National Collegiate Honors Council
Date of this Version
Fall 2005
Abstract
Sometimes I look at the responsibilities and demands placed on me in my current position and cannot believe I haven’t cracked up yet. In this era of accountability and “show me the data,” institutional assessment directors like me are constantly bombarded with challenges that require quick, critical, divergent thinking, analytical reasoning, effective speaking, and, to some extent, creative writing. As both a professor and administrator at a state university, I live and breathe producing evidence that we as an institution are having an impact on student learning. When I was growing up, I never imagined I would end up being an assessment guru or an accreditation expert; however, I did feel in my bones that I was going to do something big and make a difference in this nation. There was a period in my life when I lost sight of that calling to be passionate and charged up in an effort to support the greater good. I was very close to taking a different path. What changed my course and bolstered my knowledge and skills to a level that surprised me—and surprised everyone who knew me prior to my higher education adventure—had to do with a little house that sits in the middle of Portland, Maine. The Honors House.
Comments
Published in Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council 6:2, Fall/Winter 2005. Copyright © 2005 by the National Collegiate Honors Council.