The State University of New York and its campuses have been at the forefront of assessment and quality assurance for over four decades. By maintaining high standards of academic excellence and enabling campuses to meet or exceed rigorous institutional and programmatic accreditation standards, SUNY is established as a national model of assessment best practices. On behalf of the University Provost, the Office of Academic Affairs implements the Board of Trustee’s assessment policy through guidance, coordination, and collaborations with campus academic, student services, and assessment leaders and organizations such as the SUNY University Faculty Senate, the SUNY Faculty Council of Community Colleges, the SUNY Council on Assessment, and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
In the sections below, you will find more information about foundational policies and procedures that guide our assessment practice, information for assessment professionals on professional development opportunities, information about accreditation, and many resources related to assessment and accreditation that SUNY faculty and staff may find useful in your work.
SUNY Council on Assessment
Appointed by the SUNY Provost in consultation with campus and faculty governance leaders, the Council's mission is to enhance the assessment of institutional effectiveness and student learning by building, leading, and supporting a SUNY‐wide assessment community that fosters collaboration, reduces duplication of effort and provides guidance and resources to campuses.
Click here to find out more about SCOA and how to get involved.
SUNY Assessment Listservs
Assessment listservs promote a community of best practice among SUNY colleagues. Email assessment@suny.edu to request to be added to the SUNY Campus Assessment Officers List and an Assessment Listserv.
SUNY Association of Institutional Research and Planning Officers (AIRPO)
SUNY AIRPO, open to all New York State institutions, supports institutional research and planning officers at institutions of higher education in New York State, including their contributions to the assessment of student learning and institutional effectiveness.
Association for Institutional Research (AIR). AIR, the world's largest professional organization for higher education institutional researchers, provides educational resources, best practices, and professional-development opportunities for its more than 4,000 members.
SUNY Center for Professional Development (CPD)
The CPD offers a wide range of professional development opportunities related to teaching, learning and assessment, as shown on its events calendar. To subscribe to its listserv, send an email to info@cpd.suny.edu.
The State University of New York has a strong commitment to rigorous and regular assessment to enhance excellence in all aspects of academic and institutional achievement. This commitment was most recently expressed by Trustees Resolution 2010-039, adopted in March 2010, requiring campuses to “enhance quality by developing and implementing plans for the regular assessment of institutional effectiveness, academic programs and general education, such that the campus meets or exceeds the assessment standards set by the New York State Department of Education, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and, as appropriate, programmatic accreditation bodies”. It is understood that regional accreditation is a formative process, intended to assist institutions by means of self study and peer review to reflect on their practices while focusing on student learning. In accordance with this commitment, SUNY is providing campuses with the following resources and contacts in support of regional accreditation processes, including self study, periodic review reporting, monitoring reports, team visits and follow-up visits.
Liaisons
MSCHE Liaison: an MSCHE Vice President assigned to an individual campus. Assigned liaisons are found in the detail view under the name of each institution.
Accreditation Liaison Officer (ALO): an individual from each campus who serves as the primary contact for regional accreditation issues.
SUNY System Liaisons: SUNY representatives assigned to accompany a visiting team to a campus for an accreditation visit.
Accreditation Liaison Officers Listserv
This listserv is specifically dedicated for use by those individuals appointed by their campuses to serve as Middle States Accreditation Liaison Officers (ALOs). By request from ALOs, others on the campus who are chairing accreditation activities such as self-studies, Periodic Review Reports (PRR), monitoring reports, and team visits may be added. In this forum, participants will be able to ask questions and share ideas on how to prepare for campus visits, accreditation processes, supporting evidence, etc. This listserv will facilitate communication among those most actively engaged in accreditation processes within the SUNY system and should allow for the sharing of expertise and best practices, as well as problem solving. To update contacts for the listserv, ALOs should send an e-mail to Assessment.
SUNY Governance: A narrative description of the various types of governance across the University. For additional information about SUNY governance and the Middle States fundamental elements of governance (Standard Four), ALOs should send an e-mail to Assessment.
