Research Activity

Since March 2023, Director of IR Sammara Vanlo has been serving as a member of the United Negro College Fund's HBCU Data Advisory group. The group exists to be a community of practice among HBCU data practitioners and leaders, facilitate networking, and strengthen partnerships on data-related issues.

The Assessment Team hosted the second annual Assessment Day conference on April 17, 2024. The Assessment Team were joined by representatives from CETLA, Office of Data Analytics, and the Data Science graduate program to discuss various assessment topics and strategies. The keynote was led by Dr. Anne Lundquist of the Hope Center at Temple University.

For a summary of the conference, click the link below:

Graduate Assistant Alexus Laster attended the 2024 Annual Conference hosted by the American Education Research Association (AERA) and presented her ongoing research. 

Assessment Coordinator Pavithra Suresh was featured on a webinar hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education and Watermark Insights on the processing of assessing assessment. Pavithra spoke about IRA's Annual Assessment Academy (AAA) and the Interdisciplinary Evaluation and Assessment Society (IDEAS). The webinar can be viewed by clicking here.

Associate Provost Dr. Daphne Bernard, Director of IR Sammara Vanlo, Director of IE Taneika Thompson, and Graduate Assistant Alexus Laster all attended the 2023 Annual Conference hosted by Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

Alexus presented a poster entitled "Exploring the Holistic Needs of an Invisible Population: A Systematic Literature Review of Undergraduate Parenting Students," which explored the micro- to macro-level needs of parenting students and offered comprehensive institutional recommendations.

The Assessment staff presented a poster entitled "Assets-Based Assessment at Howard University: Considerations for Historically Black Colleges and Universities" at the 2023 Assessment Institute hosted by IUPUI. The effort was led by Graduate Assistant Alexus Laster (PhD student in Higher Education Leadership & Policy Studies at Howard University) with support from Pavithra Suresh (Assessment Coordinator) and Taneika Thompson (Director of Institutional Effectiveness).

The team is in the process of submitting the paper for peer-review publication.

Several Assessment staff were recently published in Exemplars of Assessment in Higher Education, Volume II: Strategies for a Changing Higher Education Environment (2023). "Good Practice," the opening chapter of the edited volume, was published by Dr. Glenn Allen Phillips (former Director of Assessment), Kyle Shanks (former Assistant Director of Assessment), Britt Spears-Rhymes (former Associate Director for Assessment), Dr. Daphne Bernard (Associate Provost of Accreditation & Assessment) and Dr. Anthony K. Wutoh (Provost).

Abstract: Assessment in higher education has, for many institutions, become routine. This chapter looks deeply at “good practice,” a term we prefer to best practice as it both recognizes the unique ways that institutions are resourced to provide evidence of student learning and allows for new practices, or in the case of our argument—old practices, to be included as worth exploring. Before Institutional Research and Assessment was formed in 2018, Howard University had an Office of Institutional Assessment and Evaluation that largely operated as a support for assessment activities on campus. The peer-review process is a tool used by many institutions. Faculty volunteer to review a certain number of academic assessment reports against a rubric.