NODA Journal 23_1.indd 28 THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ORIENTATION AND TRANSITION Common Reading Experience: Assessing a Growing High-Impact Practice Kelly Smith and Denise Rode High-Impact Practices (HIPs), like the Common Reading Experience (CRE), are increasingly prevalent on college campuses. Despite the development and growth of CRE programs, assessment procedures struggle to keep pace. This article provides some innovative guidelines on how to effectively assess a high-impact and far-reaching program like the Common Reading Experience. Common Reading Experience (CRE) programs are a recognized and valued component in many first-year experience programs. This is due, in part, to their connection with Kuh’s High-Impact Practices (HIPs), namely creating the opportunity for a common intellectual experience by exposing all incoming first- year students to a common book (Kuh, 2008; Soria, 2015). Involvement in HIPs increases student likelihood to stay motivated and engaged in their educational experience by developing opportunities for them to connect to faculty, staff, and their peers through meaningful interactions (Kuh, 2008). Northern Illinois University (NIU) first implemented a CRE in 2008, basing many of the program goals and student learning outcomes on anecdotal evidence provided by Laufgraben (2006), who described benefits of the CRE as including setting academic expectations, connecting students to their faculty and peers, and encouraging intellectual conversations outside the classroom. However, in the infancy of the NIU CRE program, assessment focused mainly on logistical and practical items, such as creating opportunities to expose the book to first- year students, incorporating the book into academic course sections across the university, increasing student participation in CRE-related events, and partnering with a wide variety of university and community partners. At the time, these items were typically reviewed when considering the “success” of a CRE program. Although assessment has always been a part of NIU’s CRE program, the process has evolved as the program has grown and as departments are being held accountable for the attainment of university goals and learning outcomes. Soria’s (2015) study is one of the first attempts to empirically confirm some of the earlier research claiming additional benefits of student participation in a CRE. It unveiled connections between first-year student participation in the CRE and student CAMPUS NOTES Kelly Smith (kellysmith@niu.edu) is the Director of First- and Second-Year Experience at Northern Illinois University Denise Rode is the Former Director of First- and Second-Year Experience at Northern Illinois University FALL 2015 • VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1 29 “development in academic skills—critical thinking; understanding of a field of study; and reading, writing, and speaking skills—and multicultural appreciation and competence—appreciating cultural, racial, global, and ethnic diversity and feeling comfortable interacting with those from others cultures” (Soria, 2015, p. 42). More recently, in addition to the logistical considerations, the NIU CRE committee, which includes key partners from both the campus (Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, faculty, staff, and students) and the community (e.g., local community colleges and public library staff), intentionally considers the ways the CRE incorporates the university’s eight student learning outcomes (SLO): 1. Integrate knowledge of global interconnections and interdependencies 2. Exhibit intercultural competencies with people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives 3. Analyze issues that interconnect human life and the natural world 4. Demonstrate critical, creative, and independent thought 5. Communicate clearly and effectively 6. Collaborate with others to achieve specific goals 7. Use and combine appropriate quantitative and qualitative reasoning skills to address questions and solve problems 8. Synthesize knowledge and skills relevant to one’s major or particular fields of study and apply them creatively to develop innovative outcomes. NIU administrators want to know how all programs achieve learning above and beyond simply supporting the university’s mission. In particular, they want to know how the NIU CRE program incorporates university SLOs. Soria’s research directly links CRE program outcomes to six of NIU’s SLOs (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8). The question becomes, how is assessment implemented to demonstrate that the CRE influences NIU SLOs? At NIU, we’ve found that we cannot do this alone. Collaboration with university professionals in the area of assessment is key to enhancing assessment efforts. While we continue to implement basic assessments described earlier in this article (e.g., reviewing the number of students involved, exposure of the book, and partnerships), we recognized that information doesn’t provide a full picture of the influence of each CRE event. The following list describes ways that assessment of the CRE has evolved to provide richer data used to connect CRE outcomes to university SLOs: 1. Partnering with early alert survey administrators. In order to more efficiently survey students, we partner with the office that distributes the early alert survey at NIU. We add questions to the online survey, which is promoted and distributed to all first-year students in the third week of the fall semester by that office. We receive access to the results, which have already been organized by the early alert system, making it easy for us to break down, interpret, and report the results in an effective manner (Table 1). 