ABSTRACT
Effective stakeholder involvement in student affairs assessment is essential for producing timely, useful results that demonstrate impact and are used for continuous improvement. This chapter advances strategies practitioners can use to involve stakeholder groups across the assessment cycle. It provides tools to identify which constituent groups to engage and how to do so effectively to ensure stakeholder buy-in, obtain meaningful context to interpret findings, and leverage results for action. The authors articulate a tiered engagement strategy with varying degrees of involvement. These 5 Cs of stakeholder involvement include communication, consultation, cooperation, collaboration, and co-leadership. This framework is used to determine the appropriate level of contributions from groups with a vested interest in the assessment process and/or results. To help assessment leaders apply these concepts in practice, this chapter offers specific breakout sections that show how stakeholder dynamics operate among three primary constituent groups including administrators, division leaders, and students. To close, the authors offer insights grounded in practice on the importance of communication, relationship building, and equity-mindedness for successful stakeholder involvement in assessment.
