Present: P. Case, K. Guerin, K. Gutshall, T. Kovarik, C. Bell, M. Lenahan, E. Lindemann, T. McAllister, E. Moore (Recorder), B. Nebeker, C. Pipitone-Herron, B. Thornborough

The meeting was called to order at 3:35 pm.

Ellen distributed copies of the minutes from the last meeting, NJ and RVCC general education goals, list of assessment plans by discipline, copies of possible department mission statements from RVCC website, academic program review schedule (See attached)

Ellen reminded everyone that at the last meeting we discussed the College’s mission statement. She went on the college website and downloaded what appeared to be mission statements for the departments listed. In many cases these were not true mission statements. Birte reminded everyone that the mission statements are part of each department’s annual report. Ellen will try to track down each department’s annual report and acquire the mission statements for the next meeting.

Birthe reported on the assessment activities of the library. They do a survey of students via its webpage. They get approximately 300 people taking the survey. They also do counts of access, number of classes taught, etc. They will be doing a LibQUAL survey in conjunction with VALE in the Spring 2008. They are looking for a way to assess the library’s instructional program, which is tied to English I and English II.

Tomas reported that the Math department does course assessment very well. The department has determined that they do not assess labs and projects. They are looking into ways to do this assessment.

Patrice reported on the nursing department assessment activities. Due to accreditation requirements and state board requirements the department does a great deal of assessment. The problem the department has is how to organize the data.

Ellen reported that she has talked to Carol Mauermeyer about data warehousing. Carol will get back to Ellen with the name of a contact at Middle States. Carol suggested that calling Middle States and telling them we are trying to upgrade our warehousing capability and ask who they thought did a good job. It is possible that they can give us a contact at another college or university with whom we can speak about warehousing possibilities.

Keith informed the committee that there is a ton of statistics available to the college community but little of it gets used. A culture of inquiry must be developed at RVCC to encourage everyone to ask how what we do measures up with other institutions and if we do not measure up well, how we can make changes.

Christine wanted to remind everyone that from the academic side our program reviews were meant to give us a lot of this information. She suggested that we spend some time trying to decide if there is a campus wide agreement on how to measure the goals mentioned in the RVCC mission statement. For example, is there a consensus on how to measure student success? Ellen suggested that in our next meeting we discuss this.

Ellen reminded the committee that one of the goals of the committee for next semester was to put together an assessment handbook for RVCC. This handbook would be available to departments as they began to work on their own plans. She has copies of the assessment handbook put out by Skidmore College. Ellen asked for volunteers to help her begin looking at Skidmore’s handbook and see what could be used for RVCC’s handbook. Elaine, Birthe and Theresa all volunteered. Ellen will send them copies via interoffice mail.

Next meeting of the committee will be held on December 13. Everyone was asked to poll their departments to see how each department felt the areas mentioned in the RVCC mission statement could be measured. Ellen will send out a meeting request as soon as she reserves a room.

With no further business, the meeting adjourned at 4:30 pm.