Assessment and Program Review Committees
In 2024 the college approved a new, state funded position for a Director of Assessment to lead the college in assessing and aligning Course, Program, and South’s Learning Outcomes. The position co-chairs the Student Services Assessment Committee, is a member of the MSB and AHSS Program Review Committees and reports to the Executive Director of Institutional Effectiveness and the Vice President of Instruction.
The original Assessment Committee began meeting Winter Quarter 2020 and has sustained multiple iterations in its structure since then to reflect the work that is required for each academic year. Currently the Student Services Assessment Committee and the Program Review Committees are composed of faculty and staff representing the various college programs. Current Committee Members represent Academic/Transfer faculty and deans, Student Services and Academic Support Staff.
Director of Assessment:
Student Services Assessment Committee Members:
- Co-Chair Brianne Sanchez, Dean of Student Success
- Ella Ang, Systems Analyst in Student Success
- Eric Burns, Assistant Director of Upward Bound
- Kat Coehlo, Academic Advisor and Associate Director of Student Services
- Elijah Dow, Instructional Designer
- John Dwyer, Academic Advisor and Specialist in Student Success
- Cici Simon, Embedded Career Specialist (Worksource)
- Jinghua Zhang, Senior Research Analyst, Institutional Effectiveness
- Christa Zinke, Program Specialist 2, Workforce
What Are We Doing
The Assessment Committee at South Seattle College is continuously collecting, collating, and analyzing quarterly assessment information provided by faculty. This includes quantitative and qualitative data that faculty fill out within the quarterly Learning Outcome Survey, as well as more long-form information that certain instructors provide having carried out their own assessment methods for their courses. The information provided to our committee is often used for specific components of program review as well.
The Assessment Committee also helps instructors understand and explain how student learning occurs in their courses. Faculty communicate with our committee their assessment of student learning on different levels of learning outcomes. This information is then utilized in myriad ways throughout the college so that faculty can learn from other faculty about what leads to greater student success and helps us tell our story of student learning more fully.
The Assessment Committee also works closely with the Curriculum and Instruction Council and the Faculty Professional Development Committee to determine the best way to imbue assessment throughout the diverse inner-workings of these 3 committees. Along these lines the last few years has seen the Assessment Committee taking an active role in training faculty on effective use of student disaggregated success data and how to positively impact student success for all their students. Our approach to helping faculty utilize data to enhance their teaching pedagogies is always evolving, however we are guided by anti-racist and anti-biased instruction methods, as laid out in articles such as below:
“Closing the Achievement Gap in Higher Education”, by Estela Mara Bensimon.
Committee members are always excited to discuss the different approaches to collecting and interpreting student learning data, so please do not hesitate to reach out to any one of us for help!