As your provost, I have been gratified to see the passion with which our faculty and staff approach pedagogy and our goal of supporting the intellectual development of our students. Assessment plays an important role in those efforts because it helps us understand what our students are learning in our classes and helps us align our materials with these outcomes.  

To support the effectiveness of our approach to assessment, the Office of Educational Effectiveness in the Provost’s Office, in collaboration with University Senate leaders, is planning to develop an Assessment Council. A call for council member nominations is included later in this message.

The Assessment Council will be charged to focus on the development of campus-wide policies and procedures relating to academic assessment. This council will work closely with our entire academic community to help ensure rigorous assessment across our programs. This will begin with the goal of developing a process for non-accredited academic programs. To limit any duplication of efforts, accredited programs will be asked simply to submit their most-recent self-studies for this process.

At this time, I would like to invite faculty to nominate themselves to join the Assessment Council. If you are interested, you may indicate your interest through this online form.

I am confident that the Assessment Council, as well as more assessment initiatives developed in collaboration with our academic community, will support our collective goal of fostering a culture of assessment in which we are all able to best understand the impact of our instruction on our students and in which we can celebrate the success of our SBU programs through the accomplishments of our students. 

Sincerely,
Carl

Carl Lejuez
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs