Year Three - CAS Evaluation
During the third year of the design and implementation process, most student affairs professionals in the department will continue the work of the second year - writing learning outcomes and connecting them to various assessment tools. In addition to this work, a small team of professionals will conduct a comprehensive CAS self-evaluation.
As you plan your time, I suggest the following:
- Plan 2-4 hours of retreat time for the members of the self-evaluation team to review the CAS standards and guidelines as well as the self-evaluation process;
- The team should meet for 1-2 hours each month during the year to review their progress;
- During the first half of the year, team members should plan to spend 4-8 hours a month collecting and reviewing evidence, depending on the scope of the self-evaluation process;
- During the second half of the year, team members should plan to spend 2-4 hours a month reviewing collected evidence and assigning scores in the self-assessment document;
- The self-evaluation team leader should plan 4-8 hours or more to write up the final self-evaluation report.
While the time commitments for this process are longer than in the first two years, they are also more focused involving primarily the members of the self-evaluation team. The other staff members should continue to spend one hour a month in writing learning outcomes and connecting them to assessment tools. The staff as a whole should be able to spend less than one hour a month reviewing assessment progress during staff meetings. Comprehensive CAS Evaluation
NASPA and ACPA, the two primary professional associations for student affairs professionals, developed the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) in 1979 to assist colleges and universities in their program evaluation processes. Drawing from the experience of student affairs professionals in a broad set of programmatic areas, CAS developed sets of standards and guidelines for 30 functional and programmatic areas in the profession. Each functional area has its own Self-Assessment Guide (SAG).
Standards and Guidelines CAS standards "represent best practices as formulated by representatives of multiple professional associations concerned with student learning and development in higher education."
While CAS honors the diversity of American higher education institutions, it also asserts that there are a number of common standards that apply to all institutions for any given functional area. CAS also asserts that there are a set of general standards that cut across all functional areas of service. These standards reflect the minimum expectations for a functional area, and thus are worded in terms of "must" and "shall." For example, the first standard for Minority Student Programs includes the language, "Minority Student Programs (MSP) must incorporate student learning and student development in its mission."
CAS guidelines
are "suggestions for practice and serve to elaborate and amplify standards through the use of suggestions, descriptions, and examples." The guidelines expand upon the standards in ways that are more specific and concrete, but that may not apply to every functional area or to every institution. Thus, CAS guidelines typically use the language of "can" and "may;" the first guideline for MSP programs begins by stating, "The provision of minority student programs and services should presuppose a strong campus sense of a common community..." CAS Evaluation Team
CAS recommends a 3-5 member evaluation team. This team might consist of a department head or key team member serving as the team leader, a student affairs professional from a different functional area, a student, and a faculty member. As with the initial assessment team, I recommend including someone from the institution's fund-raising department if possible.
Compiling Evidence
The first two sections of the SAGs focus on mission and program - both are closely connected to learning objectives and learning outcomes. Thus, the first phase of collecting evidence should go quickly as this evidence will largely come from the first two years of the assessment model implementation.
The next ten parts of the SAGs address leadership; organization; human resources; facilities, technology, and equipment; legal responsibilities; equity and access; campus and external relations; diversity; and ethics. For these sections, the self-evaluation team will draw upon print materials, data sets, student files, employee evaluations, etc. The team should take special care to organize this evidence so that it is easy to review during the second half of the year when the team will review the evidence and assign scores. Assigning Scores
CAS uses a 4-point likert scale to evaluate each of the standards. While assigning scores is a fairly straight-forward process, it is important for the self-evaluation team to review and discuss one another's scoring regularly to ensure the highest possible inter-rater consistency.
The Final Report
Once all the team members have completed their evaluations for each of the 12 CAS standard areas, the team leader will compile the results into a final report. Given the scope of the CAS standards, this report is more extensive than those for the first two years of the design and implementation process. In order to make the final report accessible and to help ensure that professionals and university decision-makers use the results to improve practice, I strongly recommend that the team leader compliment the final report with a 2-3 page executive summary.
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