ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE MINUTES
March 12, 2004
Room 149F
Members Present: Richard Birk, Beth Franz, Pete Grant, Diane Hipsher, Ross Justice, Doug
Kranch, Peg Moir, Kate Peresie, Ginger Perowitz
Visitor: Lew Milner
The meeting was called to order at 1:10 p.m.
The minutes for February 27, 2004, were read and approved.
Richard Birk noted his regret that the idea to include involvement in assessment in employment
evaluations ever came to a motion.
Ginger Perowitz gave her presentation concerning the implementation of assessment in the
Workforce Development area. The most significant problem has been how to integrate
assessment of communication skills in these highly technical programs. It is easy to get scores of
80% or higher in mathematics proficiency exams, especially in the Tool and Die program. But the
student do not write in this program. When they present their capstone projects, they will have a
chance to demonstrate their verbal communications skills.
Pete Grant pointed out that the students in these programs take technical English and advanced
technical English, and that a specialized rubric for these programs could be developed. There was
general agreement in the committee that the writing rubric already developed could be used. For
individual program assessments, some extra items could be added, such as “technical reports” as
a writing category.
The committee suggested using one major writing assignment, perhaps a technical manual, to
evaluate with the rubric.
Lew Milner announced that he had Radiological Sciences and PTA papers ready for testing the
writing rubric.
Lew Milner gave his presentation on the implementation of assessment in the Health Sciences
division. A handout is attached.
Respiratory care: This program has completed multiple assessment cycles. They have put
in place a step-wise process that students with entry score between 50 and 59 have their
courses more spread out, the lighter load resulting in a higher course success rate. With
higher entry scores, there are fewer load restrictions.
Physical Therapy Assistant: This program has also completed the assessment cycle.
Radiological Sciences: Assessment had to be changed since the accreditation group
changed its standards.
Massage Therapy: This is a certificate program with a new person heading it, so it is off
to a slow start. They will use the state licensure test and attrition (which is a little high) as
measures.
Human Services: This program is moving along nicely. By the end of the spring quarter,
they will have data. They will also have a curriculum review in the next 1-2 years based
on this assessment data. They are looking to put a written assessment component in the
last course in the sequence, which is becoming the capstone course.
Educational Assisting: This area does not have a full-time program director, and only
adjuncts are teaching. The goal of the program is still not clear. The focus in Ohio is for
articulation from this program to a 4-year program, not just creating teaching aides. We
also have a good transfer agreement with Ashland University. We are now better able to
come up with program outcomes. They will use the Praxis I as a general assessment
measure, not to assess the educational component, but as a measure of the students’
general preparation for articulation to a 4-year program.
Beth Franz gave her report on assessment in the Student Success Center. A handout is attached.
During the spring quarter, Bev Walker, Mark Monnes, Richard Birk, and Beth Franz will work
together to create reports using Crystal Reports and COCO. The answers to the 5 questions were
reviewed. Answer 4 recommended that the Assessment Committee propose a solution for this
problem of getting information from the college computer system. Answer 5: they want to have
focus groups (e.g., 2nd year students asked about their 1st year experience), facilitated by an
outside person trained specifically to facilitate such an activity. The focus group would talk about
more than just the FYE course and would include Student Services and other areas. Measure 6B:
Student Behavior Inventory. Currently, students take a pre-SBI at the beginning of the FYE
course and retake it at the end. In the future, the plan is to possible administer the SBI yet again,
in conjunction with the focus groups targeting the 2nd year students.
The committee discussed at length the need for extracting information from the college computer
system and interpreting it.
The training manual Mike Allen was to write was discussed. Pete Grant agreed that the manual
will be brought to the next meeting.
At the next meeting, the proposal for all college syllabi to contain method for assessing course
outcomes will be discussed, as well as how the committee will participate in the May 6 faculty
development day.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.
The next meeting will be on April 9, 2004, at 1:00 p.m. in F-148.