In 1990, the Academic Resource Center (ARC) was a small, one- room operation, with a part-time Director and a few student assistants. Today the ARC has a full-time Director, a three-quarter-time Administrative Coordinator, and 22-24 student assistants. In 1990, there were about 300 student visits; in 1999, that number had grown to about 1,000. Assessment has played a vital role in the evolution of systems and procedures that enabled the ARC to expand and to continually improve the services it offers to students.

The ARC has been assessed in a variety of ways over the past ten years. The primary source of information through 1999 has been input from student workers in informal conversations during regularly scheduled meetings throughout the school year. Other means of assessment used include surveys of student "clients" and surveys, interviews, and self-assessments of student workers. They have periodically consulted with experts to help assess the effectiveness of the ARC and to suggest changes in procedures.

One program instituted in 1994, the Workshop on Writing (WOW) as a component of Orientation, was assessed through student evaluations at the end of the program each year. Following analysis several years of mediocre evaluations, with many students feeling that the program did not help them prepare for college writing, the program was discontinued.

In 1995, student assistants were asked to write self-evaluations to prepare themselves for evaluation meetings with the director. That year also included surveys to evaluate training. Student assistants brought up the issue of the need for better organization in two ways: there needed to be a coherent handbook for student assistants, for training and for referral during tutoring sessions. Students also expressed the need to have all student assistants to have the same training and that training needed to be shorter, more focussed and hands-on.

As a result of theses comments and suggestions, we developed a handbook that is now used by the students during training and during tutoring sessions. As part of the development of this handbook and to address other organizational issues, Ute Sartin (then the office manager for Public Relations) was invited to meet with the ARC Director and a few student assistants to look at the training materials and office management. As a result a system of committees within the student assistants was established as well as the codification of office procedures. The feedback about shorter and more focussed training was followed and subsequent training sessions received more positive responses.

The student surveys indicated that some students felt the ARC staff was friendly and helpful while others felt the assistants were condescending and brusque. Some thought the services were helpful while others did not. From this we determined that the delivery of services was uneven. This resulted in the development of new training and tutoring procedures to insure more consistent delivery of services. Student assistants were trained to follow high standards of professionalism in their demeanor and given specific procedures to follow for each tutoring session. The adjustments have been successful according to the contact surveys instituted in 1999. More than 99% of respondents have been pleased with the services and the means of delivery.

One of the new training procedures instituted as a result of the student surveys and also from Student assistant evaluations of training, was the use of more role-plays and experiential learning. Role plays were used extensively during the training for 1999-2000 school year and student assistants were observed and evaluated in the role plays before being permitted to begin tutoring students.

During the 1999-2000 academic year a number of new means of assessment were put into place. In the fall of 1999 the use of point-of-contact satisfaction surveys in the ARC was initiated. At the same time, a new recording system for student assistants was implemented. Reports of each session are submitted electronically to the ARC’s Director and the Associate Dean. Summaries of sessions will be studied, at the end of the year, to get a better picture of the ARC’s effectiveness and to point to any potential problems. Writing scores of students who use the ARC regularly will also be compared with those of students who do not use the ARC. Writing scores of ARC clients will also be studied over time to see if there has been any improvement