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Assessment Committee

In response to the 2019 recommendation from the NWCCU and in conjunction with South’s data driven focus and anti-racist educational goals, the college approved a new, state funded position for a Faculty Assessment Coordinator to lead the college in assessing and aligning Course, Program, and South’s learning outcomes.

The position chairs the Assessment Committee and reports to the Executive Director of Institutional Effectiveness and the Vice President of Instruction.

The Committee began meeting Winter Quarter 2020. It is composed of faculty and staff representing the various college programs. Current Committee Members represent Professional Technical, Academic/Transfer, Transitional Studies, Student Services and Academic Support Staff. Vacant positions include BAS (Applied Sciences).

Assessment Faculty Coordinator:​

Assessment Committee Members:​

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!