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While the members of the Middle States Steering Committee and Working Group members may be aware of the critical role that assessment will play in the Middle States Self-Study, now the entire campus needs to be prepared to discuss how assessment is used to make improvements.
Millersville University is in the midst of a “Self-Study” for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The University is accredited by Middle States, but is required every eight years to show that it continues to meet the commission’s standards. As part of that process, Dr. Sean McKitrick, vice president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and our institutional liaison, visited campus on Sept. 12 to promote the reaffirmation of accreditation process and answer questions about the importance of assessment.
“The Millersville’s Self-Study needs to look at assessment in every corner of the University. The Steering Committee needs to look at assessment work relating to all of the standards. And, the messages and elevator speeches we craft for campus need to deal with assessment,” explained Dr. Jim Delle, Middle States Co-Chair and associate provost. “We need to have the why we did something, what we learned, and how we’ve used that information to improve.”
What happens next?
“We are using the feedback from Dr. McKitrick, which was overwhelmingly positive, to prepare the Self-Study and create our evidence inventories for each standard,” says Dr. Lisa Shibley, Middle States Coordinator, MSCHE liaison, and assistant vice president of Institutional Assessment & Planning at Millersville. “We are documenting that each unit on campus has goals and objectives (or outcomes), conducts assessment on those objectives and goals, and uses that assessment to make improvements ‘or close the loop.’ ”
The steering committee and corresponding working groups are currently preparing for the evaluation team site visit in spring of 2020.
For more information go to http://www.millersville.edu/rediscovermu/.
About Middle States
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) is a voluntary, non-governmental, regional membership association covering Pennsylvania and surrounding states. The commission holds institutions to a series of standards including ethics and integrity, support of the student experience, educational effectiveness assessment and others. Institutions are evaluated by their peers to ensure they are meeting the necessary standards.
