#APC is my go-to conference if I have a choice. This year I was fortunate to be able to attend while serving as the VP of Academic and Student Affairs at the College of the Marshall Islands. The College allowed me to use my travel and professional development funds to also bring the College’s three deans (Academics, Student Affairs, Adult and Continuing Education) and our Director of Institutional Research. Traveling from Majuro to Baltimore is NOT for the faint of heart, but the conference did not disappoint.
Dr. Sandra Geringer (United States Sports Academy), Ms. Misty Song (Abilene Christian University), and I were selected to present a session explaining how we developed and assessed an online student orientation module for financial literacy. The module’s implementation led to outcomes that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) determined met the new “Principle 12.6” requirements. It was nice to have so many people stopping by and asking us questions. Oh, and the view from the conference site was awesome too! In terms of assessment, we utilized mixed-methods that included an extensive textual-analysis of the pilot, just before we implemented the module. We made some quality new connections!
Doubly fortunate, I was asked to serve on a panel moderated by Dr. Pamelyn Shefman (Director of Assessment and Planning at the University of Houston) with a few other student affairs assessment professionals. Our panel decided to disperse throughout the room, and Dr. Shefman expertly guided discussions so that each of us panel members were able to speak to how we had made the best use of persistence data in our respective positions.
The greatest take-away from the session was that new professionals are not equipped with the analytical skills required for assessment. We discussed how we might leverage these findings to try and persuade graduate programs to increase the rigor in this particular area of assessment and data analytics. There was a robust discussion, but the general feeling was that it would be difficult to persuade a program to “give up” an existing three-credit course to add an additional one-course for our professional area.
No conference is complete without networking! #APC is always attended by amazingly talented professionals.
I also serve on the Student Affairs Assessment Leaders (SAAL) Professional Development Committee. Several others from SAAL also attended, and I got to meet them face-to-face for the first time! As one of the “older hands” is it encouraging to see the profession being guided by young people with passion for student success and the intellect required to analyze how our programs make differences in persistence efforts across the higher education landscape!
I can hardly wait until the next conference!