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Savannah E. Matherly
“While assessment has not always been a central activity in student affairs practice in
practitioners need to understand the importance of accountability and telling their story through
data and met learning outcomes (Schuh, Biddix, Dean, & Kinzie, 2016, p. 1). Assessment can
inform practitioners how their programs are impacting students by measuring students’ learning
and success, as well as what areas need improvement. Assessment can also aid offices and
institutions in presenting their successes to key stakeholders or alumni to seek more funding and
donations for their programs or future projects. To understand this significance, I interviewed Dr.
Trent Pinto, the Director of Resident Education and Development at the University of Cincinnati,
evaluations and improvements. This paper will recount the interview with Dr. Trent Pinto,
congruent lessons learned from both Pinto and course content, and further reflection on my
According to Dr. Trent Pinto, assessment is growing in our field, and there is a lot of
room for creativity and to push outside of the box to find different solutions to our current issues.
Pinto has currently been serving as the Director of Resident Education and Development at the
University of Cincinnati for a little over four years. His professional background is exclusively in
residence life with such positions as, Assistant Director, Director, and Residence Hall Director.
Pinto’s assessment experience is pretty extensive, as he has searched for opportunities to learn
and created space for growth in his work, particularly through evaluating and assessing his
programs and initiatives. On the macro-level, Pinto assisted with the development of an
assessment council for the Division of Student Affairs at the University of Cincinnati. Within
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this role, Pinto was able to gain experience with project management and leading full CAS (the
Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education) reviews of the department. He
successfully was able to revise programming guidelines for resident assistants (RA’s) in
compliance with the CAS standards. Pinto understands the importance of assessment within
student affairs, especially within his “direct assessment efforts of [the] department in an effort to
demonstrate a culture of evidence within the division.” To demonstrate that his office has a
culture of evidence, Pinto spent two to three years on his office’s residential curriculum model to
make it more extensive and make their intentional conversations between RA’s and residents
more trends-based and easier to assess. Pinto added prompting questions, a new system of
documenting discussions, and tied the system with OrgSync so that trends could be assessed and
the overall student experience could be highlighted. These changes allowed for the department to
establish core values and sequence them throughout the semester within their residential
curriculum.
Similarly, as I learned from one of the class speakers, Lucas Schalweski from the
University of Arizona, Pinto discussed the myths and lack of assessment in the field of student
affairs. Both Schalweski and Pinto spoke of how practitioners are afraid or intimidated by
assessment; they think assessment is all statistics and a full-on research project that only should
be handled by institutional departments. However, that is not the case. From what I have learned
in class and interviewing Pinto, practitioners can make any program, initiative, or instrument in
their office assessable. Pinto made it known that there are multiple ways for practitioners to
assess something that is not just an average survey. It is imperative for our assessment techniques
to not just only be accessible, but also creative and fun so that we are not afraid of assessment as
practitioners and that our students will also feel inclined to partake in them. Something I also
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learned from Schalweski’s guest lecture, and what Pinto also touched on in his interview, is
closing the loop in assessment. This is often a part of the process that many practitioners forget
to do, which can leave students feeling their opinions or participation in assessment did not truly
matter. Pinto says that all of his committees in the department are required to conduct one
assessment project a year, as well as close the loop with the students before deeming the project
complete. On his recognition committee, Pinto had to help shift his colleague’s mindset around
the fears mentioned earlier regarding assessment. The committee began collecting and assessing
the National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) “Of-the-Month” (OTM) data to track which
programs in the department were doing well and which areas called for improvement, such as
academic and social justice-centered programs. Once this assessment data was collected and
analyzed, an infographic was created and an action plan was developed to present to students
through social media and email to show that they the department took note of what the residents
needed via programming and how they were going to meet those needs.
Something else I have learned from both course content and my interview with Pinto is
that assessment can be easily done, as long as a plan and purpose are put into place. In the
textbook, Assessment in Student Affairs, there are nine steps outlined for guiding the assessment
process (Schuh, Biddix, Dean, & Kinzie, 2016). For the first two steps, practitioners should
frame the purpose of the assessment by defining clearly what issue needs to be answered within
their department and bringing a clear focus to the particular assessment activity. Next, student
affairs professionals should determine who needs to be studied for the purpose of the assessment
and then with what particular assessment method should be utilized. Once the method is chosen,
practitioners should determine how they would like to collect data and then what instrument
should be employed to collect that data. Next, student affairs professionals should decide how
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they would like to analyze their data once collected and then how they would like to report the
data. Finally, data should be used for improvement, as a bunch of data lying around is not useful
if not utilized for creating positive change within the department. These assessment steps echoed
how Pinto worked through his assessment project with the Veterans’ Affairs office on his
campus, as well as the steps reiterated the points Pinto cautioned me to remember when trying to
effectively assess in the future. Pinto said that successful assessment projects have a clearly
defined purpose and plan so that they are able to be done correctly and easily while collecting
data that can actually be utilized within the department. Also, if a plan is set, then the data can be
more accountable and have more of a chance to be employed for improvements instead of just
This paper recapped the interview with Dr. Trent Pinto, congruent lessons learned from
both Pinto and course content and detailed a further reflection on my understanding of
assessment in the context of higher education. After interviewing Pinto and learning about
assessment in class, I have discovered that assessment is an integral part of higher education, for
practitioners and offices need to be able to tell their story. Simply stating that a student learned
from your program does not cut it anymore, because how does that truly illustrate what the
student grasped or took away from your program? Assessment is able to help practitioners
develop clear plans and learning outcomes to further measure students’ learning and success so
that their offices can improve and continue to meet the ever-changing needs of students.
programs within my residence hall impact my residents. I am able to continue making changes
based on their feedback, which can help me create programs that meet their needs and interest to
foster growth and development within them. Pinto left me with the following advice, he said to
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schedule genuine thinking time each day within your calendar, as your day-to-day work tasks
will always be there, but free time for authentic thinking and learning will not be. Having these
times built into your schedule can allow for new thoughts and ideas to grow, as you are able to
research, read, and can further assessing your initiatives for the future.
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References
Schuh, J. H., Biddix, J. P., Dean, L. A., & Kinzie, J. (2016). Assessment in Student Affairs (2nd