tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80463927182307652712011-07-31T03:13:23.125-04:00Blogsnoreply@blogger.comBlogger131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-79833874214482531112010-04-22T13:18:00.009-04:002010-04-22T13:29:25.011-04:00

Kenyon College is seeking comments from the public in preparation for its reaccreditation visit by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (HLC). Kenyon College has been continuously accredited by the Commission since 1938. The College undergoes a comprehensive visit every ten years; its last reaccreditation was in 2000. A team representing the HLC

Blogsnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-8678830526423136902009-09-07T10:15:00.009-04:002009-09-07T10:44:14.542-04:00

Here are some more ingenious environmental scanning devices crafted by the Reaccreditation Task Force:Hip Data MinerHandy-dandy slats open or close to let in information or block it like venetian blinds.Don't be blinded by information overload. Block out the irrelevant, extraneous junk. Focus on what's important.Blue tooth connection connects to any source and sends data directly to your retina

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14007704033573468412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-27469822734193383842009-09-04T09:15:00.009-04:002009-09-04T13:36:03.188-04:00

To inject more fun into reaccreditation task force meetings (and it's always fun to mock jargon), committee members recently were asked to create marketing plans for various "environmental scanning" devices. Here for your entertainment are a few of the funnier products and the marketing plans:1. Fingertron Orbital 2100: Environmental Scanning for the 22nd century.Provides an opportunity for

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14007704033573468412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-64626359145471103452009-07-27T13:06:00.003-04:002009-07-27T13:43:23.295-04:00

In favor of the new idea, the unanticipated epiphany, the bolt from the blue.Having written previously in defense of assessment and trying to explain its potential benefits, let me know say something on the other side. What are the shortcomings of the assessment centered university? What do we risk losing in our rush to measurement?All of the calls for accountability and assessment in higher

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14007704033573468412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-53411347602350401862009-05-15T08:43:00.001-04:002009-06-09T09:19:42.059-04:00

Just because our seniors have graduated, our grades are in, and we can contemplate vacations and research plans, does not mean that the work of reaccreditation goes on hold until August. We will be hard at work this summer trying to finish our first analysis of the five criteria for reaccreditation. Central to our work will be characterizing our assessment of student learning, particularly in

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14007704033573468412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-85557679935348702062008-10-17T13:26:00.006-04:002008-10-17T14:54:50.253-04:00

In my last blog, I presented an example of assessment that came from the world of Kenyon sports. Today I would like to look on the academic side for an example of assessment research that grew out of our own need to know something about our students. Last year, RAAS (for those off campus readers, that's our Resource Allocation and Assessment Subcommittee) reported in its annual report on Gen Ed

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14007704033573468412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-67109668464345357432008-10-14T12:40:00.008-04:002008-10-17T12:24:56.946-04:00

In my last blog I compared assessment and grading in an attempt to demystify a process many of us feel is just too bureaucratic. The one response I received made a lovely analogy : "If grading is the weather, then assessment is the climate," which reiterates my point that the difference between grading and assessment is largely one of scale. This week, with apologies to Charles Dickens, I

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14007704033573468412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-75693185536933196872008-10-01T16:06:00.006-04:002008-10-01T17:03:58.365-04:00

I. How much do we hate the language of assessment?As many of you know, about two weeks ago I took a really ungraceful nosedive off the steps in front of the Public Affairs Office (Ok the step is like 3 inches off the ground). As a result I had some ugly scrapes on my legs and both of my knees were bruised badly. It was not pretty. And, since at my undisclosed age, discretion really is the

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14007704033573468412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-6180840129420381342008-09-26T11:57:00.005-04:002008-09-26T12:30:19.791-04:00

I thought that it might be useful to devote my blog this week to talking about Essentially Kenyon. In the email I sent out about the Essentially Kenyon Survey, I gave a quick summary of the Reaccreditation Task Force's plan to generate some goals for our reaccreditation self-study. Today I'd like to flesh those out a little bit. Probably the easiest way for me to do this is to give a little

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137915898323547813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-21480252021392070992008-09-11T13:46:00.010-04:002008-09-24T13:08:11.537-04:00

Reaccreditation has become a multi-million dollar industry in this country. I don't actually know if that statement is technically true; a multi-thousand dollar industry just doesn't have the same impact. But, even though reaccreditation has been around for a very long time (Kenyon's first accreditation was 1913), today it is big business, in much the same way that standardized testing has

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137915898323547813noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-37669402676097266352008-08-29T14:10:00.004-04:002008-09-03T15:33:02.290-04:00

What Does a Self-Study Coordinator Do?Good question, Virginia. When I accepted this gig I sure didn't know. I feel as if I am in the process of inventing this job (which I assure you is quite temporary. I plan to be back in the classroom when the visit team hits the campus in 2010). Basically my job is to head the research team that will research and write the self-study. And I approach it as

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137915898323547813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-4697539704452822642008-08-14T11:12:00.008-04:002008-08-20T20:58:32.619-04:00

The NCA's criteria for reaccreditation need to be flexible enough to apply to all the institutions of higher learning the NCA accredits, from the University of Chicago to DeVry; from the Mount Vernon Nazarene University to The Ohio State University and everything imaginable in between. As a result the criteria can be difficult to understand (one person told me they found them incomprehensible).

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137915898323547813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8046392718230765271.post-57940980919802532592008-08-05T11:25:00.004-04:002008-08-20T21:02:54.934-04:00

Or perhaps just an approach to it? My handy Microsoft dictionary tells me that a philosophy might be a set of "guiding or underlying principles" or simply "calm resignation." By way of introducing this blog and myself as the self-study coordinator for the accreditation process, I thought I would write a little bit about my own approach to institutional evaluation (which is what this process

Laurie Finkehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11137915898323547813noreply@blogger.com2