How Technical College Took a Deep Dive Into Assessment

Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, Wisconsin, long has valued assessment. The institution recently took the practice to a whole new level of importance and community buy in with help from HLC’s Assessment Academy.

When Fox Valley Technical College joined HLC’s Assessment Academy in 2019, assessment was valued but uneven at best.

“What we had were pockets of assessment going on throughout the college. We needed to find a way to make assessment a foundational part of our culture college wide,” said Dr.  Kim Olson, Fox Valley’s associate vice president of college effectiveness and accreditation.

The college, which has been around since 1912 and is one of 16 institutions mandated by the state of Wisconsin to provide technical training, was undergoing significant change with many long-time leaders retiring, “

“We said ‘OK, we’ve done plenty of homegrown stuff around assessment.  What can we do to make assessment more foundational to our institution?’” she said.

Fox Valley Technical College put together a cross-functional team of faculty, administrators and students in order to create foundational underpinnings on which the institution could reset its relationship to assessment of student learning.

Some of the steps taken by the team as part of the project included:

• Development of a college-wide assessment guide
• Design of an intranet resource and glossary on assessment
• A redefining – and embrace – of assessment at all levels and for the good of the institution as a whole.

“The Higher Learning Commission routinely identifies assessment as an area that colleges and universities can use to make meaningful improvement,” said Barbara Gellman-Danley, president of HLC. “The Assessment Academy also has been one of our most popular training programs, providing institutions with valuable resources and ideas for their future achievement.”

During the experience, Fox Valley’s college team did much of its work virtually with an Assessment Academy mentor, and at times came together in Chicago for discussion with other Assessment Academy teams from institutions across the nation.  Fox Valley was one of 11 institutions in HLC’s four-year Assessment Academy that completed the program in October 2023.

Along the way, Olson remembers her team redefining assessment as a “systematic process” for the betterment of college programs, institutional development, and student learning. They looked at every step of the assessment cycle in order to more broadly understand how the college, departments, divisions and staff members each could support assessment in a meaningful way. 

The team worked with students on assessment as a driver that can invigorate their continuous improvement. A year prior to graduation, the team also rolled out a pilot program with a message to the college community on how important it is to “simplify, simplify, simplify” when practicing assessment.

“Given that our students are here for a short period of time, we determined that our assessment practices must be succinct and aligned with our mission to support student goals and prepare a skilled workforce, helping our students transition to employment as soon as possible upon completion of an industry recognized college credential.” , ”

As a recent Assessment Academy graduate, the institution, above all, has learned that assessment is about more than just instruction. Also, since the Academy graduation, the institution has begun mapping programs and their outcomes in order to better pinpoint successes. Technology and other learning tools also are being studied as part of the group’s continuing work.

“We are proud of the work being done at Fox Valley Technical College,” added Gellman-Danley.  “We hope it can be an inspiration for others to be motivated and further involved in assessment.”