1. Sue Volkmar’s Spring 2012 Practicum
Program Review And Assessment
Supervisors:
Marya Choby, Academic Coach And Counselor – Services For Students
With Disabilities (SSD) & Martha Glass, Associate Director Of
Administration For Assessment – Division Of Student Affairs (DSA)

2. The Plan:
 Objective 1: Assist in the evaluation of the
DSA administrative areas; Finance,
Communications & Marketing, Human
Resources, Assessment, and Emergency
Preparedness
 Objective 2: Assist with SSD program review

3. Achievements:
1. Became familiar with SSD services
2. Assisted with organizing and facilitating
meetings with the program review
committees
3. Served as point person for all
communications between SSD steering
committee and subcommittees
4. Assisted with organizing and analyzing
findings for Communications & Marketing
and Human Resources surveys

4. Personal Contributions:
 Knowledge:
-Experience working in higher ed
-Mother of children in college
 Skills/Experience:
-Prior course work in student theory and
assessment
-Research completed in area of students with
disabilities
-Some work experience interacting with students
 Disposition:
-Apprehensive of working with students with
disabilities

5. What Did I Gain From
My Practicum?

6. Knowledge
 Gained an understanding of what disabilities
students deal with
 Improved understanding of ADA related to
students in higher ed
 Learned about the many ways SSD provides
support to students with disabilities
 Knowledge of many departments in DSA
 Familiarity with survey tool, Campus Labs

7. Skills
 More confident working with students with
disabilities
 Improved skills relating to report writing and
summarization
 Increased knowledge of program review and
CAS standards

8. Disposition
 Confirmed that I would like to continue to work
in higher ed
 Want my work to involve interaction with
students
 Enjoyed the assessment and program review
process; necessary, but rarely boring
 Feel more confident that I could coordinate an
assessment review independently

9. What will I do differently?
 Learn a new area in Student Affairs
 Possibly work more directly with students
 More manageable project

10. Future career desires
 Work in an administrative role that involves
working with students in some capacity
 Use my business background
 Interaction with students

11. How experience has helped me
prepare
 Learned about DSA and SSD organizations
 Assessment and program review knowledge
 Knowledge about law regarding students of
higher ed with disabilities
 Gained knowledge of the type of disabilities
students have and the services VT can provide
to these students

12. Do I have a competitive edge?
 Definitely!
 Assessment and program review
experience and knowledge
-Worked with diverse groups, i.e.
academic faculty, student affairs
practitioners, and students
 Learned about the inner workings of two
organizations at VT
 Networking opportunities in Student Affairs

13. Thank You!!
Marya and Martha for providing me this
opportunity and for all your support this
semester.