Officeof Student Affairs: the Use of the Mission Alignment, Assessment, and Planning Model

Officeof Student Affairs: The use of the Mission Alignment, Assessment, and Planning model (MAAP) to organize and facilitate assessment.

MAAP has facilitated the identification and alignment of its various and wide-ranging unit goals with the university’s undergraduate mission goals. To effectively share of information and build an enthusiastic culture of assessment, Student Affairs launched a magazine, “Assessment in Action,” in the summer of 2012.

The wide range of activities housed in Student Affairs defy any simple uniform metric for assessment. Each unit within the Division necessarily develops its own assessment tools and responds to what it learns from those measures. For example Counseling, Alcohol & Other Drug Assistance Program, and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) responded to assessment results that showed long waiting lists with a telephone triage system that has eliminated waits for initial contact and decreased time to conversation with a mental health professional to two to three days. Additional group therapy groups have been established and a new daytime on call schedule assists students with urgent needs as walk-ins or by phone during business hours. In addition, CAPS engages in a range of strategies to get information and training to the students, faculty, and staff that need it and now provides mental health information during all parent information sessions as well as student orientation. CAPS administers student satisfaction/experience questionnaires twice annually. Pre and post measures of anxiety symptoms are done for students who participate in anxiety management groups and the OQ-45 Survey of psychological distress is used to monitor the effectiveness of individual psychotherapy and make adjustments as warranted. Similarly, Health Services engages in numerous assessment activities embedded in the continual professional practice of medical care and standard quality assurance practices. Each spring the unit administers the National College Health Assessment Survey and several surveys of client/patient satisfaction are used to improve services.

As a student-centered service division, many units within Student Affairs use attendance and participation data and student surveys to assess the success of particular programs or events, and make adjustments in programing as indicated. These units include, for example, the Asian-American Cultural Center; Project Civility (Dean of Students); Dining Services (which also uses an “Emeal” link and “Napkin Boards” in dining halls to assess its performance); the Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities (which also assesses achievement of learning outcomes in training programs); Housing and Residence Life, including the EBI residential satisfaction survey; the Paul Robeson Cultural Center; Recreation; Student Conduct; and Student Life. In particular, Student Life, which runs a wide-range of student involvement and leadership programs, includes questions designed to assess student achievement of program or event-specific learning outcomes. Pre-and post-tests are also used to assess student achievement of learning outcomes. Unit staff write narrative assessments after every event making suggestions that are used to improve subsequent events and programs.

The Division of Student Affairs includes the RU Office of Veteran Services which during its first two years assisted over 800 veterans (and students using veterans benefits) in solving more than 2600 individual issues. Using a national benchmark, this office performs extremely well: in both 2011 and 2012 Military Timesmagazineranked Rutgers thirdamongapproximately 300 traditional, four-year institutionsin its annual Best For Vets survey. has also been nameda top military-friendly school inMilitary Advanced Educationmagazine’s 2013 Guide. To guide improvement in serving the needs of its students, this Office also conducts annual surveys.

The Division of Student Affairs employs a large number of students, giving it the opportunity to advance student learning goals related to career readiness. Each unit does performance evaluation assessments of its student employees, sharing that assessment with the student so that s/he can engage in a process of continuous improvement. Student Life also tracks GPAs of student employees. Students identified as “on probation” or “near dismissal” work directly with professional staff to ensure they get the assistance they need and are referred to appropriate resources.

Finally, in conjunction with the Office of Institutional Research and Academic Planning, the Division of Student Affairs uses NSSE and SERU to assess student engagement and institutional effectiveness and design programs and services to advance those goals.