Director’s Notes
My favorite time of the year is fall. My appreciation of this season is due only in part to the predictably changing weather conditions. As a child, I loved the “newness” of fall: new teachers, new clothes, new shoes, new books, new friends and new things to learn. Even now, as an adult professional working in higher education, I am re-energized by the return of students to the Concordia campus. The once quiet hallways and buildings of the summer months are made alive again by new and returning students. On Sept. 3, I was privileged to greet new students as they actively participated in the Orientation Resource Fair. New students were playing games, asking questions, eating treats offered by Dining Services and enthusiastically engaging with members of the Concordia community. While these new students energize me, they simultaneously cause me to question my commitment to them as a part of the Concordia community. As the Director of Assessment, what is my duty or responsibility to the student body at Concordia? Certainly, one would expect me to collect data on various aspects of their learning experiences here. But am I not also charged to be accountable to use the data in productive and meaningful ways? As a part of this year’s Fall Orientation, our new students were asked to complete a Global Perspective Inventory. With the encouragement of our fantastic team of Orientation Leaders, approximately 450 (70 percent of the incoming first-year students) completed the online survey. The GPI has been designed to provide a self-report of a person’s perspectives in three dimensions of global learning and development—cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal—and views on the community and level of involvement in selected curricular and co-curricular activities. The data collected via the GPI will provide meaningful information at the beginning college level regarding the participants’ current understanding of global learning and development. In particular, this data will help us assess the new first-year cohort on the fourth and fifth Goals for Liberal Learning. This new incoming class will be assessed again using GPI as seniors. We anticipate that the scores on every dimension will be stronger as the students prepare to leave the Concordia community. As ethical faculty and administrators, we are charged to examine the data and make changes wherever needed to continue to prepare Cobbers “to influence the affairs of the world by sending into society thoughtful and informed men and women dedicated to the Christian life.” E. Ackerman