ASSESStivus evaluates academics, program success

Geneseo faculty members participated in ASSESStivus—a yearly assessment that examines student outcomes—this month. The College Assessment Advisory Committee created ASSESStivus in 2012 with the goal of promoting campus-wide assessment activity and shared results of successful practices with other faculty members. According to Interim Associate Provost for Personnel and Diversity Kenneth Kallio, ASSESStivus was developed to encourage a discussion regarding the effectiveness of the college’s academic programs, campus activities and student organizations.

“A number of years ago, we decided that Geneseo is not just about doing assessment, but about sharing ideas, findings and talking about them,” Kallio said.

According to Kallio, the major goal of ASSESStivus is to evaluate the student outcomes within various school programs. Kallio said that each academic program within Geneseo has a set of learning outcomes for students, and these programs should instill knowledge that will be useful for the next chapter in students’ lives.

“Students, parents, legislators, governors and anybody who has a stake in an institution like this wants to be insured that we know what we are trying to do, and that there is evidence we are actually successful at doing it,” Kallio said.

Kallio said that the college provides such evidence by administering campus-wide assessments. According to Kallio, the ASSESStivus event alters its assessment topics yearly, but the structure of the event remains mostly the same.

Since 2012, Geneseo has brought in a nationally acclaimed keynote speaker to address the importance of campus-wide assessment discussions. This year’s speaker was Vice President of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success at the Association of American Colleges and Universities Tia Brown McNair, whose keynote was titled, “Assessment and Beyond: Connecting High-Impact Practices with Applied Learning Outcomes.”

Assistant professor of sociology Michael Restivo and assistant professor of statistics Yusuf K. Bilgic displayed a presentation called “There’s a Stat for That: Reflections in Teaching Advanced Statistics across the Curriculum,” in which they examined the success of the statistics cluster hire in 2014 at this year’s ASSESStivus event. The cluster hire employed cross-disciplinary faculty who specialize in statistics. The hire included Restivo from the sociology department, Bilgic from the mathematics department and assistant professor of psychology Christine Merrilees from the psychology department.

Throughout the year, these three professors would alternate teaching the interdisciplinary statistics class on a weekly basis. The two professors who were not teaching on any given week would act as students and they would learn from the other professors’ teaching styles.

“The preparation amongst the professors for the course was difficult,” Restivo said. “For the students, though, they had to adjust to different professors on a weekly basis, which I think would be challenging.”

Kallio said that the goal of these cluster hires is to allow faculty to interact with professors across disciplines, rather than solely focusing on areas of study in their own department. He explained that Geneseo plans to learn from the successes of cluster hiring to improve the college overall.

“As we go forward and as we have other ideas for clusters that might be useful, we can take from their experiences and better use them to build and improve the institution as a whole,” he said. Kallio also stated that cluster hires will enhance the learning atmosphere for Geneseo students.

“Ultimately the aim here is to provide a better educational environment for the students,” Kallio said.

Geneseo rankings reflect trends, academic standing

The Princeton Review ranked Geneseo as one of the country’s best institutions for undergraduate education in its book The Best 381 Colleges: 2017 Edition, and the Washington Monthly Magazine ranked Geneseo third out of 634 master’s universities in the country for its contributions to the public good in terms of social mobility, research and service. These rankings are open to interpretation for potential incoming Geneseo freshmen as well as current Geneseo attendees.

The Princeton Review’s The Best 381 Colleges and the Washington Monthly Magazine aim to feature America’s best colleges. The reviews mainly rely on student surveys and feedback when deciding where to place schools on nationwide lists and when creating categorical rankings. Specifically, the Princeton Review utilizes roughly 375 student survey respondents per university campus to develop the rankings.

The Princeton Review’s Senior Vice President and Publisher Robert Franek previously stated that Geneseo’s outstanding academics are the chief reason the school is included on the list of the country’s best institutions for undergraduate education. According to the Princeton Review’s actual categorical rankings, Geneseo has an average academic rating. The academic rating analyzes student assessments of professors, average class size, student-professor relationships and other classroom factors. Based on a scale of 60 to 99, Geneseo received a ranking of 75.

“If you have a school like ours with a high volume of students, and really high quality professors, there is this perception that those two do not mix,” Geneseo’s Vice President for Enrollment Management Meaghan Arena said. “If you have smart students, the students do not need help and do not seek them. None of those things are true, but I think sometimes those rankings are based on perception rather than actuality.”

