In 2021, with the release of the 2021-2026 Student Life Strategic Plan the Signature Program Assessments (SPAs) were launched. The purpose of SPAs is to complete an intentional unit-level assessment to help understand progress on unit, cluster and divisional goals, and to support planning and budget requests.
In 2022-23 supported by the Manager, Assessment and Analysis, 17 SPAs were identified, and a comprehensive assessment will investigate the efficacy of programs spanning 20 Student Life Strategic Plan objectives.
An ambitious first year, these included projects from Academic Success (Graduate Writing & Productivity Groups), Accessibility Services (Front Desk Operations and Emails from Students to Advisors), Communications (Student Life Brand Evaluation), the Centre from Community Partnerships (Alternative Reading Week), Career Exploration and Education (Job Shadowing), Health & Wellness (IAR/IAR+), Housing (URent), IT (Support Ticket System), the Multi-Faith Centre (Interfaith Leadership Certificate), the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer (Signing Authority Matrix Training), Student Engagement (Mentorship Foundations, Starting Point, EDI Education Series), Student Success (CLNx Training & Support), TCard (Summer Casual Recruitment), and the Centre for International Experience (Learning Abroad Programs).
Due to resource and capacity constraints, 11 of the SPAs were paused and will be reinvigorated in 2023-24 within SPA 2.0. There were several learnings from the first iteration of SPAs that will be incorporated into SPA 2.0 to support the units in completing all the projects.