Dr. Lou Ann Berman, former assistant vice president for student life, received a new position at the University on March 2 as the new assistant vice president for assessment and institutional effectiveness.
Berman is scheduled to assist the university administration in developing new processes and tools to help further achieve and maintain institutional goals.
Her office also plans to help guide those assessment processes for academic departments and administrative units from residence life to support services.
“We currently have over 127 assessment plans at the University and we will be working on seeing how our goals are met in each department and if we are setting the bar too low for each department,” Berman said.
Berman’s office is planning to help academic departments push students to a higher level of learning with improved services and helping graduates receive better jobs, Berman said.
“It will help them to maintain or document their assessment plans to show ongoing quality improvement and how we are constantly examining ourselves and our processes,” she said. “We want to make sure that we are always going to provide better services next year than we have this year.”
Dr. Peter Fos, provost and vice president for academic affairs said the second portion of Berman’s title is the main focus of the new department being formed.
“The institutional effectiveness part is where the bang for the buck is because once we do the assessments how can we as an institution use the information to be more effective in executing our initiatives,” Fos said. “We needed to do an efficient job with our information and assessment so we needed a person or some people who were dedicated to assessment and Lou Ann seemed the perfect choice for this position.”
Fos said due to the hiring freeze, University officials recommended Berman for the new post based on her previous experience as an academic dean.
“We advertised for this position in the fall and now with some possible budget problems, we thought about who was within the organization and all of the fingers pointed to Dr. Berman,” Fos said. “She had basically been heading up this assessment work group and had done them before when she was at TJC. She is the best qualified person to lead this initiative of full-time assessment.”
Berman said with the praise of Dr. Fos, the support is something she is grateful for in the new position.
“Of course, it is affirming to me professionally and it is an honor to have the trust and the confidence to help launch a new department for our campus,” she said. “It is a very huge responsibility that I take seriously. I want to ensure the success of the new department and that we lay a very solid foundation to make sure the office fulfills the charges it has been given.”
Berman is scheduled to remain the assistant vice president for student life for the new six to 10 weeks in a transitional role. She said Dr. Howard Patterson, vice president for student affairs, is scheduled to announce the vacancy at a later date.
“We made the plans with Dr. Fos, Dr. Howard Patterson and myself having met more than once and we worked out a timeline,” she said. “We assigned specific duties that I had currently held responsibility for and we have either reassigned them or they are being absorbed by Dr. Patterson’s office.”
Berman said her main goal for the new office is to let University officials know there is someone there to help them deal with assessment plans to relieve some of their worries on campus.
“The new office becomes part of our campus culture and that faculty and staff know this is an office that will support them,” she said. “Rather it be for reaffirmation with SACS [Southern Association of Colleges and Schools] or with their professional and regional accreditation responsibilities or improvements for next year that they will come to this office and use this resource to assists them with additional information for the resources that they need.”
SACS is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and it is the regional accrediting body for the University.
They cover all of the schools in the southeastern part of the United States from Texas to Virginia and look at administration, student affairs and assessment of students. “They accredit us for 10 years at a time and the last time they were here was in 2000,” Fos said. “Their accreditation allows us to get federal dollars through financial aid and research. They are sanctioned by the Department of Education and if they come in and say that we are doing a good job then we receive money and life is good.”
By Joseph Elerson Staff Writer
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