SEAHO Report - Fall 2021 - 13

FEATURE ARTICLES
Assessment - Unite!
Katie M. Lewis, University of North Florida
This past year, many professionals that are involved in the Florida
Housing Officers (FHO) identified a need to discuss a topic that is
often talked about yet is not as unpacked and critically examined
as it may warrant: assessment. We gathered around our Zoom
meeting, sharing our department's current climate on assessment,
where we responded to questions such as, " Where does
assessment sit within the department/division? " , " What tools
do we use? " , " What projects are in the pipeline? " , and " What resources
would be helpful? " Those immersed in assessment work
often emphasize the need (basically requirement) that assessment
should be factored into everyone's job responsibilities. While
there might be a designated professional staff member or campus
department whose primary focus is leading assessment charges,
a comprehensive assessment practice needs to include all of us in
some capacity. This acknowledgement during the meeting led us to
our next question - what is the role and functionality of assessment,
including an assessment committee, in a housing/residence
life department?
Professionals at different institutions across the state of
Florida would like to share with you some prospective, insight, information,
and practical assessment approaches used at our respective
institutions. Our hope is to reframe how we engage with assessment
and provide tangible take-aways for our fellow SEAHO colleagues.
Please reach out to any of our collaborating FHO members listed at
the end of the article for any additional questions, inquiries, etc.
How Does Assessment Show Up?
For this article, our definition of assessment stems from
Upcraft and Schuh (1996): " Assessment is...any effort to gather,
analyze, and interpret evidence that describes institutional, departmental,
divisional, or agency effectiveness. " The type of assessment
that we do in our work may assist in strategic planning processes,
informing decisions, securing resources, pinpointing issues to
inform practice, hold ourselves accountable to what our objectives
strive to accomplish, determine cost effectiveness, indicate needs,
measure participation, and demonstrate either effectiveness and/or
ineffectiveness (Schuh, 2009; Brady & Kennedy, 2019). Many of our
departments' assessment philosophies emphasize the strong framework
assessment provides by affirming the impact of our work, how
we make decisions, the direction we steer the department, and how
we guide student success.
Empirical data is all around us. In our roles, we learn from our students,
peers, leadership, and beyond. Many of us are likely contributing
to some part of the assessment cycle, whether we realize
it or not. One can explore and gather information from common
housing centered data resources including: Beginning College
Survey (BCSSE), National Survey for Student Engagement (NSSE),
13
RECOMMENDATIONS
/MANTRAS:
▪Before committing to an assessment
project, know your purpose
▪In our roles, focus on learning first -
satisfaction second.
▪Do not assess everything all the time.
Be strategic. Coordinate assessment into
manageable and digestible chunks.
▪Focus on useful data, rather than
interesting.
▪Expect to spend time on data and
storytelling - more than you think.
▪Start small. Plan less than you think you
can manage.
▪Do not ask assessment questions you
do not want the answers to. Do not
ask questions about things you cannot
change.
▪Utilize existing data that is already out
there - no need to double-dip.
▪Doing something is better than doing
nothing...unless you do not use it. Data
is not an egg, you can't just sit on it.
Collect data, report it out, share what
you're going to do with it, and then do
something with it.
▪Create an assessment calendar -
include timelines.
▪Assessment aesthetics - data
visualization is key! Play around with
platforms like Canva, Vimeo, and
Piktochart.
▪ " Frame assessment as an opportunity
to advocate for change and additional
resources. " - Paul Gordon Brown

https://www.kpcrossacademy.org/techniques/3-2-1/ https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_5W.htm https://www.kpcrossacademy.org/techniques/quotation-summaries/ https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/10-tips-for-building-effective-surveys/ https://www.rapidbi.com/stopstartcontinuechangemodel/ https://www.rapidbi.com/stopstartcontinuechangemodel/ https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/swot.asp http://library.acuho-i.org/inmagicgenie/catfiles/2012/04/standards_assessment_2012fnl.pdf http://library.acuho-i.org/inmagicgenie/catfiles/2012/04/standards_assessment_2012fnl.pdf https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/conduct-focus-groups/main

SEAHO Report - Fall 2021

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