2. Attendance. We still take attendance at all events. If the event is large scale, 30 THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ORIENTATION AND TRANSITION we borrow ID card readers from another office on campus to make this possible (Figure 1). 3. Sentence stems and sticky notes. Some of our programs (the author’s speaking engagement, for example) are too large to survey, and taking attendance when it is required doesn’t reveal much about the influence of the experience on student learning. In order to elicit student reactions, we place banners with a sentence stem at the top of large bulletin boards located outside the auditorium used for large events. We then ask students to pick one or more of these sentences to complete in their own words using a large sticky note and marker (Figure 2). 4. Qualitative observers. Another way to gather information from events that aren’t ideal for surveys is to use qualitative observers to record the happenings at an event. During authors’ speaking engagements, we partner with NIU’s Division of Outreach, Engagement, and Regional Development. This unit provides a skilled qualitative observer who is able to write a thorough report of the content of the speech, student’s reactions, and the open discussion that followed. The report reveals that students share thoughtful stories and ask intriguing questions, revealing a deeper level of thinking occurring at each session. 5. Service event surveys. Each service event occurring in conjunction with the CRE includes a brief overview from the director of the agency or community program that students are serving. Directly after the event, students are asked to reflect on their experience on a two-sided, hand- written survey. These reflections provide valuable insight into self-reported gains toward NIU’s learning outcomes. 6. UNIV 101/201 (first-year seminars) reflections and course evaluations. All UNIV 101/201 sections are required to use the common reader. The reflections students produce in class provide additional qualitative support for the influence of the CRE on SLOs. Students also provide quantitative and qualitative feedback on the course evaluations distributed in hard- copy form at the end of each semester. 7. Annual report. In an effort to bring these assessment pieces together, First- and Second-Year Experience produces and distributes an annual report to campus partners and stakeholders. This report helps FSYE recognize current and identify new partners, while further promoting the support of the CRE (Figure 3). 8. Additional outcomes. Despite the fact that the common book changes every two years at NIU, CRE program administrators look for additional ways to incorporate the book into the fabric of the university and ensure longer-term effects of the initiatives developed during each book’s tenure. The 2013-2015 CRE selection was Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. The CRE resulted in additional outcomes, such as the formation of a new student interfaith organization (BetterTogether@NIU), movement toward a Presidential Commission on Interfaith Initiatives, a 6-week, non-credit Interfaith FALL 2015 • VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1 31 Conversation Series, all-campus surveys, and a residential interfaith floor. The NIU CRE also spilled out into the community, with civic and faith leaders meeting twice during author visits to discuss how participants could bring interfaith efforts together to address problems in the greater community beyond the campus. NIU interfaith leaders participated in the Vanguard Conference of the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) in Washington, D.C. (September, 2014), and an NIU CRE coordinator also partnered with an IFYC staff member to present a session at a national conference on collaboration efforts; another presentation was given at a campus workshop on interfaith initiatives. Additionally, the local community college and the public library hosted interfaith activities at their sites. Although CREs have proliferated across the country, with ancillary events such as author visits, service opportunities, and curricular strategies, assessment of these initiatives has lagged. The basic qualitative and quantitative methods described in this article provide several low-cost, practical means for determining the impact of a Common Reading Experience. At NIU, we intend to build on this foundation to develop and embed meaningful assessment processes into the CRE program. TABLE 1 Survey Respondents: On campus UNIV students who completed the MAP-Works® Fall Transition Survey 2014 2013 Have you heard of the 81 percent 56 percent Common Reading (n=1,214) of 1,502 (n=626) of 1,116 Experience (CRE)? respondents respondents answered “yes.” answered “yes.” With regard to the First 36 percent 41 percent Year CRE, have you or (n=541) of 1,502 (n=458) of 1,110 do you plan to attend respondents respondents an event? answered “yes.” answered “yes.” 32 THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE ORIENTATION AND TRANSITION FIGURE 1 Student workers check students in for an author visit through ID matching. FIGURE 2 Students affix their responses to an author’s presentation using large sticky notes, which later were categorized into major themes by program administrators. FALL 2015 • VOLUME 23, NUMBER 1 33 FIGURE 3 An excerpt from NIU’s 2014 Annual Report, showcasing assessment of CRE-related programming and events.