Nicotene addicts’ acrid effluvia.

Human voices speaking many languages,
Clicks of the heel taps at the Tomb of the Unknowns,
Helicopters overhead, wooka-wooka-wooka,
Jets screaming aloft at 2-minute intervals,
Birds calling in the quiet of Arlington Cemetery,
Sirens' urgency dulled by their frequency,
And the throaty rumble of traffic an auditory foundation.

Tourists with cameras and funny hats,
Looking up, snapping photos.
Men in dark suits,
Carrying briefcases, hurrying,
Women dressed classy, heels tapping pavements,
Inscrutable behind their sunglasses.
Joggers earbudded.
Poised impatiently at every crosswalk.
The city's servants--cooking, cleaning,
watering, weeding, serving, selling.
King students moving like snails,
Shod in flip-flops despite good counsel.

Surprising vistas—
The domed Capitol,
Monuments lit by sun-light or spot-light
Against skies' blues.
Bright flowers against green.
White gravestones in ordered rows,
Soldiers, sailors, airmen, policemen
Fit, uniformed, hair cut close.
The capital’s homeless in layers of clothing
No matter the weather.

Warm sunshine,
Cool breezes,
Whoosh of stale wind as a train streaks past
the Metro platform.

Tired feet,
Sore muscles.
Down comforter.
Senses overloaded.
Sleepy bus trip.
Home.

Thoughts on Faculty Self-Evaluation and Planning Forms

Feeling fossilized? Don't succumb! You are in charge of your courses, your scholarship, and your service involvement at King College.

Last week, in the space of four days, I read and responded to self-evlauation and planning forms from all full-time faculty in the school of Arts & Sciences—that’s 33 in all. Each one took me about 30 minutes to read and respond to. You do the math; that’s 16.5 hours—a lot of time.

Some of the forms are simply delightful to read. Our colleagues, the people we see every day, are doing and planning to do some amazing things. I wish I could share the great ones with you for several reasons. But, I can’t. Our community is too small. You would guess immediately whose was whose.

However, I would like to share my observations:

1. This form should be a persuasive argument for your re-employment to your supervisor and to all those up the line—School Dean, Dean of Faculty, Academic Vice-President, President.

2. The tone (attitude toward the audience) should be positive—honest and forthright. No whining!

3. Not every person can be stellar in every area; as Jesus said in his parable, take the lower seat and let the host ask you to move up to a more honorable position. Mark your check boxes as “Satisfactory” unless you are sure your effort is more than anyone else’s in a particular category.

4. Everyone should have plans for the up-coming academic year; it is really not acceptable to say you have no plans to improve or to change your courses, your service, your leadership.

5. It’s good to vary your style a bit from question to question—some paragraphs, some bulleted lists.

The self-evaluation form is a privilege. It’s our chance to talk about the vocation we love on our own terms. We should do our best so that we continue to enjoy the opportunity to tell our own stories in our own words. There are other sorts of evaluation that could be forced upon us.

Getting Started

Two instances recently (my online American Literature class during the summer and my attempt to mentor the KING 2000 mentors) have moved me to blog, and I like it so much as a way to communicate quickly and topically that I have decided to start a blog for you, the Arts & Sciences Faculty. This is a good way for you to receive updates from me.

I find that email is not as effective as blogging when I want information to be readily available for more than an instant. In less than a day, an email is lost and off your screen, but the blog is there whenever you choose to access it. If you bookmark the link, it’s a simple click away.

In the past I have done newsletters from time to time for distribution in paper form, but those take more time and energy for me to write and format. I get caught up in having just the right number of words to fit on the page, in deciding on the layout of my document, and in choosing the fonts and images to fit my space.

The blog is so simple! I can easily insert an image or even a video. The text is formatted for me. I can just write whenever I have something to communicate.

So welcome to my blog. I want you to have the comfort of quick information and to also glimpse my dreams for us—Arts & Sciences, the flagship School at King College

I am eager to share my thoughts, answer questions, and get your feedback as we move through the semesters.