Administration
The Administration sector of Cabrillo’s Assessment Plan is comprised of administrative departments and/or offices in:
- Administrative Services
- Instruction
- Student Services
- The President’s Component (the President's Office, Marketing and Communications, Planning and Research, and the Cabrillo Foundation)
These offices and departments support student learning by helping to create the conditions under which it can occur.
A Little History
Over the years, Administration has struggled to define its role in SLO assessment. Administration was included in the college's SLO efforts from the start because Cabrillo sees itself as a village where everyone contributes to student learning. But some portions of that sector have found it a challenge to articulate their precise role in helping students to learn. How does the Marketing and Communications office, for instance, actually effect student success? What about Facilities Planning and Plant Operations? How can that effect be measured?
The college attempted to solve this dilemma in 2003-2004 by simply stating that administrative departments indirectly assist those who work with students to increase student success. Rather than writing and assessing SLOs, they were asked to evaluate their services, surveying their users to see how they might improve. But some departments still struggled to see any link between these efforts and actual student learning.
In addition, program planning had not been firmly established as a regular, on-going process in a few areas of Administration. During the set-up phase of Cabrillo's assessment plan, representatives of the classified staff specifically requested that they be included in the SLO efforts of the college. This translated into the expectation that Instructional Division offices and the offices of the Vice Presidents and the President under go program planning and formally assess their services for the first time. Yet there was no template for administrative program plans for these offices nor an established reporting or approval process like those in Instruction and Student Services.
To address both concerns, in 2012, the college adopted the concept of Administrative Unit Outcomes, rather than SLOs, for any department that provides administrative services to the college. It also set about to create a more institutionally effective program planning process in Administration.
Current Efforts
Administrative Unit Outcomes:
An AUO describes what the users of an Administrative service can:
- do
- know
- understand
after interacting with that office or department.
Like Student Learning Outcomes, an AUO is user-centered, a description of what the service provides for others, not an administrative unit goal. Almost all departments have written AUOs and are beginning to assess them as part of program planning (see below). Click here for a list of Cabrillo's administrative departments and offices and their AUOs.
Administrative Program Planning:
In keeping with Cabrillo’s assessment philosophy, the offices and departments in Administration undertake a self-reflective cyclical program planning process that, in 2012, was expanded to include AUO assessment. During Program Planning, each office will now assess its AUO(s) and use those results to inform the goals,recommendations and budget requests in its program plan.
In addition, in an effort to increase institutional effectiveness, Cabrillo recently adopted a common template for Administration Program Plans. Departments will begin to use it in Fall 2013. The plans are reported to and approved by the Administrative Council.
Administrative departments and offices who need help with this new work with AUOs can use the AUO Primer workbook posted on this website.
The Program Plans and AUO assessments for the departments and offices in Administration are posted on the websites for the Vice President's office in each area. Click below for a link to those plans and assessments.