PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN A NEW KEY
THE NEW LEADERSHIP ALLIANCE FOR
STUDENT LEARNING AND ACCOUNTABILITY
DAVID C. PARIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, HAMILTON COLLEGE
OVERVIEW
This session introduces the New Leadership Alliance for Student
Learning and Accountability and several of its initiatives, including
the Presidents’ Alliance and Excellent Practice in Student Learning
Assessment.
VISION
The Alliance envisions a self-directed professional higher education
community that produces an increasing number of college
graduates with high quality degrees in preparation for work, life,
and responsible citizenship.
MISSION
The Alliance, an advocacy-focused organization, will lead and support voluntary
and cooperative efforts to move the higher education community towards
gathering, reporting on, and using evidence to improve student learning in
American undergraduate education. Through the promotion of shared
principles, recommended actions, and innovative initiatives, the Alliance aims:
•
•
•
To shape attitudes, practices, and policies related to gathering,
reporting on, and using evidence to improve student learning.
To promote the establishment of new professional norms for
gathering, reporting on, and using evidence of student learning.
To increase public confidence in the quality of undergraduate
education provided by American colleges and universities.
THE TWO QUESTIONS
(you should always ask!)
The history question: How did we reach this point, come to consider a
problem or proposal? What were people thinking when they developed
current arrangements?
The problem question: What is the problem for which this (policy,
proposal, organization…) is an appropriate response or even a solution?
In brief, the New Leadership Alliance emerged as a response to threats of
greater regulation of higher education and demands for greater
assessment and accountability in higher education. It proposes a new
professionalism in terms of norms, standards, and actions in gathering,
reporting, and using evidence to improve student learning.
A BIT OF HISTORYs. the Feds
A golden age (sorta) in American higher education (1945-1970): expansion,
opportunity/meritocracy, fiscal support, political deference, and selfregulation via accreditation.
Growing dissatisfaction (1970-2006): cost/waste, ideological antagonism,
constrained finances/tax resistance, new demographics, questions about
quality.
Reauthorizations as occasions for questioning higher ed.,
rethinking/considering regulation, e.g. SPREs in 1992-93, (the power of the
purse).
THE SPELLINGS COMMISSION AND
THE MOST RECENT REAUTHORIZATION
The Spellings Commission report (2006): A Nation at Risk goes to college
and flirts with No Child Left Behind (testing, testing).
The ensuing battle royal over who will exercise what authority.
Another narrow escape, Lamar Alexander and his warning, “If colleges and
universities do not accept more responsibility for assessment and
accountability, the federal government will do it for them.”
ESTABLISHING THE ALLIANCE
What are “we” going to do about the threat of regulation and the demands
for assessment and accountability (quality assurance)?
AAC&U/CHEA/Teagle meeting, June 2007: agreeing to create a principles
document.
January 2008: AAC&U/CHEA publish New Leadership for Student learning
and Accountability: A Statement of Principles, Commitments to Action.
May-October 2008: Now what? Who’s “we”? Starting an Alliance,
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/10/13/teagle
Teagle/Carnegie support—the Alliance is incorporated, March 2009.
THE PROBLEM
A decentralized, diverse, diffuse industry: American exceptionalism.
Autonomy as a blessing and a curse: a 19th century regime facing 21st
century demands.
Undergraduate learning and the Gandhi problem.
THE PROBLEM CONTINUED
The tensions between assessment and accountability (Ewell, 1987, 2009)
http://www.learningoutcomeassessment.org/occasionalpaperone.htm#OP
1Announcement
The dilemmas of a loosely-joined “system”:
• Compliance vs. Quality Assurance.
• Private Candor vs. Public Transparency.
• Assessment vs. Accountability.
• Difference vs. Comparability.
• “Trust us.” vs. “How good?” / “Show me.”
Tevye’s response to dilemmas.
WHAT IF “WE” GOVERN US?
Professionalism: expertise, autonomy, the public interest, and self-regulation.
AAUP 1940 “Statement of Principles”:
• The politics of self-regulation.
• Tenure: the academic as judge.
• Professionalism: the academic as scholar and its social context (the public interest?).
What kind of profession are we?
• The “scholar” in a future of mass higher education?
• “Major” (doctor, lawyer) and “minor” (minister, counselor) professions.
• Teaching as a profession (NCATE for higher education?).
• Higher education as a vocation.
A profession without standards? Assessment and accountability as paths to professionalism.
THE ALLIANCE (again)
The Alliance, an advocacy-focused organization, will lead and support voluntary and cooperative
efforts to move the higher education community towards gathering, reporting on, and using
evidence to improve student learning in American undergraduate education.
The Alliance envisions a self-directed, professional higher education community that produces an
increasing number of college graduates with high quality degrees in preparation for work, life, and
responsible citizenship.
Through the promotion of shared principles, recommended actions, and innovative initiatives, the
Alliance aims:
• To shape attitudes, practices, and policies related to gathering, reporting on, and using
evidence to improve student learning.
• To promote the establishment of new professional norms for gathering, reporting on, and
using evidence of student learning.
• To increase public confidence in the quality of undergraduate education provided by
American colleges and universities.
PRESIDENTS’ ALLIANCE
The Alliance is asking college campuses to make a commitment to build on
their previous work to assess, report on, and improve student learning. By
joining the Presidents’ Alliance, institutions will gain national recognition for
what they have achieved, and the accomplishments will serve as not only an
example to other colleges and universities, but will inspire them to take
similar actions to assess and improve student learning. By signing the
presidential commitment, institutions commit to publicizing their
commitment to the campus community, including their governing board.
