Sanchez plays role in national accountability debate
Frank Sanchez, associate vice chancellor of enrollment and student engagement, is one of 78 professionals from across the country chosen to participate in a Voluntary System of Accountability task force that has emerged in response to the U.S. Commission on the Future of Higher Education report created at the behest of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and published last year.
The pressure for accountability has grown nationwide, and Spellings has aggressively advocated for change, in some cases calling for standardized databases that educational institutions are loathe to adopt. Seeking to help set the agenda for solutions, the VSA group consists of representatives from institutions in the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU).
The group’s three task forces met last week in the Lawrence Street Center. The task forces are focused on
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Student and family information—identifying and providing easily accessible, standardized information on colleges and universities to students and families during the college search process as well as to outside stakeholders such as policy makers
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Core educational outcomes—recommending three standardized instruments to measure educational outcomes that assess critical thinking, analytic reasoning and written communication
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Campus student engagement—creating six constructs for standardized measurement, which are
· Active learning experiences
· Collaborative learning experiences
· Institutional commitment for student learning and success
· Educationally purposeful student interaction with campus faculty and staff
· Student satisfaction with overall undergraduate experience
· Experiences with diverse groups of people and ideas
Sanchez is one of 15 serving on the student engagement task force, which will consider practical constructs for measuring student engagement (such as the National Survey for Student Engagement, an instrument that the downtown campus uses annually). As part of these deliberations, he is participating in identifying questions that will be recommended for a standardized national measure of student engagement.
Sanchez is excited about the possibilities for providing input in this national dialogue. He says, “We’re solidifying the importance of valuing and investing in the quality of student engagement on university campuses. This VSA task force will be a vehicle for highlighting how we design the collegiate experience, identifying what matters in student success and how to assess and report it.”