Committee on Assessment of Institutional Effectiveness

Academic Year 2022-2023

Members: Keonya Booker, Xi Cui, Mike Duvall, Jannette Finch, Elizabeth Jurisich, Wendy Sheppard (Chair), Vijay Vulava

Wendy Sheppard served as Chair for the committee for Fall 2022 and Spring 2023.  The AIE committee was reduced from 9 members in Spring of 2022 to 7 members. There were three new members, : Keonya Booker, Xi Cui, and Elizabeth Jurisich for this academic year.

The AIE committee decided to focus on the strategic plan for the College of Charleston to develop recommendations to the college to assist in meeting the goals for the strategic plan.  The following specific areas were chosen due to the rating system of either “Tracking away from the goal” or “At Risk to Miss Goal”:  Pillar one , Retention Rate and Graduation Rates listed as Tracking away from the goal; Pillar two, Student Diversity, listed as Tracking away from the goal; and Pillar three, Employee Turnover and Great Colleges to Work For – both listed as At Risk to Miss Goal. The AIE plan was to determine how to stay involved in the strategic plan process, determine what measures are being used for the targets and how the data is collected and analyzed, as well as what the future plans are and obstacles for each of these areas within the strategic plan.

The AIE committee met with Provost Austin to learn about Pillar one: Retention Rate, Graduation Rates and Pillar two: Student Diversity both listed as Tracking away from the goal. 3 key areas were identified as the reasons for not meeting the targeted retention rate: financial need (greatest risk for losing students), academics, and belonging.  Suggestions of offering more support courses, and grade forgiveness were discussed by the committee.  Improving advising for students was identified as an important action for the college to take.  The committee also met with John Loonan in Business Affairs and Ed Pope in Human Resources to discuss Pillar three: Employee Turnover and Great Colleges to Work For – both listed as At Risk to Miss Goal.  Questions were raised by the committee about salaries including cost of living raises, compression and inversion of salaries, adjunct pay differing by department, gender gaps in wages, and why some departments had higher turnover than others. Suggestions were made by the committee to investigate the data further to potentially identify problem areas.  More information will be available after the completion of the summary for the follow up campus survey in 2023. The committee continues to work on a draft with recommendations for the strategic plan.

The AIE committee also met with Gia Quesada, the Assistant Provost for Assessment, who requested the AIE committee provide feedback on the low enrollment assessment. Feedback was given to Gia with the committee unanimously approving the changes.

The AIE committee met with the Gen Ed Committee and Simon Lewis representing REI, who requested the AIE committee discuss its role in the organization of Gen Ed and REI assessments. The AIE committee determined that an advisory role for the organization of these committees is most appropriate. Both Gen Ed and REI committees currently have or are developing their own assessment practices.

The upcoming committee for 2023-2024 has 7 members: Irina Gigova, Devon Hanahan, Elizabeth Jurisich, Larry Krasnov, Geoff Timms, Kimberly Tribou and Vijay Vulava. Vijay Vulava was elected to serve as Chair and Devon Hanahan to serve as Secretary for the academic year 2023-2024.