Creating a Culture of Collaboration:

Graduate Program Assessment

Katerina Tsetsura Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication

University of Oklahoma

Norman, Oklahoma

Culture of Collaboration

Gaylord College

graduate degrees:

Master of Arts

Master of

Professional Writing

Ph.D.

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

Assessment: My first impressions

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

“If you can’t measure it, it does not exist”

Reality does not actually exist until it is measured. (Manning et al., 2015 in Nature Physics)

“Researchers at the Australian National University showed that reality does not actually exist until it is measured – at atomic scales, at least."

(Jeffrey, 2015: http://newatlas.com/quantum-theory-reality-anu/37866/ )

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

Culminating experience: What we assess

The Gaylord College Graduate Programs:

•Thesis (MA)

•Project (MA and MPW)

•Exam (MA)

•Dissertation (Ph.D.)

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

The road to assessment: What we learned

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

•Take your time

•Listen

•Answer the big question

•Tell a story

Take your time

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

•Assessment is a process, do not rush into it

•Make assessment a part of everyday talk

•Provide plenty of time to think and reflect

•We all appreciate having a bit of time

to think about important issues

Listen

•Listen to your colleagues

•Let them talk

•Provide plenty of opportunities

to express opinions on what SLOs and PEOs of your program should be

•Often, the more your colleagues talk,

the easier and faster they will arrive to conclusion that assessment is necessary and that it is measurable.

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

Answer: What’s in it for me?

Katerina Tsetsura, Ph.D., Director of Graduate Studies, Gaylord College

•The Big Question people ask: What’s in it for me?

•Find the answer that is right for you/your unit

•We want to attract the top candidates

to our graduate programs and have well-qualified GAs

•We do assessment of our graduate programs so that we can have

proof why we want/do not want to change our curricula

Tell a story with assessment… What’s yours?

A story of the first OU president…

… measured

and assessed success!

Dr. Katerina Tsetsura

Gaylord College

Email: tsetsura@ou.edu

Twitter: @tsetsura