This article reports on the multi-year collaboration between the Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI) at the University of Illinois and the University's Rhetoric Program, a required first-year writing course. I argue that this collaboration was successful in large part because the goals of writing programmes in American higher education…

This article reports the findings of an evaluation of the faculty development component of the Faculty for the Engaged Campus initiative. For this component, the Community-Engaged Scholarship Faculty Development Charrette was attended by 20 university teams from across the United States, and six teams subsequently received 2 years of funding and…

Assessment information should be actionable in that findings must be used to improve the student experience and educational effectiveness. Assessment is a worthwhile undertaking when campuses generate meaningful data, thoroughly consider and discuss evidence-based improvement initiatives, and ultimately use results to improve educational…

The formal assessment of student engagement, as it has developed in recent years, is not necessarily a faculty-driven activity. Most faculty members who teach undergraduates are involved in the informal assessment of student engagement by taking attendance, observing student behaviors or expressions in class, providing feedback on assignments, and…

This article describes the Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI), a six-year-old cross-campus program at the University of Illinois that offers students the opportunity to conduct original ethnographic and archival research on their own institutions and supports faculty who guide that research. It helps the researchers and faculty…

"Nobody wants to get one. Nobody wants to give one." The problem was that the supervisors and managers of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) did not know how to use the Institute's new performance management system and had not been trained on how to prepare and deliver effective performance appraisals. The problem further…