|
Impact of CFA-Trustees Contract Negotiations on Meeting
Unfortunately, the failure of the CFA and the Trustees to develop a mutually agreeable contract and the unilateral imposition of working conditions on the faculty in April began to have an impact on the planning for the conference. An informal e-mail list had been developed and several participants questioned the advisability of attending the conference under the imposed working conditions. Finally, one member took a poll and the results showed that the great majority of participants preferred to attend the meeting. Given the results of this poll, most of those who wanted to cancel the meeting agreed that they would attend. However, all of this resulted in the attention of participants being diverted from the pre-goals of the conference. This was shown by finding out at the meeting that only a few faculty had spent time developing draft statements on student outcomes in chemistry degree programs. Also, attitudes were quite negative at the meeting about the morale of faculty within the CSU system. Thus, the overall environment was initially less positive than it might have been if the CFA and Trustees had agreed to a contract prior to the meeting. Fortunately, after a few hours of discussion at the meeting, the tone of the faculty discussions improved and by the end of the meeting most attendees felt it had been a very worthwhile meeting, one of the best CSU meetings they had attended in recent times.
Conference Meeting
The meeting started at 8 a.m. with a continental breakfast and registration. This provided an opportunity for attendees to meet informally before the official meeting began. Forty attendees from 19 campuses were present. Participants had assigned seating so that they were with other members of the assessment topic area they had requested.
At 8:30 a.m. the formal meeting began with an introduction by Dean Marion O'Leary of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Afterward, the participants introduced themselves to the group. The first speaker was Alan Kalish and he presented his views on assessment and how to write assessment statements. He was an outspoken advocate of program and curriculum assessment and this resulted in a number of questions. Many participants were skeptical of the rationale for student learning outcomes assessment and the increased workload associated with doing assessment. Although the crowd was not friendly toward the concept of program assessment, Alan Kalish responded well and he was able to deal effectively with their questions. The presentations by Maureen Scharberg, Barbara Burke, and Edward Walton focused on their scholarly efforts in the field of chemical education and, in particular, in the area of assessment. Their scholarly work primarily deals with assessment in courses, but their presentation was positive about the need and utility of assessment in chemistry courses. Their presentations were received more warmly by the participants (probably because they were also chemistry faculty as contrasted to Alan Kalish who is also an English faculty member). The final speaker was John Craig, chair of the chemistry department at CSU, San Bernardino. He was invited because his department's assessment plan is used as an example at the ITL website on assessment. His presentation described the history of the development of the assessment plan.
He commented that you have to have one or two individuals in the department who will take the lead since it is very difficult for the faculty as a whole to do this type of development work. Their assessment plan has very specific assessment goals and numerical goals as a measure of success. The participants in the conference generally felt it was not appropriate to be specific about numerical goals in the CSU, San Bernardino assessment plan. Participants also expressed concerns that any list of goals in an assessment plan could be used to penalize a department or faculty member if such goals were not achieved. Until chemistry faculty observe how assessment plans are used in the CSU system, it is likely that they will be skeptical about the intent of administrators and the Trustees. Although chemistry faculty will develop department assessment plans as required on their campuses, it is likely that these assessment plans will be mostly conservative in their statements and goals.
After the presentations a general discussion on assessing chemistry degree programs occurred. Most participants were hesitant to support assessment plans for various reasons; however, there were also participants who strongly supported the concept of assessment of degree programs and urged their colleagues to take a positive role. One of the participants was not satisfied with the assessment workshop topics and had arranged by e-mail to form a "break-a-way" group that would look at assessment in chemistry in more general terms.
Shortly before the noon hour, the assessment groups informally met, introduced themselves, and discovered where their meeting site in the Student Union was. Lunch was excellent and participants had an opportunity to discuss informally issues of mutual interest.
After lunch the participants met in their respective assessment workshop groups. The project leader circulated among groups to answer questions or clarify tasks. Each group selected a leader who would present the results of its efforts. Groups were instructed to focus on general assessment goals and not on specific strategies for achieving the goals.
At 2:45 p.m. the general conference was reconvened and the leader of each assessment workshop group presented the results of the group's discussion and the student learning outcomes statement developed by their group. The first group to do a presentation was the "break-a-way" group. They developed a set of general goals for chemistry programs. The leader noted that in the end they developed a set of statements that covered the themes of the assessment work groups. The reports from the other assessment work groups presented their assessment statements with discussion. A collective set of assessment goals developed by the workgroups is included in the enclosed materials.
The last item on the agenda was a discussion of future activities. Participants supported having a future meeting on strategies for implementing student learning outcomes assessment statements for chemistry degree programs. We all realize that implementation will be very difficult. There are not only issues of how to do assessment and how to interpret the results, but also faculty workload issues.
The meeting ended at 5:45 p.m.
Evaluation
The initial goals of the conference were met. Chemistry faculty learned about assessment practices and assessment plans developed by chemistry departments in the CSU system, discussed formats of student learning outcomes statements, and developed a set of assessment statements that chemistry departments could use as they implement their own unique assessment plans. The assessment statements developed are draft statements at this point in time. They need to be reviewed by the participants and revised based on their comments.
Participants in the conference were able to develop a collegial approach to developing student learning outcomes statements. This did not happen immediately, but it took hours of conversation and discussion to reach common understandings. Participants were able to leave the conference with resources that will help them assist their colleagues as their departments develop their assessment plans.
The Future and Recommendations
The product of the conference, the assessment statements, are still in draft form and need to be circulated among the participants. This will be done this summer; however, with vacations and absences from campuses during summer break, it is likely that a final version will be completed this fall. There are residual funds from the budget for this meeting and I am asking permission to continue using some of these funds to complete this task.
When the conference participants were asked if a future meeting should be planned to discuss the more challenging theme of implementing assessment goals, there was almost unanimous agreement. There is a need in the CSU system for regular conferences on themes of general importance to departments in the CSU system. I urge ITL to consider another round of conferences in the next academic year. |
