Learning Centered University
Provost's Spring 05 Message
Provost's Fall 05 Message
WASC: PLANNING, ASSESSMENT, AND WHAT LIES AHEAD
CSUN’s proposal to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) for our next self-study is due in Fall 2007. This first part of re-accreditation must identify three themes that weave together two subsequent documents; the themes should elaborate on the University’s mission, values, and vision. Two years after the proposal, we submit a capacity study, called the preparatory review. It explains our capability and resources to meet institutional goals and to conduct assessment of our efforts. A year after that, we submit an educational effectiveness summary, a more detailed account of how we assess whether the institution is enabling students to develop in the ways that our mission implies. Including two team visits to campus, the process stretches over at least three years. (See the WASC Handbook.)
The emphasis on themes is about a decade old. In our last self-study, CSUN successfully used the theme-based format. This approach replaced formulaic questions that prompted universities to provide standardized answers backed up by canned data. (For example: We have X number of faculty, based on the CSU funding formula.) Now, themes reflect the mission of the university. Data, in turn, illustrate the institution’s capacity—both willingness and resources—to fulfill the mission. WASC expects that the themes specify the uses of assessment.
The capacity study has changed, too. Essentially, it replaced an array of institutional indicators that matched resources with expenditures and services; it was a snapshot of data, an inventory of indicators, that represented the performance of a university. Now, the capacity study is a bridge; through it we link where we are to where we want to go. Capacity is the means that we need to get there. We must explain how we will develop the means and how we asses those means.
The emphasis on educational effectiveness, which pervades the whole enterprise, is perhaps a decade old as well. When the WASC team visited CSUN in 2000, they expected to see—and saw— the beginnings of a plan to assess three themes: student learning and development, student engagement with the University, and the effect of technology on both. Now, WASC (like all regional accrediting agencies) is not satisfied with just a plan. Evidence from assessment is not enough, either. A university must demonstrate the use of that evidence to make change. WASC places a premium on direct evidence, not opinion surveys and not grades. Reviewers look for direct evidence that students synthesize the outcomes of the major, general education, and campus life. (Look under WASC Publications.)
This approach is not limited to the western region. North, south, east, west and central: accredited universities examine themes, capacity, and educational effectiveness. Accrediting agencies have adopted this approach because, first, planning and assessment are self-regulating mechanisms that allow universities to track how thoroughly they enact their missions. Second, planning and assessment answer the public call for accountability, without sacrificing institutional autonomy to the standardization of national testing. Third, planning and assessment constitute an ongoing institution research project: plans are the hypotheses, and assessments the empirical tests.
When we begin a more public planning process in ’06-‘07 that includes assessment and that drives change, we meet the expectations of WASC. We institutionalize checks and balances that preserve the integrity and autonomy of the university while answering the call to accountability.
During the coming year, we must write the proposal that is due in Fall 2007. But writing and honing the proposal require that we do other tasks first. We should have open dialogues about themes, capacity, and educational effectiveness. We also must organize for the multi-year study.
We have begun preliminary conversations. Assessment coordinators meet regularly. CSUN is planning an internal assessment conference for Fall 2006. Learning-centered forums have occurred here since ’01. And in ’05-‘06, we began to hold planning meetings and retreats—with faculty governance, department chairs, administrators and the University Planning and Budget Group.
We likely will consider themes such as the learning organization and student engagement with CSUN, as in the previous self-study. But we also will be drawn to think about changing resources, the quality of students’ preparation, and the appropriateness of our responses to both. Certainly, we have thought long and hard about student retention, culminating in an updated report for the CSU Board of Trustees in December, 2006. And in our last report to WASC, we said that CSUN would focus on using technology to enhance learning and development. Have we? Do we have evidence?
Implicit in all this is a big question: WASC will want to know, as should we, what it means to earn a CSUN degree.
So, re-accreditation can be purposeful if we accept two premises: first, the value of collective deliberation on mission and evidence that, in turn, informs action; and second, that re-accreditation is an institution-wide research project. We hope that you will join this process.
Harry Hellenbrand
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
California State University, Northridge
Summer/Fall 2006
