Sheila Thompson says she grew up professionally with the assessment movement. Among her duties will be to write the Monitoring Report on Assessment of Student Learning required by the Higher Learning Commission. Photo by Johanna Snow

Sheila Thompson’s résumé is tailor-made for the newly created position she’s occupied since June 1: director of student learning and outcomes assessment.

“We were exceedingly fortunate that at the time we were hiring for this position, Sheila was ready for a new challenge,” says Interim Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Curriculum and Programs Rich Wagner. “She’s really an expert in the field.”

“I call it serendipity,” says Thompson, who worked in assessment at the University of Denver for 10 years, eight as director of university assessment and two as assistant provost for institutional research and assessment. Thompson was previously a faculty member at DU, having taught biology for eight years. “I loved it,” she says, adding that teaching piqued her interest in understanding how students learn. When she pursued her doctorate at DU in higher education, she focused on student learning and assessment, writing her dissertation on developing an assessment model for general studies science courses.

“The assessment movement (in higher education) really started in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so I ‘grew up’ with it (professionally),” she says.

Why a new position for student learning and assessment?
According to Wagner, the director of student learning and outcomes assessment position was created for two primary reasons. First, he says, “Teaching and learning are central to what we do at Metro State. Understanding how our students are learning, through an assessment program that is ongoing” and has the ability to use results for improvement, is vital. And second, last year’s accreditation visit by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) yielded the following recommendation: “Identify a full-time person to provide strong leadership in assessment of student learning.”

“The institution has made great strides already in assessment,” Wagner said, “but we’d gotten to the point where we needed someone to take us to the next level.” The HLC reached the same conclusion, their report stating that Metro State’s “new three-member assessment review teams are an effective strategy for developing a culture of assessment of student learning… MSCD is to be commended for this approach. However, (a part-time position) is not adequate to sustain this effort.”

Just three weeks into her new position, Thompson also lauds the efforts made to date. “The structures for assessment are already in place; they lay a good foundation,” she says, citing the three schools’ assessment committees and the institution-wide assessment committee. “It makes it that much easier for me to do my job.”

Thompson says that with each program and department already submitting an annual report on assessment, and committees of peers already reviewing the reports, her work will focus on using the feedback to follow up on suggested improvements to student learning or to improve the way learning outcomes are assessed.

A host of connections
Wagner is also excited about the connections in the area of student learning that Thompson brings to the job.

She has published articles on student learning in national journals and recently learned that she will have a chapter published in an assessment methods handbook. Until recently, she taught graduate-level classes on student learning and assessment, for DU’s higher education administration program. And just last week, Thompson presented at an international conference on assessment and retention and how the two relate.

Wagner says another of Thompson’s duties will be to write the Monitoring Report on Assessment of Student Learning, also required by the HLC as part of the accreditation process. Thompson wrote a similar report while she was at DU, where she also co-chaired the HLC self-study committee and chaired the assessment subcommittee.

And, Thompson has been tapped already to co-chair the summer general studies committee, along with Assistant Professor of Spanish Lunden MacDonald. That committee is charged with developing a plan to assess the general studies curriculum.

About the students
Thompson says part of the appeal for her in coming to Metro State is its mission. “For so many of the faculty and administrators, the focus really is on student learning,” she says. “They’re committed to student learning; they care about it and want to improve it.”

“And for me, it really is about the students.”