What does the word ‘assessment’ do for you?

My guess would be that it evokes one of two responses: 1) you become giddy at the thought of a deep and thorough examination of pertinent data, calculating results and determining important ‘next steps’ (less common – it has to be!), OR 2) your pulse begins to race, your stomach begins to turn, and you suddenly feel like you’re at the bottom of a 14,000 foot mountain with neither the equipment nor the expertise to attempt the climb (more common — especially for the relational-types that make up a large percentage of the ministerial population).

While I don’t think I’ll ever LOVE the idea of assessment, I do think it’s important. Very important. And although “success” is a hard thing to measure when it comes to the spiritual formation of students — and/or a campus culture — I think there are some ways we can (and should) attempt assessment in our work with college students.

In a previous post, I introduced you to Ken & JoAnn Badley who I met at the Summer Institute for Campus Ministry (SICM) last summer.  They were keenly aware of:

1) the kind of struggle it is for many of us in campus ministry to get excited about assessment; and

2) the challenges that are involved in trying to assess something like spiritual growth, spiritual maturity, spiritual formation and development.

But, knowing that more and more organizations and institutions are requiring it, they spent the day helping us to think intentionally about how best we can work assessment into our ‘regular’ practices.

Here is a simple 3 step process that we were presented with:

1. Describe what you are doing — this can include things like relationships, service projects, worship services, student leadership development, leading a staff, etc.

2. Identify the criteria you will use to assess your actions — in other words, what will define “success” for you?  (ie. – mature decision-making in students, safe place for a diverse student population, attendance numbers, etc.).  It would probably be good to identify criteria based on your organizational or institutional mission statement (or rework your mission statement to include the criteria you believe to be important).

3. Define the outcomes you will see that will help you to know whether you successfully met your criteria — How will you know that your event, experience, year-long exposure to your ministry met the criteria listed in #2?  When you think about “looking back” on the event, or year, what are the outcomes (or fruit) you will need to see in order to believe you had accomplished your goal/s?

Assessment doesn’t have to be scary.  And it is necessary!  The kinds of things that we can learn: about ourselves, our students and our ministry efforts are invaluable!  I believe ongoing assessment ties into our responsibility as ‘stewards’ of the campus God has entrusted to us – not to mention those that employ us – so that we are doing the very best work we can… and ultimately finding some deep satisfaction as a result.

What do you think?