Recently, we published a list blog post on important happenings in the office. Well, we like bulleted lists so much we wanted to follow it up with another one. This one notes some items everyone in the office finds worthy of celebration. So relax, find your zen and read through the list below for positive assessment energies.

• Assessment staff met with faculty from the English department to collaborate on a 2-year gen ed assessment plan for Creative Writing courses. Forward-thinking for the win!

• Anyone get an email about the Higher Learning Commission with a Student Opinion Survey link embedded inside? Yeah, we coordinated that. The survey is in advance of the accreditation visit coming this fall and polled approximately 18,000 undergraduate and graduate students, asking general questions about their MSU experience.

• It’s official. MSU’s NSSE response rate has hit the 30% milestone. Not impressed yet? Consider this: we quickly surpassed the average response percentage of most other universities our size.

• Currently, the FSSE (Faculty Survey of Student Engagement) is at a 22.5% response rate, while the FSSE-G (graduate instructor) is at 19.1%. These are solid rates for a survey that was sent to people who take surveys all the time.

• 30 faculty and students have signed up to take part in the Public Affairs Comprehensive Assessment Workshop, which is a spin-off of the Quality Initiative Project that functions to research student learning and depth of knowledge on the three pillars of public affairs.

• So far, 2,000 pages of student essays have been collected from the new University Exit Exam for use during the aforementioned workshop this May. 2,000. Think about that for a second; MSU students have something to say and we plan to take it to heart.

• The assessment team has met several times to brainstorm and establish a set of collective commitments and a vision statement for assessment at MSU that will guide the office into the future.

• Assessment Research Consultant, Mark Woolsey, achieved Black Belt status in his Blackboard training this week. The office is prepared to seek his sensei enlightenment any time Blackboard’s mysteries cloud our collective judgement. We forecast an abundance of digital karate-chops.

• Assessment grad-assistants, Katie Palmietto and Charlie Whitaker, were given the fantastic opportunity to conduct interviews for a new fall GA opening in the Office of Assessment. The process is now in final interviews and we are thrilled with the number of excellent, talented applicants who came to speak with us.

• The new University Exit Exam process that kicked off at the beginning of this year has been reported as running smoothly. Efforts continue to be made to streamline the process, such as adding FAQ items to address specific issues.