Geneseo received a higher admissions ranking from the Princeton Review—86—but the score does not display minute admissions trends within Geneseo. Students’ high school test scores, high school GPAs and the school’s acceptance rate are shifting. Geneseo’s acceptance rate for applicants has climbed to 73 percent and the average SAT scores of incoming freshmen have fallen.

“When you have fewer high school graduates and you have all of these colleges that want to continue to have the same amount of students, you will encounter a supply and demand problem,” Arena said. “I think that when you admit more students you wind up seeing your SAT average diminishing.”

The mean SAT score for the Class of 2020 is 1233.  In the past, incoming Geneseo freshmen maintained SAT scores that were relatively higher.

Chief Communications and Marketing Officer Gail Glover asserts that Geneseo’s rankings are still strong and that the college should continue to emphasize them.

“Rankings are just one of the tools that most prospective students and their families use when they start looking at colleges, so I think it’s important that we highlight these types of accolades and recognition,” she said.

Glover is responsible for a wide range of functions at Geneseo, including marketing, public relations and reputation building. She recognizes that public rankings lure students to school visits.

“The recognition speaks to our strong reputation for providing an excellent education, and for prospective students and their families,” she said. “It reinforces what they have already heard or read about Geneseo—that the college is an outstanding choice.”

Clarification: September 23, 2016

In this article we referenced Geneseo's fall 2015 acceptance rate. The acceptance rate for the class of 2020 was 67 percent. 

Schacht assumes position as interim provost

Geneseo Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Carol Long departed from her role as Geneseo’s administrative leader in August to pursue a similar position at Willamette University in Oregon. Paul Schacht will assume the administrative role as interim provost for this year while the college searches to fill the position full-time. Having served as Geneseo’s provost since 2009, Long held multiple leadership positions; she acted as chair of the Strategic Planning Group and served on the Geneseo Learning Outcomes for Baccalaureate Education.

The provost—also known as the vice president for academic affairs—is the college’s lead academic officer responsible for carrying out the school’s academic vision. According to the Office of the Provost, the provost is also responsible for maintaining Geneseo’s excellence not only in education, but also in a diverse array of topics. In addition, a priority of the provost is to maintain Geneseo’s status as a leading public liberal arts school in the country, President Denise Battles said in a phone interview.

Schacht has been an English professor at Geneseo since 1985. Battles said that Schacht was her top choice for the position during the college’s search—which took place over the summer—due to his expertise and experience.

“He has had a lot of experience as a faculty member, as well as in a variety of administrative appointments, so he has a very well-rounded experience here and he is well known among his colleagues at Geneseo,” Battles said. “Given the task we have ahead of us this year, it is marvelous to have an individual who has that deep knowledge of the campus.”

According to Battles, due to the college’s limited time to search for an interim—about two months—the candidate list was restricted to in-house options.

Schacht has held multiple positions at Geneseo, including chair of the English department, associate dean of the college,  interim dean of the college,  interim associate provost, assistant to the provost for general education and assistant to the provost for assessment.

Schacht said he did not hesitate to seize the administrative opportunity, but he had to think about giving up teaching a new interdisciplinary course—digital methods for humanists—which was designed for multiple majors, including English, history and mathematics.

“Students would take a paper they had previously written and carry it forward into something digital,” Schacht said. “The student could also write a paper, but then do a companion digital project for the paper. I hope to teach it at some point, maybe next year.”

Schacht said that his first week as interim provost has been hectic and that he has had a full plate of work to accomplish. His main focus, however, is to stay on course with the college’s strategic plan. In addition, Schacht hopes to manage the newfound academic programs and to continue the curriculum review process that will engage throughout the year.

“I did not come in with any plans,” Schacht said. “My job is mainly to make sure that the year runs smoothly and to make sure that a variety of initiatives and programs that are already in the works move forward and continue to grow.”

According to Battles, the recruitment for Geneseo’s new full-time provost is in the initial stages. The college is utilizing an outside search firm and searching for applicants on an international level to find the best fit for the school’s vision.

“What we are looking for is the person who is the best for our institution, for where we are at this time, the initiatives we have going forward and for our vision of demonstrating the power of a public liberal arts education,” Battles said.