GASB 45 Compliance - Community Colleges
Certification Statements for SUNY Campuses
Certification Statement: Compliance with Title IV. This statement should be attached to the Executive Summary of the Self Study.
Certification Statement: Compliance with MSCHE Requirements of Affiliation and Related Entities Policy. This statement must be signed by the Chair of the SUNY Board of Trustees.
Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). CHEA, a national advocate and institutional voice for self-regulation of academic quality through accreditation, is an association of 3,000 degree-granting colleges and universities and recognizes 60 institutional and programmatic accrediting organizations.
Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). To assist institutions in meeting its accreditation standards, Standards for Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation, MSCHE has extensive resources about the assessment of student learning and institutional effectiveness.
Resources from the MSCHE website
Programmatic accreditation from an independent third party is voluntary. The accreditation organization establishes standards for academic programs related to industry expectations, which provides confidence for students and prospective employers about the quality of a program. A list of programmatic accreditations can be found on individual campus web sites.
American Association of Colleges and Universities Assessment Resources. AAC&U offers institutes, online resources, publications and more, including its VALUE Rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) in multiple areas that were developed by national panels of faculty.
Assessment Network of New York (ANNY). ANNY is a professional network established to assist New York's colleges and universities in their efforts to assess student learning and institutional effectiveness. It publishes a newsletter, sponsors conferences and plans to provide other services.
Assessment Update. This peer-reviewed, bi-monthly publication features articles by institutional assessment professionals and columns by national assessment leaders. Back issues and guidelines for submissions are online.
Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE). AALHE is a national organization of assessment practitioners committed to documenting and improving student learning in higher education through events, events, publications, and other services.
Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) COACHE is a research-practice partnership based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They are dedicated to the discovery of and insight into the postsecondary faculty experience. Partnering with COACHE, academic leaders at more than 250 colleges, universities, community colleges and systems have strengthened their capacity to identify the drivers of faculty success and to implement informed changes.
Center for Community College Student Engagement. The Center is an umbrella organization for survey research, focus group work, and related services for community and technical colleges interested in improving educational quality through strengthened student engagement and student success. It offers nationally-benchmarked, research-based services to colleges and sponsors.
ePortfolios. An ePortfolio is a digitized collection of artifacts—such as demonstrations, resources, and accomplishments—that represent an individual, group, or institution for assessment or other purposes.
Inventory of Higher Education Assessment Instruments. This list of assessment instruments, created by the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement in 2003, has four areas: Institutional Effectiveness (surveys of opinions and institutional experiences of students, faculty, staff, administrators, or alumni); Basic Skills (measures of the general cognitive capacity of the students); Affective Development (surveys of the values and social development of the students); and Major Field Exams. NOTE: This list is not current and does not include assessments created since 2003.
Listserv for Assessment Professionals in Higher Education. Hosted by the University of Kentucky, this national listserv has over 1,000 subscribers who exchange questions and valuable information, and features a publicly available searchable archive.
National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). NILOA aims to discover and disseminate ways that academic programs and institutions can productively use assessment data internally to inform and strengthen undergraduate education, and externally to communicate with policy makers, families and other stakeholders. It conducts surveys and analyses, issues position papers on pressing topics, develops short, instructive case studies of promising practices in collegiate learning assessment, and publishes an interactive calendar of assessment events.
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). NSSE conducts surveys, issues reports and provides services to four-year institutions of higher education with the goal of improving student learning and institutional effectiveness using research-based, effective educational practices.
Voluntary Framework of Accountability – Community Colleges. A project of the American Association of Community Colleges, the VFA is developing metrics for measuring the effectiveness of community colleges, collecting data from colleges and building tools for displaying the metrics in consistent ways for the public.
Voluntary System of Accountability – Four-Year Institutions. Sponsored by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the VSA is an initiative to supply clear, accessible, and comparable information on the undergraduate student experience to important constituencies through a common web report – the College Portrait.
For more information about Assessment and Accreditation at SUNY, contact Jackie Snyder, Assistant Provost for Assessment & Community College Education, at assessment@suny.edu.