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Running head: ASSESSMENT PLAN FOR UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON WOMEN’S CENTER

Assessment Plan for University of Dayton Women’s Center

Melissa K. Recht

Wright State University


Running head: ASSESSMENT PLAN 1

Assessment Plan for the University of Dayton Women’s Center

The University of Dayton Women’s Center is an identity center located in Alumni Hall at

the University of Dayton. The center is staffed by a director, a program coordinator, and a part-

time administrative assistant. Even with a modest budget and a small staff, the center manages to

host a variety of events and activities throughout the year that help them achieve one of their

goals, that of educating and empowering the community. Their mission statement clearly

articulates that one of their roles as an identity center at a university is furthering important social

and gender justice issues, which can be accomplished by well-planned and executed educational

opportunities that can provide students with new knowledge and give them actionable steps to

further their own growth and create change on campus and on a wider stage. Reading the mission

statement brings into focus what kind of assessment would benefit this identity center (2018):

The mission of the University of Dayton Women’s Center is to foster a diverse and

equitable community by advocating for social and gender justice, assessing and

addressing campus climate, and providing resources and support for all. Guided by our

commitment to justice, inclusivity, and innovation, we: serve all students, faculty and

staff; provide a safe space to support, educate and empower; and champion balanced and

fulfilled professional and personal lives.

A center with such lofty and perhaps difficulty to achieve goals would benefit from an

assessment plan that would track the number of attendees at events, and then dig into the student
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learning outcomes achieved by listening, learning, and digesting the information presented.

Because gaining the knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle, the assessment should attempt to

discover if students act upon or are changed by the knowledge. This would best be accomplished

by an assessment that would encourage students to speak openly, examine their experiences, and

reflect upon the impact of their engagement with those activities. According to staff there, the

Center does do some tracking of event attendance and sends out surveys, and this proposed

assessment would expand upon these to provide greater depth of feedback.

To that end, this assessment plan would use three types of assessments: simple tracking

of attendees at events by card swipe (as opposed to the system currently used by the staff there, a

check-in sheet), a post-event survey using a Likert scale, and a focus group made up of students

who had attended two or more events and signaled through the survey that they had experienced

engagement with the content. All of these assessments have multiple benefits. All three are easy

to prepare and administer, cost very little, and can be used together to gain holistic insight into

this identity center. There are also limitations to these (or any) assessments, as they do not

necessarily delve deeply into specific problems or provide a complete overview of the center in

the way that other assessments might. Other limitations exist, including working with a fairly

small sample size (the Women’s Center hosts only a certain number of events, and attendance is

often limited to those with an inclination to support the Center or an interest in the types of topics

covered). However, for the purposes of providing a meaningful student learning experience and

implementing ideas that support the mission and vision of the Center, these assessments seem

appropriate and well-matched.

Stakeholders
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Before creating and implementing an assessment plan, it is important to first consider the

stakeholders. As Schuh & Upcraft (2000) emphasize, the politics of assessment must be

considered, planned for, and addressed if an assessment is to go well (or to go anywhere at all).

This includes consideration of stakeholders and how their wants and needs will be impacted by

an assessment. It would be important to first consider the students utilizing the center. Tracking

the growth and personal development that the Center may cultivate in students is the most

important goal of the assessment. The students are the core reason the Center exists and thrives--

their presence at events and within the physical Center should be tracked, assessed, and

considered when making decisions about where funding should go, how events should be

handled, and even what the strategic goals of the Center should be. The results of an assessment

will directly impact the students.

Additional stakeholders are the staff working in the Women’s Center, faculty and staff

who also use the center, administrators, families of students, donors, alumni, and community

partners. The staff who work at the Center could use assessment results to be guiding factors for

daily planning, budgeting, future growth, and even future iterations of the Center’s name, vision,

and mission. Assessments could also affect their staffing levels and space considerations. If they

face a daily stream of students wanting to spend time in the Center, attend events, and even just

use the staff as de facto counselors, an assessment can provide concrete numbers to back up

requests for future funding or space allocation.

Other stakeholders would also need to be considered as well. Alumni donors who felt a

strong affiliation with the Women’s Center may want to weigh in on future plans for expansion

or potential changes, and would perhaps benefit from knowing exactly what current students

need and want out of an identity center. Others at the university, like faculty and staff, have an
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unique set of needs that may also need to be addressed. For example, they would likely attend

very different events and utilize the Center in quite different ways than students would. Taking

into consideration how often patrons who are not students use the Center and its services and

attend its events would help determine how much of a budget should be directed at non-students.

Tangentially, community partners who work with the center to provide or receive charitable

donations would be affected by potential funding or space changes that could occur after an

assessment.

