Assessment Committee Meeting of January 21, 2011

Members Present: Dr. Bill Young, Education and Foundational Studies Department; Susan Auer, Humanities and Social Sciences Department; Leslie Henry, Director of Agricultural Extension; Dr. Andrew Thompson, Graduate Studies Department, and Dr. Ursula Gaertner OLC Administration, Verine White, Lakota Studies Department, Dana Jones, Business Department & Committee Chair, Deb Tobacco, Nursing Department, Crystal Paulson, Applied Sciences Department

Wocekiya was said by Verine White.

Meeting was called to order at 10:30 am, 1/21/2011 by the Chair. The agenda was presented and approved by consensus.

Old Business:

Old business from the prior meetings was discussed. The representative from each department related how they had applied the Lakota protocol syllabi review tool within their departments at the direction of Vice-president Giraud’s office. Motion by Ursula to attach the Lakota protocol syllabi review tool to the minutes of November 5^th to complete the committee’s action. Motion was seconded by Crystal. Vote was unanimous in favor. Motion by Leslie to direct the Assessment Director to post the tool to the OLC web site so that everyone including the public would have access to it. Motion was seconded by Andy. Vote was unanimous in favor.

The prior meeting minutes were then reviewed. Bill moved to approve the minutes of December. Motion was seconded by Susan. Vote was unanimous in favor of approving the minutes. The minutes of November were then reviewed. Susan moved to accept the minutes. Motion was second by Bill. Vote was called for by the Chair, and was found to be eight FOR, none AGAINST, one ABSTAINED, motion carried in favor of accepting the minutes of November 5^th. The minutes of October were then discussed. The minutes had been emailed and hand-delivered to the committee last year in November. Bill moved to accept the minutes, as everyone had sufficient time to review them. Motion was seconded by Andy. Vote was called for by the Chair, and was found to be six FOR, none AGAINST, three ABSTAINED, motion carried in favor of accepting the minutes of October 1^st.

New Business:

The committee discussed the review of the assessment policies in their entirety. The chair asked Andy to review the current policy for the committee members. He read the highlighted the policy in its entirety. Ursula then spoke about the need to use the policy # 77 to assess of both academic programs as well as non-academic support departments, such as the registrar, district performance et al, bringing them into the general assessment program of the College. Susan raised the issue of including the student based instructor evaluations as well. Ursula referred to Policies # 30’s, and others, where evaluation of college units was addressed. These included the Instructor evaluations (WEF’s, work evaluation forms). The Chair asked if Bill would work with Lenora Hudson of the Assessment Office to develop a list of all of the pertinent policies and areas for the assessment review. Bill would review the Assessment calendars as provided by Lenora in her absence. Ursula also commented that the various assessment reports in the calendar would need to be clarified as well. Ursula moved to table action on the review until the next meeting. Motion was seconded by Deb. Vote was unanimous.

The committee then reviewed the list of attendees for the NCA/Higher Learning Commission Assessment Workshop in Lisle, Illinois. The Vice-president selected the following attendees though a process of nomination and random selection. Faculty Ms. Susan Auer, Dr. Kiri Close, Ms. Christine Saramiento; Business Department Chair Ms. Lori Broberg; and Director of Assessment Lenora Hudson and Dr. Giraud himself. Thus, six faculty and staff were to attend. Deb expressed the committee’s thanks on behalf of all of the members for Dana’s efforts. Deb disagreed with the selection process and felt, in regards to OLC Policy, any representation of the committee should be nominated and selected by the committee

Susan then presented the Holistic Scoring report for the English 103 and 113 students. Pre and post subjective reviews of the student writing assignments were discussed. Results showed some improvement with most student papers rising from Level 1 to Level 2 and Level 3, although 45% of the students/papers stayed the same.

All business being conducted the meeting was moved to adjourn by Andy, Bill seconded the motion and the meeting was adjourned at 12:15 pm

Respectfully submitted, Andrew Thompson, Secretary