Archives
Senators asked to oppose value-added assessment
By DONNA BUDNIEWSKI
Reporter Assistant Editor
Members of the Faculty Senate have been asked to oppose an effort by the SUNY Board of Trustees to impose system-wide assessment.
Tempers ran high at a recent University Faculty Senate (UFS) meeting in Oswego regarding a SUNY trustee draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) calling for system-wide assessment (also called value-added assessment), William Baumer, professor of philosophy and UFS senator, reported at Tuesday's monthly meeting of the Faculty Senate.
Baumer is asking UB senators to support a UFS resolution calling for suspension of trustee action regarding system-wide assessment. Senators will vote on the resolution, presented on Tuesday for a first reading, at their next meeting on Dec. 2. While the resolution elicited little debate among senators on Tuesday, discussion at an earlier FSEC meeting made it clear that the draft MOU has little support at UB.
According to Baumer and senate Chair Peter Nickerson, professor of pathology who also serves as a UFS senator, the draft MOU was poorly planned out and dropped without warning on the UFS at a June meeting. The final draft of the MOU was rejected by the UFS at the Oswego meeting.
"They forgot to take the skunk off the football before they tried to run with it," Baumer said of the MOU. Not only are faculty members across SUNY angry about the proposal, Baumer noted that the way in which it was presented to the UFS has damaged relations between trustees and senators.
"We had no warning the MOU would even be on the agenda in June. It was tossed in at the last minute," said Nickerson. Both Nickerson and Baumer said the UFS is in favor of continued, system-wide discussion on the issue.
"The UFS has repeatedly gone on record supporting campus-based assessment, but not system-wide assessment," said Baumer. In fact, SUNY-wide, campus-based assessment efforts have garnered high praise from Peter D. Salins, SUNY provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. Although a supporter of system-wide assessment, Salins has praised the campus-based initiatives as a "huge success" and "a remarkable accomplishment," according to the UFS resolution.
The draft MOU describes value-added assessment of general education as "an attempt to determine the growth in learning achieved by undergraduates in the building blocks of general education that are prerequisites to further, advanced study."
SUNY value-added assessment periodically would assess, using common measures, a representative sample of students from across SUNY in order to gauge students' attainment of the learning outcomes in mathematics, basic communication, critical thinking (reasoning), information management and the understanding of the methods scientists and social scientists use to explore phenomena.
"To make this determination successfully and meaningfully, we need a consistent set of instruments administered at two points in time: close to the students entry to the institution and at some later date when the student has completed this learning. The purpose of administering these instruments twice is to have a reasonable measure of the contribution institutions make to students' learning," according to the draft MOU.
Baumer explained that some of the concerns of UFS members are who is actually going to pay for assessment, what instruments/methodology will be used for measuring the success of students, what kinds of penalties students or institutions will incur if learning goals aren't met and whether or not the information will be made public. He added that while at first glance system-wide assessment looks like an attractive thing to do because faculty are in favor of assessment and want students to learn, the vast diversity of campuses and students on SUNY campuses is one reason why "one-size fits all approach" system-wide assessment wouldn't work.
CUNY schools are doing system-wide assessment, yet faculty in that system claim that tests are driving content and curriculum, and are not telling them much, to the tune of about $1 million a year, said Baumer.
"In brief, system-wide assessment is viewed as having extensive and serious problems, significant costs and damages, and at best, dubious benefits," Baumer noted in his report on the UFS meeting.
"The draft MOU calling for common measures across the campuses of SUNY would undermine fundamental principles of academic excellence by discouraging pedagogical activity and innovation," states the UFS resolution.
The "sense of the senate"—an attachment to the UFS resolution—and the resolution itself repeatedly point to university-wide assessment mechanisms already in place, mainly General Education Review (GEAR) and the memorandums of understanding between SUNY administration and its campuses, which "provide for system-wide oversight of campus-based responsibilities." Moreover, continues the "sense of the senate," "professional accreditation (as specific as those required by disciplinary professional societies or as general as required by the Middle States Higher Education Commission) also provides a mode of assessment and accountability…"
"The faculty of the State University of New York has always supported both assessment and accountability. Both are a routine part of academic life and faculty responsibilities. In fact, the faculty has participated through the UFS and the Faculty Council of Community Colleges with system administration (specifically, with the Office of the Provost) to set up system-wide programs of assessment (General Education Review-GEAR) and accountability (Campus MOU-memorandums of understanding). These have been the most recent successful examples of how the faculty and administration can cooperate to the benefit of SUNY," the document states.
It is the students, Baumer maintained, who would have to pay a price if assessment is to mean anything, and they aren't in favor of assessment according to SUNY student trustee Stephanie Gross.