Assessment Methods

Basic tracking at events will be a starting point. Students will be asked to supply name

and email at sign-in table for each event, and will be asked to swipe in using their ID. Since

student can receive points at certain events that accumulate for housing preferences, the swipe

card system would be a valuable asset. Swiping in logs their points, which means students will

be more likely to attend events and log attendance. Following the event, students will be sent a

survey with demographic data and questions about the impact of the event. The event survey will

use a Likert scale and multiple open-ended questions to find out how successful each event is at

accomplishing the goals for the specific event and for furthering the mission of the Women’s

Center. A focus group of students who have attended at least two events and have responded to

the survey will be conducted at the end of the semester. Students will be encouraged to share

how the events have impacted their lives. In addition, a small focus group of faculty and staff

patrons of the Center will be interviewed. This will help provide balance and supply important

information from other users of the Center. While the numbers will not be as significant as
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student numbers, the information gleaned from this group will be valuable to help address the

needs of non-student users.

Data Analysis

Data gathering from the tracking portion of the assessment will be fairly simple and

straightforward. Over the course of a semester, staff will track attendance at each event. Because

the University of Dayton swipe card system automatically collects and tallies number of

attendees, the numbers would reported regularly. In addition, the ID cards would provide

demographic information. Surveys sent out after the event would collect further demographic

data. Information on the impact of the events and the Center in general would also be collected

from the survey. Leedy & Ormond (2010) point out that a survey can be used to discover both

quantitative and qualitative information, based on the types of questions. Using some open-ended

qualitative questions can help move the survey beyond just demographic data and basic

attendance information.

Because a Likert scale would be used, the number tabulation could be averaged and

checked for reliability using the Cronbach’s Alpha. Consistent positive surveys would provide

helpful data to ask for more funding for events or open hours at the Center. Conversely, negative

surveys could be reviewed to address issues with types of events/speakers, location, or timing.

A focus group of students who have attended events, as well as smaller group for faculty

and staff who attend events, could be created. The individuals in these focus groups do not

necessarily need to have a positive engagement with the Center, just some sort of regular

interaction through event attendance. Freeman (2006) provides some basic considerations for a

focus group, including size, length of time for questions, and the tasks of a moderator. The focus
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groups would be conducted by an external interviewer with a set of prepared questions. An

assistant would take notes, as well as use a recording device to ensure that the transcript is

accurate. The data would later be coded with an emphasis on words that signify engagement,

growth, connect, development, and future potential for interaction. To get at the heart of the

assessment’s goals, a detailed narrative report would be used to analyze the data and scout out

themes. From these themes, future plans for optimizing students’ learning and/or development

would be addressed. As Schuh and Upcraft (2000) mention, this report, and how it is written, is

key to getting action steps from an assessment plan. They note that a well-written report should

present the assessment in brief, and should include recommendations (p. 20). This report will

include a brief explanation of why the assessment was done, what the Center had hoped to learn

and gain from the assessment, and what assessment can do, generally, for an identity center or

other student affairs organization.

Student Learning Outcome Assessment

In addition to assessments that provide information about what works well at the

Women’s Center that might be of interest to multiple groups of stakeholders, an assessment that

considers and values the student experience as it directly relates to their development and

learning should also be done.

When considering the work of the Women’s Center, it is easy to determine the type of

student learning objective that could be assessed. The vital student learning outcome that the

mission and vision of the Women’s Center promotes and works toward is simple but profound.

Student attendees at Women’s Center events and activities will be able to showcase increased

knowledge of women’s issues and articulate actions they can take to be champions of their own
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rights and the rights of others. The focus groups discussed earlier will be particularly helpful in

discovering if this student learning objective is successful. Questions can be directly related to

events and participation in Women’s Centers activities, and will be worded so as to prompt open-

ended reflection on what the attendees have learned, gained, and taken away as action items as a

result of interactions with the Women’s Center.

Conclusion

The types of assessments described here would be beneficial for moving the Women’s

Center closer to their stated mission and goals. Tracking participation in events and activities, as

well as through post-event surveys, will provide concrete quantitative evidence of what works

well and what does not, and give staff a better sense of how they are reaching students. Drilling

down further, the surveys and focus groups will also provide qualitative information about how

well the Center is doing with certain student learning outcomes and objectives. Both of these

endeavors will allow the Center to reflect, plan, and implement programmatic changes that will

benefit stakeholders, especially students. Sharing a brief but detailed narrative report with

stakeholders will allow the Center to further accomplish goals and provide an ongoing

connection to the evolving work of the Center, rather than just shelving the results. Stakeholders

will be aware of the data, goals, and future plans, and can help assess whether or not these items

are accomplished. This will create a feedback loop that could help prevent stasis. Assessment is a

valuable tool for change and implementation of new ideas.


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References

Freeman, T. (2006). Best practices in focus group research: making sense of different views.
Journal of advanced nursing 56(5), 491–497

Leedy, P.D. & Ormond, J.E. (2010). Practical research: Planning and design. Boston:

Pearson.

Schuh, J. H., & Lee Upcraft, M. (2000). Assessment politics. About campus, 5(4), 14–21.
https://doi.org/10.1177/108648220000500405

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