In years past, Waynesburg University had held its annual Assessment Day on a set day in February for students of all majors to take surveys or tests and participate in any additional activities for the students’ major. Traditionally, each department organizes the day differently.

The decision was made last year to change Assessment Day to from an entire day devoted solely to such activities to a distinct block of time, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., with this year’s event falling on Thursday, Feb. 22.

“The [Institutional Assessment Committee] met and members of the committee really did an evaluation and looked at what was occurring campus wide for the assessment period and talked with all of the departments about the activities that were happening and what they were doing
during the day,” said Marie Leichliter-Krause, assistant provost. “The consensus was, they felt the most active time frame was that 11-1-time slot, and that they would really be able to use the 11-1 frame to get the most assessment done.”

An important factor that the committee took into consideration when making the change was that departments should not, and do not, only evaluate on one single day throughout the school year.

“Most of the departments felt that they do assessment, ongoing, throughout the entire year and to have a single day dedicated to assessment sent the message that [it] only needed to happen once a year,” said Leichliter-Krause. “Which is not at all the message that we want to be shared. We do want ongoing, continuous assessment; so, the consensus across the board was that assessment time would give everyone that focused period to have very specific activities with very specific groups.”

Most students were notified about the assessment time by their department as the date grew closer, with some department chairs electing to notify them the week of simply because some students may forget if they’re notified too early.

Meanwhile, Gordon McClung, chairperson for the business administration department, has all assessments for the department take place at the end of the semester with a career readiness exam and other activities. The career readiness exam was designed eight years ago by McClung and other Waynesburg faculty.

“That’s been our primary assessment instrument since the beginning,” said McClung. “We used to administer it on Assessment Day, but that wasn’t ideal, its too early in the semester. You haven’t really finished your program of study.”