Hall-OIRE- Interviewing, Interviewing, Interviewing

Hey guys!!!

I started my interview process today. Beginning with the assessment specialist, this individual gave me a rundown of their duties and responsibilities within the office. The office shares many responsibilities and tasks, but each person is responsible for a major component of the office. The assessment specialists work a lot with the curriculum of the university.  While interviewing with the assessment specialist, what was common knowledge to this person was new to me. Sounds basic, but I had no idea was “gen-ed” was. I realize now “gen-ed” refers to general education courses which are fundamental knowledge for students. These are your core classes such as, comp I, college algebra, psychology, etc. 

Part of proving institutional effectiveness is determining how well students learn and what they learn from freshman year to senior year. When assessing this sort of population the strategy that is implemented is to test freshman in the fall in a course such as Comp I, and then “native” seniors in the spring. Native seniors are the students who have been at MSU for all four years.  We discussed how ITS works with the OIRE to run a list of classes with native students in them, and also how the OIRE builds relationships with other departments on campus, such as the English department, to be able to come into their classroom and test their students.

During our conversation, the term FERPA came up, and in the back of my head, there was a slight flashback to Legal. I was impressed that as the staff member spoke about FERPA, the knowledge I gained during Legal allowed me to follow along in the conversation as we spoke about this wonderful profession, known as Student Affairs.

The interview was sort of all over the place, we discussed how every degree on campus has to be assessed prior to reaffirmation.  Along with degrees being assessed, the OIRE has also started assessing certificates.  The problem with assessing certificates is that we are not able to determine the difference between students in masters programs, and those who are receiving their certificate in the same program. The argument here is what would be the difference between the performance of a master’s student taking a course for their masters, and a student who has graduated with their bachelors, who is also pursuing a certificate in the same field?

Jeremy.