Mission
The OAEA supports data-driven decision making for quality improvement, and it enables stakeholders to ascertain the degree to which CNU’s Mission and Strategic Plan are being accomplished. While the OAEA helps assess a broad spectrum of CNU’s services and outcomes, the primary assessment focus is student learning outcomes -- the learning that occurs as a result of the CNU experience. Our office serves in a consulting role to faculty and administrators to enhance all stages of the assessment process from writing objectives to using results.
Values
As an academic and administrative support unit, we are committed to the excellence of the university and, as such, value the following characteristics regarding assessment and evaluation:
- Congruent: Assessment fits with and is adaptable to CNU’s needs including consistency with mission and strategic plan and facilitates accountability to accrediting/governing bodies.
- Meaningful: Valid information is collected on CNU’s objectives in a routine manner.
- Useful: Faculty and administrators appropriately consider assessment results when making decisions on curriculum and services.
- Efficient: Components of assessment are organized to obtain the most useful information at a reasonable cost.
Vision
The OAEA will:
- Improve departmental assessment by consulting with faculty and administrators.
- Provide resources to promote better assessment across campus.
- Manage a comprehensive assessment program for the Liberal Learning Core curriculum.
- Showcase CNU’s effective assessment practices across the campus, regionally, and nationally.
Organizational Role of Director of Assessment at CNU:
The Director of Assessment, Evaluation, and Accreditation reports to the Provost. He serves as ex-officio on two committees: The Undergraduate Assessment and Evaluation Committee (UAEC) and the Undergraduate Program Review Committee (PRC). These committees are components of the governance structure that facilitate ongoing assessment for all academic departments and administrative units across campus. The director lends his expertise and service to these two committees in addition to: coordinating General Education assessment, facilitating accreditation efforts for CNU and specific programs, and conducting ad hoc assessment projects.
Overview of Assessment at CNU:
Since the early 1980s, Christopher Newport University has engaged in assessment of its programs, services, and students. The three major, ongoing assessment efforts at CNU include: (a) yearly assessment of academic departments and administrative units, (b) program review, and (c) General Education, which is referred to as the “Liberal Learning Curriculum.” Below are brief descriptions of each of these processes with links to more specific information.
a. Yearly Assessment: Each academic and administrative unit submits an Assessment Plan for the upcoming year that includes intended outcomes for that unit, how these outcomes will be measured, and how the outcomes are related to guiding documents. After the year has concluded the unit submits an Assessment Record, which reveals the results of the assessment outlined in the Assessment Plan. Units interpret these results and explain how they used the results for improvement.
b. Program Review: Academic departments also participate in a comprehensive, self-study every five or six years. Departments report status and progress on numerous elements related to their effectiveness including relevance to university, learning outcomes, teaching, scholarship, service, organization, curricula, size, and resources.
c. General Education: A new general education curriculum, referred to as “Liberal Learning” at CNU, was implemented in the Fall of 2006. The Liberal Learning Council is currently working with the Director of Assessment, Evaluation, and Accreditation to design an assessment system for this area. The link provides information regarding progress on the assessment of the new curriculum as well as information about the old General Education Curriculum.
