Two CCCC faculty received recognition for their outstanding work in leading college efforts in the institutional effectiveness areas of outcomes assessment and program review.
Vivian Baker inherited the student learning outcomes (SLO) coordinator position in 2011 at a crucial time when the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges was at the height of its scrutiny on outcomes assessment. One of her first actions was to complete the special 2012 SLO Status Report required by the commission. That year, the college received the last of its recommendations related to SLO's and Vivian set to work determinedly to ensure that all courses and programs were being evaluated through an ongoing systematic review and that all levels of outcomes assessment - Student Learning Outcomes, Administrative Unit Outcomes, Program Learning Outcomes, and Institutional Learning Outcomes - were integrated into the planning and allocation process.
“Vivian has worked tirelessly to establish and maintain a collegial dialogue about outcomes assessments and been a diligent advocate of the outcome process, that, done right, results in insights and learning and continuous quality improvement,” stated Cerro Coso President Jill Board. “It is largely because of Vivian's calm and supportive leadership as SLO coordinator that the outcomes effort at the college is now broad-based, systematic, and integrated into the ongoing work of the college.”
Suzie Ama has served as the program review coordinator since 2012. Historically a gap area for the college, Suzie has stabilized, improved, and shepherded the program review process and completions patiently and collegially, but persistently. Ama's leadership and coordination led the college to catch up on program reviews and is largely responsible for the college's preparedness for the focus on program review in the most recent accreditation cycle. Her focus is consistently on improving the integrity, strength of evaluation and analysis, as well as strengthening processes leading to program improvement through the template prompts and feedback. Ama also developed and provided training for both the program review committee and those going through program review. She has worked with the Institutional Effectiveness Committee to develop a rubric for evaluation of program review documents to align expectations between the program review authors and the committee members reviewing documents. This has helped strengthen and make more consistent the feedback given by the committee and the incorporation of feedback to improve the review.
“Suzie and Vivian deserve this recognition for their quality leadership in these important areas that are in large part why the college sailed through its 2018-2019 self-evaluation process, drawing praise from the external evaluation team for the strength and integrity of our assessment and planning processes,” concluded Board.
Picture Caption: (L to r) Suzanne Ama, Digital Media Arts Professor, and Vivian Baker, Child Development Professor, recipients of the 2019 Cerro Coso Community College Excellence in Education Award.
