The dust has begun to settle from the first few days after the big announcement. Our interim chancellor, an energetic and incredibly capable man, has said publically that this is the worst week he’s experienced in his 30+ years in higher ed.
Our college dean sent around an email with some preliminary explanations/talking points. I quote two specific passages below:
We have held 2 Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) workshops and attendance was good but not excellent. We also held the fall workshop on assessment. But many faculty have expressed reluctance to take the necessary steps.
[…]
The second thing is that we need to get on board the assessment train. As workshops come up about assessment, we need to participate. As we are asked to work to find test questions, papers, and assignments that can be used to measure learning objectives, we need to do so.
I understand that she is correct in her description of the importance of the new assessment buzzword—not because it’s actually important in real life, but because from a bureaucratic standpoint, it’s the criterion du jour and thus has real effects. "Accrediting organizations are under pressure from the Department of Education to demonstrate that they are holding schools accountable and so we must show our work."
That said, I am mystified by this repeated insistence that “workshops” are like a magical elixir that can help solve the problem. When has anyone in any business ever found that “workshops” are useful except for the managers who use them to show “attention” and the speakers who get compensated for them? If this is a real concern requiring real action, then I need to see something more serious than insisting on workshops. Otherwise it sounds like what it is — bureaucratic make-work to give everyone in the administrative chain a reason to exist.
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