Office of Academic Assessment

The Office of Academic Assessment was established in 2017 as part of the Iwasaki Library. We strive to ensure the scholarly knowledge and tools we gather and upload here are helpful. Call upon us for virtual or in-person consultations, program-level workshops, and information about the Learning, Equity and Assessment Program. We collaborate with faculty, departments, and programs who are interested in enhancing the assessment of student learning in their courses, closing opportunity gaps for student achievement, and using academic assessment to support program development and design.

Our Office

Our Team

Dr. Liz Chase, MSLIS, PhD, Senior Associate Director, liz_chase@emerson.edu

Tyler Rowe, MA, Academic Assessment Designer, tyler_rowe@emerson.edu

The Office of Academic Assessment at Emerson College collaborates with faculty teaching in all levels, locations, and modalities to create a sustainable cycle of assessment of student learning. 

We strive to build a culture of equity-minded assessment of student learning, enabling departments to make evidence-based decisions about curricular design that enhance students’ capacity to assume positions of leadership in communication and the arts. 

For faculty, assessment highlights how we live out Emerson’s mission to educate leading professionals and artists who are inspired to think boldly and creatively. We equip faculty with the resources and support to engage in equity-minded assessment practices to close opportunity gaps and enhance student learning. 

For students, assessment enables students to articulate and reflect on their learning throughout their education, and especially as they prepare to move from Emerson into careers in which they brighten the cultural, social, political, and civic life around us.

Throughout our work, OAA strives to meet the values of IDEAS: we work to be inclusive, diverse, equitable, accessible, sustainable & socially just in our actions and in our approach to understanding student learning. 

We work to:

Inclusive

Engage the Emerson community in redefining a culture of assessment that is democratic and inclusive of student and faculty voices. 

Diverse

Practice identity-conscious assessment in which diverse modes of learning are recognized and validated.

Equitable

Approach assessment through an equity-minded lens (NILOA). 

Accessible

Promote transparent assessment design and data that are accessible to all members of the Emerson community. 

Sustainable

Enable faculty and programs to make continuous, evidence-based changes to their curricula to enhance student learning.

Socially-just 

We value that justice is “both a process and a goal.” Ultimately, it is our goal that the IDEAS that inform our assessment practices will contribute to the realization of a more just Emerson education.

The Office of Academic Assessment provides assistance planning, designing, and implementing academic assessment of student learning at the course, department/program, and institutional levels.

Course

We work with individual faculty members and offer:

• Consultations to discuss, design and/or revise student learning outcomes
• Consultations to discuss, design and/or revise course assignments
• Consultations to provide resources for redesigning objectives or assignments based on faculty members' analysis of student learning in their courses
• Survey design assistance for assessment of student learning
• Research assistance if you are seeking assessment resources not currently addressed on this site

Department/Program

• Working with the LEAP Fellows from each department, we assist departments as they plan and implement cyclical assessment of student work to demonstrate achievement of departmental learning outcomes
• We also offer feedback and assistance with curricular mapping of departmental objectives

Institutional

• The Office of Academic Assessment participates in the NECHE reaccreditation process by collecting, maintaining, and making available information about the College's assessment practices.

What we don't do:

• Evaluate faculty's teaching
• Review course evaluation data

Where to find us:

• The Office of Academic Assessment is located on the 4th floor of the Walker Building, next to the Instructional Technology Group. We are currently available on-campus on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and via Zoom during normal business hours.