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VALDOSTA STATE UNIVERSITY INSTITUTIONAL SELF ASSESSMENT (ISAS)
INTRODUCTION
The Adult Learning Focused Institutional Self Assessment document (ISAS) is part of the ALFI toolkit, two surveys designed to help institutions “make [undergraduate] educational programs more attractive and accessible to adult learners”. The Adult Learner Inventory (ALI) is administered to adult undergraduate students while the ISAS is completed by faculty, staff, and administrators at the University. In order to complete the ISAS, Valdosta State University asked for representatives from all branches of the University (Academic Affairs, Finance and Administration, Student Affairs, and University Advancement) to complete the form as representatives of their various colleges, divisions, or offices. Nearly fifty people attended a meeting on January 23, 2009 to get an overview and directions for completing the survey. Over the next week, they consulted with others in their respective areas and submitted completed forms by January 30, 2009.
The Office of Strategic Research and Analysis (SRA) compiled the results, providing the responses to each question along with the numbers of respondents. SRA also provided the summaries of all the written responses. On February 19, 2009, an ISAS Editorial Team (Sheri Gravett, Academic Affairs; Reynaldo Martinez, Adult and Career Education; Russ Mast, Student Affairs; Patrick McElwain, Registrar’s Office; and Jerry Merwin, Prior Learning Assessment) convened to examine the results and begin the process of consolidating those results into one document for submission.
The ISAS Editorial Team decided that the responses for Questions 1-57 (the multiple choice section) would be determined by the majority of responses for those questions (if there was no clear majority, both top responses would be marked). These responses should clearly reflect the perceptions of those completing the survey. While those perceptions may vary widely depending on the respondent’s institutional role, the representative respondents should give a general perception about each of the questions.
However, equally important as the perceptions is some of the information provided about various policies and programs at VSU and the University System of Georgia (USG). The ISAS Editorial Team tried to capture as much of the relevant information as possible within a relatively short time frame because the team felt that VSU could benefit from being able to compare what differences might exist between perceptions revealed on the survey and the available evidence.