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).

Hear from some of our campus assessment leaders as we celebrate this achievement:

The 2021 WSU Assessment Grant Call for Proposals is Now Open!

The 2021 call for proposals and rubric are now available. Proposals are due May 31, 2021. See the Grants page for examples of past projects. Contact WSU Director of Assessment Cathy Barrette with questions or for a consultation about your project ideas or draft proposal.

For a quick overview of the 2019 grant projects, watch the recent panel:

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 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 2020-2021 (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)