WSU Receives National Award for Assessment

The only national award of its kind, the Excellence in Assessment Designation recognizes Wayne State University's success in integrating assessment practices across the institution, providing evidence of student learning outcomes to stakeholders, and utilizing assessment results to guide instiutitonal decision-making and improve student performance. The award is co-sponsored by the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities (APLU), the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA), and the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U).

Congratulations to the 2020 WSU Assessment Grant Recipients!

Provost Keith E. Whitfield awarded grants to projects designed to improve assessment practices in four programs: CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services), Career Services, Latino/a and Latin American Studies, and Pathologists' Assistant. See the WSU Assessment Grants page for a description of each project and read the 2018 grant recipients' final reports as well. 

AY18-19 Annual Report

Each year we collect data on our institution's assessment practices and use that information to improve the supports available for program assessment. See where we're doing well, where we need to improve, and how we're recognizing and supporting assessment in the 2018-2019 annual report.

Mission

WSU Assessment's mission is to engage faculty, staff, administrators, and students from academic and co-curricular/student services programs in an effective, sustainable process of continuous program improvement that enhances student learning throughout their time at Wayne State. WSU Assessment encourages stakeholders' engagement by:

• offering professional development opportunities in program assessment, such as workshops, group and individual consultations, training videos, presentations, and written documentation
• disseminating information about program assessment through peer support structures (University, College/School /Division, and Departmental program assessment committees; program assessment coordinators) and online at assessment.wayne.edu
• recognizing individuals and programs for their exemplary progress and scholarly presentations or publications in assessment
• facilitating feedback processes to improve the quality of programs' assessment plans

Read our AY17-18, AY16-17, AY15-16, and AY14-15 annual reports to see our progress so far and our plans for improvement.

Program assessment supports students, faculty, and staff by helping programs to: 

• Articulate their goals
  • Find your program's learning outcomes for 2019-2020 (PDF)
• Measure how well programs are achieving those goals
• Use that information to improve program quality
  • See good models from WSU programs
• Communicate programs' successes effectively
  • You can share your program assessment efforts through scholarly publication or presentation or through the Provost's Fellows program. See examples from our own Wayne State colleagues that have already done so.

Get started on your assessment plan now using the resources on this site. For example:

• Use the assessment practices feedback rubric (MS Word; PDF) to compare your assessment plan to best practices.
• See examples of the core components of a complete assessment plan: 
  • Assessment plan (PDF) and annual report to stakeholders
  • Academic and Student Services curriculum map examples and template (XLS)
• Hold monthly discussions guided by the Program or Department or College Conversation Calendars (PDF) to simplify your assessment planning work.

Assessment Handbooks (pdf)