2018 Academic Resource Conference (ARC)
- Cristina Dypiangco
- Apr 28, 2018
- 4 min read
Learning domains: Leadership & Assessment and Evaluation
Description: On Wednesday, April 25th to Friday, April 27th I attended and presented research at the 2018 Academic Resource Conference (ARC) with my research team. The ARC is put on by WASC which is an accreditation body for higher education. The theme of the conference was “Future Perfect.” As society and higher education rapidly changes institutions have questions about “the nature and quality of teaching and learning, the work of faculty, the disposition of students, and the sustainability of the enterprise” (WASC, 2018). Additionally, institutions have greater pressure to demonstrate its value to stakeholders, so this conference would assist institutions to articulate their value. My research team is comprised of student affair administrators from various CSUs and our research is centered on exploring how mobile ethnography can be used for assessment purposes in higher education. We partnered with the market research company, Over the Shoulder, and our pilot study explored how student affairs professionals define the construct of respect.
Term: Spring 2018
Learning Outcomes:
SWiBAT demonstrate appropriate preparation and planning for the presentation through elements such as developing a PowerPoint presentation, meeting with team beforehand, and reviewing related content.
SWiBAT engage with conference activities by applying an equity lense and identifying content to implement in graduate assistantship.
Assessment Rubric: - Please click image to view PDF.
Reflection
I would rate myself as competent for SLO #1 because I collaborated with members of my research team to develop a well-designed presentation for the Academic Resource Conference (ARC). I met with my colleagues at Cal Poly Pomona to review coding procedures for analyzing emergent themes from the video and audio clips participants submitted. This was an excellent opportunity to decide on codes and general themes which assisted us with creating the results section of our presentation. I decided to participate in the CSUF Research Competition to prepare myself for the ARC, so I would have the opportunity to receive feedback from faculty in other disciplines. By sharing my presentation to an educated yet informed audience, I was able to find areas of improvement in my PowerPoint. For example, I learned that I could tighten up the methods section and provide more insight as to why market research technology relates to assessment. We also had several conference calls to check in and maintain progress on this presentation. Additionally, my research team was asked to write an article for NASPA’s Leadership Exchange magazine. Through collaborating on this article with our Over the Shoulder (OTS), market research company, we were able to clarify the partnership between OTS and student affairs practitioners/scholars as well as hone in potential implications of this application.
I would rate myself as competent/advanced for SLO #2 because I viewed workshops from an equity lense and am able to connect to my graduate assistantship. For example, I attended the Infographics and Data: Informing Decisions where the associate dean of student affairs and senior graphic designer from Pepperdine discussed the importance of using infographics to display data. They discussed that because stakeholders have limited time and energy to review content, infographics provide a way to display data in a way that is manageable and aesthetically pleasing. Although it was beneficial to understand the importance of partnering with instructional designers if unfamiliar with creating infographics, it is also significant to make sure that this information is accessible when possible. One of the other participants works in institutional research at a Cal State University and discussed how the CSU is working to have all online materials be accessible and suggested that the online version of Pepperdine’s infographic include tables of content below, so that a screen reader would be able to read the content.
In my graduate assistantship, I can work on creating PowerPoint presentations that are accessible by including ALT text for images and building the PowerPoint in a way that the information can be read in the correct order. Additionally, I can continue to build infographics for relevant stakeholders. For example, I created an infographic for our Northwestern partners that shares how students were able to meet the learning outcomes. The next step would be for me to share this information at the next meeting with Northwestern Mutual and discuss how improvements could be made for next year.
I also attended Equity-Minded Assessment: Building Bridges between Units to Understand and Support Diverse Students. This workshop was facilitated by an assistant director for assessment and survey research along with graduate student researchers. They focused on the importance of focusing on equity for program assessment. They assessed EOP advising from an equity standpoint by comparing EOP students to the rest of the campus population. I learned about the importance of building bridges with campus partners and thoroughly understanding the department and their goals and culture before assessment. Although this presentation compared their results to EOP students and their first generation status, they could have gone farther by looking at a representative sample of EOP students/first generation students who did not use their services. This may have provided greater detail in understanding why those EOP students are not using their services and how improvements can be made.
I would apply this to my graduate assistantship by continuing to disaggregate the data from our Emerging Leaders program by race/ethnicity, class standing, and college. This provides valuable information in better understanding who attends our retreats and which demographic groups are meeting/exceeding our learning outcomes. Additionally, I would like to distance myself of the dominant paradigm in regards to student success and creating equitable opportunities for students. More specifically, Bensimon (2007) discusses how the dominant paradigm assumes that students will be successful by individual effort; however, it does not consider the perspective of nontraditional students. In my graduate assistantship, I would like to take an active role in supporting our students by reaching out about specific leadership and mentoring opportunities.
Evidence
Please see pictures above.
References
Bensimon, E.M. (2007). The underestimated significance of practitioner knowledge in the scholarship on student success. The Review of Higher Education, 30(4), 441-469.
WASC (2018). Future Perfect. https://2018.wascarc.org/
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