Members of the Oregon State University community will be convened to provide leadership and direction for a strategic assessment program in the Division of Student Affairs. The primary charge to the Assessment Council is to establish and monitor the assessment agenda for student affairs and other collaborating units. Specific dimensions of the charge will include:

  1. Guiding division-wide assessment projects;
  2. Implementing a cohesive and coordinated assessment program across student affairs units;
  3. Implementing specific assessment projects;
  4. Establishing approaches to share and maximize the use of resources across student affairs units;
  5. Implementing assessment planning, reporting and evaluation of assessment efforts, including providing feedback to departments on their assessment plans and activities;
  6. Developing mechanisms to monitor the degree to which and the manner in which assessment results are being used to improve programs and services;
  7. Monitoring the level of assessment activity;
  8. Providing reinforcement and support for assessment efforts — design a reward structure;
  9. Establishing a standard format for unit level assessment annual reports, which will be integrated into a Division of Student Affairs assessment report;
  10. Identifying a set of common set learning outcomes and areas of impact that are common to and will be assessed by all units;
  11. Functioning as a learning community — one that consistently advances its own learning and uses its acquired knowledge to consult with individuals and groups; and
  12. Ensuring that a structure is in place that will produce a common data reporting structure, that all departments have assessment plans, that plans are implemented, that results are reported and that results are applied to continuous improvement efforts.

Council membership will be solicited from volunteers from within student affairs and other OSU units. Members will be asked to commit to a two-year service term, with the option of recommitting for an additional term.

The council will be chaired by the director of Student Affairs Research, Evaluation & Planning. Activities will be pursued through a division-of-labor format, to be determined by members of the council.