This document outlines a community college's process over 16 months to build a culture of evidence in student affairs. It describes 4 phases: 1) Conducting interviews to assess the current state of co-curricular assessment, finding diversity in practice. 2) Developing a standard student learning outcome for student affairs. 3) Helping programs identify gaps and display their work to the college. 4) Hosting a voluntary student affairs assessment showcase to share evaluation practices and results in a non-threatening way and add value to the college's academic life. The goal is to provide evidence of learning outside the classroom and give programs a chance to reflect.

1. “Building a Culture of Evidence in
Student Affairs from the Ground Up”

2. OVERVIEW
• Narrative map of our process over a 16 month period
• Session learning outcomes and goals:
– Name a few resources (frameworks) available for consideration
when establishing a culture of evidence in student affairs.
– Describe two potential challenges to establishing a culture of
evidence.
– Plan one move toward building and/or nurturing a culture of
evidence in your program area.

3. What comes to mind when you
think about “assessment”?

4. Frameworks
• CAS STANDARDS
• KUH THEORY OF ENGAGEMENT
• Personal theories
• College Student Development Theory

5. Co and Extra Curricular Assessment
• Newer phenomenon
• Variety in definitions

6. OUR APPROACH
Oakton Community College Co and Extracurricular

7. //insert photo here of squiggly map//
No text

9. Phase 2
• Identify current state of co and extracurricular
assessment
• Conducted 1-1 interviews of division/department/area heads
• Shared our data with committee, looked for themes
• Sample Questions:
– How do you define student learning and student success in
the context of your specific program?
– How do you know when student’s learn through
participation in your program activities?
– Do you collect specific evidence (artifacts) to represent
student learning? (e.g., Use, Satisfaction, Impact data)
– What changes do you expect to see in student behavior
after participation?

10. Phase 2 Findings
• Process was education for all involved.
• Significant diversity in practice and awareness
among areas
• Example: grant-funded programs with
stringent assessment mandates connected to
funding ----- individual student case files with
no centralized data collection

11. Phase 2 Conclusions
• Our College needs a Student ID
• Gaps in practice
• More research needed to find the gaps

12. Phase 3 Concurrent Work
• Concurrent work of developing a standard
learning outcome for Oakton’s Student Affairs
Division
• Learning outcome: Students will demonstrate
an increased ability to navigate the complex
system that is their college experience. (( need
the specifics))

15. Phase 3 Conclusion
• With confirmation of our hypothesis, we
needed to do a couple of things:
– 1) Help others to display what they are doing to
the college as a whole; but also in turn
– 2) Begin the process of helping areas to identify
gaps in their assessment practice

16. Phase IV
How can we help make student affairs assessment visible at Oakton?
• Non-threatening, public
• Adding value to our College’s academic life
• Evidence all the ways student learn outside the classroom
• Serve program participants as an opportunity to reflect on their work

17. 2015 Spring
Student Affairs Assessment Showcase
• In conjunction with Oakton’s annual Staff Day
• Voluntary conference-style poster session
• Sample framing questions:
– What do you want students to develop and/or experience from
participation in your program?
– What kinds (if any) of evaluations and/or assessment to you use to
provide evidence that learning is happening?
– What are the results?
– How have you used the results to change your practices and program?

18. Next Steps
• “Building