Assessment conference returns for 9th year

Contact: Jeanne Baron
David Reinhold holds up a booklet during a presentation.

Past conference presenters from WMU have included Dr. David Reinhold.

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—The ninth annual Western Michigan University Assessment Conference will be held from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday, March 16, in the Fetzer Center.

WMU graduate teaching assistants as well as faculty and staff members, including part-time instructors, are invited to attend. The featured presenter will be Linda Suskie, who has 40 years of experience in higher education administration and will present a plenary talk as well as a workshop session.

Conference attendees should feel free to come and go as their schedules permit. The event is free of charge, but registration is required by 5 p.m. Friday, March 9, for the luncheon. To register, visit wapps.wmich.edu/workshops, log in by Bronco NetID and scroll to the link for the conference.

This year's conference

The Assessment in Action Conference is designed to provide education, resources and networking opportunities on assessment of student learning topics for all faculty, graduate teaching assistants, part-time instructors and staff. Those who are new to assessment, as well as those who have developed expertise in this area, are encouraged to attend.

In addition to Suskie's presentations and the luncheon, the 2018 event will feature workshop sessions on different topics pertaining to assessment, a poster session to showcase the current Assessment Fellows projects, and prizes. Extended University Programs will be sharing several sessions pertaining to assessment in the online environment.

The conference is being organized by the Office of Assessment and Undergraduate Studies. For more information, visit wmich.edu/assessment/resources/annualconference. Direct questions to Karen Stokes Chapo at karen.stokeschapo@wmich.edu or (269) 387-3867.

Featured presenter

Headshot, Linda Suskie.

Linda Suskie

Suskie is an internationally recognized consultant, speaker, writer and workshop facilitator on a broad variety of higher education assessment and accreditation topics. She wrote "Five Dimensions of Quality: A Common Sense Guide to Accreditation and Accountability" and "Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide."

The latter text is one of the best-selling books on assessment in higher education. A link on the conference webpage makes it easy to preorder copies of the third edition, which will be published Tuesday, Feb. 13.

Suskie served for seven years as a vice president for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which is an accreditor of colleges and universities in the nation's mid-Atlantic region. She also has directed the American Association for Higher Education's Assessment Forum and has held administrative posts at Towson University and the State University of New York College at Oswego.

She earned a bachelor's degree in quantitative studies from Johns Hopkins University and a master's degree in educational measurement and statistics from the University of Iowa.