The Center for Student Analytics was recently recognized for excellence in evaluation by NASPA, the professional association for student affairs administrators in higher education. As part of the NASPA Assessment Knowledge Community, the Center will receive an Honorable Mention at an upcoming awards ceremony.

Amanda Hagman, a data wrangler for the Center, and Erik Dickamore, an undergraduate research assistant, will present on the Center’s work at the NASPA Assessment, Persistence, and Data Analytics Conference this June in Orlando, Florida.

“We are honored to be recognized by such a well-respected organization, although we didn’t receive this year’s top distinction,” said Hagman. “We are still in the inaugural year of the Center’s creation, so we’re confident the coming years will bring additional opportunities for highlighting the great work we are doing.”

Aspects of the Center’s work recognized by NASPA include the Center’s professional-oriented approach to conducting program evaluation, where the stakeholder becomes the expert-interpreter of the data. “Our aim is to provide services that help administrators feel empowered to make key, collaborative decisions about the well-being of their co-curricular programs,” said Dr. Mitchell Colver, manager of the Center. “From the start, we have known this approach takes more work at the front end, but pays dividends for our institution and our students in the long run.”

Colver and Hagman have been invited by NASPA to provide a written summary highlighting the Center’s successes, which will appear on the NASPA Knowledge Community’s webpage.