This year, the Vice-President’s Assessment Mini-grant fund was established. A request for proposals was drafted and placed on the AISL website at http://www.trinidadstate.edu/AISL/references/mg.htm. This link also contains the funded project proposals and the reports from the culmination of each project. Eighteen projects were reviewed and fifteen approved. This Assessment Mini-grant project dominated the work done by the Assessment Committee this year, working out the logistical kinks and working through the types of projects that should and should not be funded. For example, the English department requested funding to revitalize their GenEd portfolio evaluation process to include more adjunct; the project was denied on the grounds that this is part of the regular job description and so not appropriate for a mini-grant (see email discussion thread).
The Assessment Committee initiated the Strategic Goal, to
“Provide high-quality, state-of-the-art professional development
opportunities related to the arts of instruction and pedagogy, including
training on available, as well as new, technology.” This had become de-emphasized in
2005 and 2006, so the assessment chair planned and in-service presentation in
April 2007 and plans to present a more complete “How to” workshop
at the August 2007 in-service.
Assessment presentations will continue to be standard items at each
in-service.
Two other Strategic Goal initiated by the Assessment Committee are to (1) “Overhaul the Embedded General Education Assessments and get to 75% participation (counting both full-time and part-time faculty)” and (2) “Reach 100% implementation of Program Assessments.” A significant part of the Arts & Science faculty meeting in September 2006 was dedicated to a discussion of the existing GenEd assessments, wherein most divisions decided that they wish to continue with the same GenEd assessment effort one more year and then re-evaluate that process. Both of these Strategic Goals will be addressed at the August 2007 in-service.