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Institutional Effectiveness


Within the mission of SCAD, the institutional effectiveness department actively builds the university’s reputation as a leader in art and design education by fostering a culture of continuous improvement, ensuring adherence to best practices in evaluation and assessment, advancing the systematic use of information for decision making, monitoring the university’s regional and professional accreditation compliance, and facilitating the achievement of the university’s strategic goals.

The department includes three functional reporting areas (institutional research, institutional assessment, and evaluation and policy studies) and another location (SCAD Atlanta). The efforts of this department are coordinated in a team approach, with an executive director for institutional effectiveness and an assistant director for planning and project management as a coordinating link for all activities. The vice president for institutional effectiveness is a member of the President’s Cabinet and serves as the institutional liaison to the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Vision
The institutional effectiveness department is a nationally recognized leader in providing assessment, planning and evaluation information and strategies that are current, rigorous and useful. As the university’s centralized office for planning, assessment, institutional research and accreditation, the department supports SCAD’s success and growth by fostering a culture of evidence-based decision making, promoting best practices for student learning, and maintaining and developing relationships with external constituencies that further SCAD’s leadership in art and design education.
Values
The institutional effectiveness department values:
  • Unified dedication to SCAD’s mission, goals and values
  • Clarity of departmental mission and goals
  • Excellence and rigor in all phases of the research and evaluation process
  • Rigorous critique and review of all analytic information, as well as thoughtful planning and evaluation
  • Dissemination of accurate information that is both useful and used for decision-making
  • A culture that encourages an honest and open exchange of ideas
  • Respectful and open communication
  • Continuous development of individual talents and the contributions of each staff member
  • Appropriate and timely follow-through to completion of assigned projects
Goals
  1. The institutional effectiveness department facilitates the progress of academic and non-academic areas at SCAD as well as the university overall in achieving and maintaining the highest standards of quality and international recognition.
  2. The institutional effectiveness department provides leadership for accreditation actions.
  3. SCAD meets and exceeds standards for use of student outcomes-based assessment and institutional effectiveness requirements as relevant to SACS and professional accreditation reviews.
  4. SCAD evaluates overall institutional effectiveness on an annual basis and uses the resulting information in annual and strategic planning processes to facilitate continuous improvement.
  5. The institutional effectiveness department provides an information-rich environment and actively disseminates findings of evaluative studies to further develop data-rich discussions about student learning and a culture of evidence in decision making at SCAD.
  6. The institutional effectiveness department collaborates with other departments and units at SCAD to understand user needs for information, provide relevant information in a timely and understandable manner, and provide appropriate consultative expertise.
  7. The institutional effectiveness department utilizes best practices in designing, conducting, analyzing and reporting decision-facilitation research, evaluation and assessment studies.
Office of institutional assessment
The office of institutional assessment exists to promote and advance the systematic collection and use of information for program and institution decision-making. The office supports the university’s success and advances SCAD’s reputation as a leader in art and design assessment by promoting reflective inquiry and interest in program improvement. The office advocates a core institutional process of inquiry that bridges SCAD locations, is embedded in institutional life, and promotes the implementation of evidence-based changes.

MUSE 2009
In February 2009, the office of institutional assessment hosted the inaugural MUSE (Measuring Unique Studies Effectively) conference. The first conference of its kind in art and design education assessment, it is designed to build a community of art and design professionals who share an intellectual curiosity about student learning. MUSE speakers, presenters and vendors helped illuminate the many creative best-practice approaches and successes in art and design education.

More than 130 attendees from five countries, 30 states and 64 academic institutions attended MUSE. SCAD staff and faculty provided keynote speeches, facilitated pre-conference workshops and presented concurrent sessions in program assessment, academic course review and rubric creation. The conference showcased SCAD’s best practice assessment processes and moved SCAD forward as the leader in art and design assessment.
Office of institutional research
The office of institutional research is a service unit that provides management information and centralized reporting services. The office responds to internal data requests by providing official counts and customized statistical analyses as well as by designing and executing survey research and interview-based studies. The office responds to external data requests by providing official institutional information to governmental, accreditation, and other agencies interested in advertising and comparing university statistics. The work of institutional research is guided by the overarching goal of assisting the institution in its understanding of the external environment, including its opportunities and challenges to build on institutional values to aid decision-makers in assessment, planning, policy development and the implementation of creative strategies to achieve its mission.

SCAD Profiles Book
The Profiles Book, produced by institutional research, is published every fall and is available to the SCAD community in early December. This fact book serves as a useful resource to SCAD students, faculty and staff as it contains a collection of commonly used and cited official university statistics.
Office of evaluation and policy studies
The office of evaluation and policy studies is charged with accreditation coordination, participating in compliance and reaffirmation efforts related to regional accreditation (SACS) and specialized accreditation or certification (such as NAAB, CIDA, GAPSC). The office facilitates the review of the qualifications of new and continuing faculty, in collaboration with human resources and academic services. The office conducts studies of policy interest to SCAD using best practice quantitative and qualitative research methods.
SCAD Atlanta institutional effectiveness
Staffed by an assistant director of institutional effectiveness and coordinator of institutional effectiveness, the SCAD institutional effectiveness office in Atlanta provides support for assessment efforts, institutional research and survey research at the Atlanta location.


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