Assessment of Leadership and Social

Justice Programs
HEAL 226: Assessment in Higher
Education
Meet the Team

Mikey Dulce Komalpreet Jamaal Azucena

He/Him/His She/Her/Hers She/Her/Hers He/Him/His She/Her Hers
Agenda
● Student Involvement at Fresno State
● Mission, Vision, & Purpose
○ Center for Leadership: Mission, Vision & Values
● Leadership & Social Justice Programs Learning Outcomes
○ Additional Learning Outcomes
● Identified Assessment & Processes
○ Evidence Collected & Findings
● Stakeholders & Audience
● Closing the Loop
Student Involvement at Fresno State
● Composed of multiple programs:
○ Fraternities, Sororities, Student Organizations, Club Sports, Student Unions
○ Events:
■ Welcome Week, Homecoming, Commencement, Vintage Days
● Goals:
○ Enhance student participation, cultivate community, strengthen student development
● Need for assessment
○ Mission statement serves as a guide for assessment activities
Student Involvement: Mission, Vision, and Purpose
● No Mission or Vision Statements
● Purpose Statement
○ “The purpose of the Student Involvement is to promote student growth through our core
values of support and teamwork, service, growth and learning, leadership and inclusion”
(Fresno State, Student Involvement About Us, 2021)
● Strategic Plan Priority One
○ Enhance teaching and learning through best practices, innovative programs, and high-
impact experiences that attract talented and diverse students and contribute to
retention, extraordinary learning, the development of the whole student, and lifelong
success (Fresno State, Fresno State’s Strategic Plan 2016-2020, 2019)
Center for Leadership: Mission, Vision, Values
● COVID Related Budgeting Issues - Auxiliary Funds
● Center for Leadership:
○ The Center for Leadership provides experiential learning opportunities for students to
practice leadership through campus and community involvement.
● Leadership Programs:
○ Leadership Programs builds the leadership capacity of Fresno State students through the
development of personal leadership philosophies applied to campus, community, and
national issues.
■ Leadership and Social Justice Program
Program Goals & Outcomes…
❏ Specify what a student will learn, what skills they will develop, and what learning
experiences they will come across as a result of participating in their program
activities (Keeling et al., 2008)
❏ Outline the desired goals that the program purposefully designs and conveys

❏ Provide a criterion for what quality practice and performance should look like
(Dean, 2013)

*No program goals/outcomes were outlined in Leadership & Social Justice Programs
at Fresno State
Leadership & Social Justice Programs Learning Outcomes
Graduate Student Leadership Institute (GSLI):

Participants will … Limitations to program goals:

❏ “Develop self-awareness of personal values in regard ❏ Graduate Student Leadership

to their leadership behaviors, demonstrate a
Institute goals are hidden
commitment to social responsibility through diversity
❏ Emerging Leaders Retreat objectives
training, create measurable goals for the next five
years, & utilize their personal definition of leadership, are too broad
and engage in teamwork and networking activities,
which will strengthen their confidence and
interpersonal relationships” Following the CAS Standards:

❏ Regularly adjusted its learning outcomes

Emerging Leaders Retreat (ELR):
❏ Dedicates attention to student learning,
Students will … student development, and student success
❏ Conveys themes like social responsibility,
❏ Build connections to the campus community, develop ethical leadership, and diversity awareness
an awareness of diverse perspectives of leadership,
explore leadership through experiential learning and
reflection
Additional Learning Objectives
Utilized the SMARRT model and Taxonomy of Significant Learning to create two new
recommended learning outcomes (Henning & Roberts, 2016).

Emerging Leaders Retreat/Application Learning Outcomes

● As a result of participation in an ELR, students will identify three of their own

leadership strengths which can be applied towards social justice work.

Graduate Student Leadership Institute/Human Dimension Learning Outcomes

● Fresno State Students will gain a better understanding of where their newly
gained leadership skills can be implemented in their graduate education and
careers.
Identified Assessment Methods & Processes
Assessment Evidence Collected:

● 2018 Series of Articles featured in The Atlantic Revisiting Fresno’s History

○ Fresno’s Ugly Divide
● Data profile for the city of Fresno
○ Data USA - Fresno, CA
● Fresno State Campus Climate Data (2016)
● Fresno State National Survey of Student Engagement (2015)
● Interview with Department Staff
● Copy of Post Assessment - Emerging Leaders Retreat (qualitative)
● Assessment of Digital Communication - website and social media
Identified Assessment Methods & Processes
Preliminary Findings:

● Fresno’s long history of racial & social oppression

○ Practices of redlining housing and business zoning (segregating North and South Fresno),
& legacies of injustice in criminal justice system, education, social services
○ Highest Poverty rate in 2019 of any city in the nation (25.2%)
● High percentages of unfavorable & hostile student interaction
● Lower starting scores for freshman and end points for seniors
● Only Post-Assessment (no pre-assessment)
● State funded programs intact, auxiliary programming defunded
● Outdated webpage, and largely absent social media presence
Additional Assessment Method/ Stakeholders & Audience

● Direct Assessment: Portfolio Evaluations

● Indirect Assessment - Yearly Student Surveying & Exit Surveying
● Rubric - Creating a rubric in advance to accurately assess the programs,
conferences, and workshops.
● Due to the lack of Learning Outcomes and Mission Statement for
Leadership and Social Justice Programs, there is no recent data on if
students are meeting the learning outcomes or if their student learning
aligns with the mission statement.
● Stakeholder: University, and Students
Summary, Analysis, & Closing the Loop
● Recommendations
○ Creating Mission and Value statements
○ Updating learning outcomes for Leadership and Social Justice Programs
○ Relaunch this program with support from State funding rather than
foundation (Auxiliary) funds.
○ Collecting updated data from previous assessment method and then
including the ones down below:
■ Including Direct and Indirect assessment method of Portfolio
Evaluations, Yearly Student Surveying & Exit Surveying
■ Rubrics
Questions?
References
Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (2019). CAS professional standards for higher education (10th Ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Dean, L.A. (2013). Using the CAS standards in assessment projects. New Directions for Student Services, 2013(142), 25-33. https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20046

Fresno State. (2019). Fresno State’s Strategic Plan 2016-2020. https://www.fresnostate.edu/president/strategic-plan/index.html

Fresno State. (2021, October 22). Emerging Leaders Retreat. Student Involvement.

https://studentaffairs.fresnostate.edu/studentinvolvement/leadership/emerging-leader.html

Fresno State. (2021). Student Involvement About Us. https://studentaffairs.fresnostate.edu/studentinvolvement/about/index.html

Henning, G. W., & Roberts, D. (2016). Student affairs assessment: Theory to practice. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Keeling, R. P., Wall, A. F., Underhile, R., Dungy, G. J., & International Center for Student Success and Institutional Accountability. (2008). Assessment reconsidered:

Institutional effectiveness for student success. National Association of Student Personnel Administration.

Morphew, C.C., & Hartley, M. (2006). Mission statements: A thematic analysis of rhetoric across institutional type. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(3), 456-471

Suskie. (2018). Assessing student learning : a common sense guide (Third edition.). Jossey-Bass.

Wilson, J., Meyer, K., & McNeal, L. (2012). Mission and diversity Statements: What they do and do not say. Innovative Higher Education, 37(2), 125–139.

https://doi-org.hmlproxy.lib.csufresno.edu/10.1007/s10755-011-9194-8