Instititutions also agree to periodically report back to the Alliance on the
progress they are making. The Alliance will share and publicly report member
institutions' achievements (individually and collectively) on its website and in
a variety of ways.
COMMITMENT TO GATHERING EVIDENCE
Improving the gathering of evidence about student learning outcomes by (for
example):
• Ensuring that your institution collects data on its entire set of common
student learning outcomes and how well these are achieved.
• Participating in one or more nationally benchmarked data collection processes
(examination, portfolio, or survey) and publicly reporting the results, including
disaggregated evidence (by race, sex, etc.).
• Developing, discussing, and publicizing a campus wide audit of evidence of
student learning and student participation in high impact practices for your
institution.
• Other
COMMITMENT TO USING EVIDENCE
Expanding the use of evidence on student learning outcomes to improve programs and
practices by (for example):
• Making the analysis, use, and reporting of evidence of student learning
outcomes a prominent and influential factor in the institution’s strategic
planning or program review process.
• Documenting and publicizing significant changes and demonstrable
improvements in the quality of academic programs, co-curricular programs, and
support services as a result of student learning outcomes assessment.
• Other
COMMITMENT TO REPORTING EVIDENCE
Expanding the reporting on student learning outcomes on- and off-campus to ensure
transparency and accountability by (for example):
• Developing or improving mechanisms through which student learning outcomes
assessment results are shared with faculty, staff, administrators, and students,
including opportunities for these groups to meet and review results.
• Ensuring that at least once a year the governing board of your institution receives
and discusses a report about your efforts to assess student learning outcomes
and to use that evidence to improve the quality of academic programs, cocurricular programs, and support services.
• Establishing on your institution's website a highly visible and easily accessible
location where assessments of student learning and their uses are made public.
• Other.
COMMITMENT TO BUILDING NETWORKS
Expanding the noteworthy work on your own campus to other institutions by (for
example):
• Serving as a resource for other institutions or professional groups who would
use your campus as a model for ways to strengthen assessing, reporting on,
and improving student learning outcomes.
• Joining with other members of the Presidents’ Alliance at national conferences
and events to report progress on achieving this agenda.
• Other
INSTITUTIONAL CERTIFICATION
The Excellent Practice in Student Learning Assessment (EPSLA) institutional
certification program will recognize high level institutional performance in
assessment and using evidence to improve student learning. Like the
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) project run by the U.S.
Green Building Council, it is intended to motivate as many institutions as
possible to meet high standards. The resulting recognition should persuade
many high-performing institutions to seek certification and thereby inspire
others to raise their own standards of performance. The certification process
will help promote good practices in assessing and improving student learning
and will encourage institutions to develop processes in a more meaningful,
systematic way.
CRITERIA 1: LEARNING OUTCOMES
To be certified, an institution must publicly present a common set of student
learning outcomes that apply to all undergraduate students, as well as
specific student learning outcomes for academic and co-curricular programs.
These learning outcomes must reflect the institution’s mission and must be
consistent with generally accepted higher education goals. They must clearly
articulate what (and at what level) students should be able to do, achieve,
demonstrate, and know upon graduation. These outcomes must be a focal
commitment of faculty, administrators, staff, and students. The institution
must also be able to demonstrate the points in the curriculum and cocurriculum at which undergraduates achieve these learning outcomes.
CRITERIA 2: GATHERING EVIDENCE
To be certified, an institution must show that it has documented, clearly
articulated, intentional, and systematic process for gathering and analyzing
evidence of achievement of its overall and programmatic (academic and cocurricular) student learning outcomes. These processes must employ sound
evidence-gathering approaches and must yield results that meet appropriate,
externally-informed standards or benchmarks. These assessment efforts
must be ongoing and integrated into the work of faculty, administrators, and
staff. There must be appropriate support for doing assessment (staff,
infrastructure, and professional development), and the institution must use
widely accepted principles of good analytical practice – including using
multiple measures, employing sound approaches, and using systematic
quantitative or qualitative methods.
CRITERIA 3: REPORTING EVIDENCEEPORT
To be certified, the institution must make relevant evidence readily available
to the public in an easily understandable way. It must report on how well it is
achieving its student learning outcomes through information that is
transparent, accessible, and understandable; and/or through events or
meetings that are widely-publicized and well-attended.
CRITERIA 4: USING EVIDENCEEPORT
To be certified, the institution’s leadership (including academic, student
affairs, executive, and governing bodies), faculty, and administrators must use
the evidence generated by assessment to continuously improve academic
programs, co-curricular programs, and support services. In addition, the
institution must continuously review, reflect on, and monitor the changes that
it has made over time to ensure their continuing effectiveness.
FUTURE INITIATIVES
“Guidelines” document: endorsement redux
“Second generation templates”?
Networking: professional work and agreements
National Conference or summit (“one voice”)
“THERE IS NO OTHER HAND…”
We will be doing assessment (and accountability).
Some reasons:
• We have to, “accreditation made us.”
• It will preserve our autonomy, get them off our backs.
• It will show how good we are.
Some better reasons:
• “There is nothing to fear.”
• We will understand our work better.
• We will serve our students better.
A MANTRA
Take quality seriously,
assess honestly,
report openly,
improve continuously.
STAY CONNECTEDJOIN
TO THE
US ALLIANCE
To stay connected to the Alliance
and receive our newsletter please visit
www.newleadershipalliance.org
and click on the “Get Involved” tab.