Background

In recent years, the call to measure students’ competency in basic skill/knowledge areas has intensified along with ongoing demands for accountability in campus operations. Largely, this is due to changes in the political environment in which we operate. To successfully maintain our status of full compliance with federal, state, and regional accrediting requirements through a sustainable assessment system, engaging teaching faculty as well as support staff in assessment is essential. At the January 12, 2012 Longwood Assessment Conference, the President announced the establishment of the Longwood Assessment Mini-grant Program (LAMP) for the first time in the school’s history.

The Initiative

The goal of LAMP is to encourage campus-wide participation in research on and practice in assessment. LAMP grants will seek to develop the scholarship of assessment as well as explore Longwood’s best practice models in conducting assessment.

The recipients of the grants will be announced on May 1st of each year. For each selected proposal, the final report or the progress report on implementation will be due to the Office of Assessment and Institutional Research (OAIR) in December. All LAMP recipients are expected to share their major findings/experience of assessment at the Longwood Assessment Conference and other professional conferences, if selected.

For any given year, the theme of the proposal will be determined and publicized by the LAMP committee according to the university’s assessment priority. The theme announced for spring 2013 is “Student-Centered Assessment and Planning.” How is assessment and planning being utilized to better prepare and support the Longwood student? Ten awards ($500/per award) will be given to full-time faculty and staff who submit successful proposals on this subject matter.

Application

To apply for the grant, please compose an application statement in MS Word format with a maximum length of two pages (single space). The application statement must specifically address the following:

• Topic of the proposal,
• Importance of the proposed topic,
• Methodology of the proposed assessment (e.g. target population—a program, a course, a group of students, etc., instrument, outcomes and the measurements, analytic procedure to be used, etc),
• Strategies for action planning,
• Strategies of sharing the findings with other colleagues,
• Timeline of implementation,
• Applicant information,

1. Name
2. Title
3. Department (faculty),
4. Division/Unit (staff)
5. E-mail address
6. Phone number

Applications must be submitted to Dr. Ling Whitworth electronically by 3/31/2013. The award announcement will be made on May 1, 2013.

LAMP Committee

Chaired by the Director of OAIR, the LAMP committee membership includes the Assessment Coordinator, the Director of General Education, one staff, and two teaching faculty members. The committee will review the proposals, recommend the grant recipients, monitor the progress in implementation, coordinate campus wide dissemination of the findings, and assess and report the outcomes of the LAMP project to internal and external agencies.

LAMP Sponsors

The sponsors for LAMP 2013 include

Administration & Finance

College of Business and Economics

College of Education and Human Services

College of Graduate and Professional Studies

Cook-Cole College of Arts and Sciences

Greenwood Library

Information & Instructional Technology Services

Office of Assessment and Institutional Research