The Institutional Effectiveness and Research Office provides professional leadership and oversight to the research, planning, assessment and accreditation compliance activities that support the College’s mission. The Office has the unique charge of providing cross-functional support to all aspects of the College. The defining nature of these services is that they impact all instructional programs as well as all administrative units. The Associate Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness and Research reports directly to the President of the College.
Institutional Effectiveness
Institutional Effectiveness exists to foster a student-centered culture of continuous quality improvement that embraces data-driven decision-making and strategic planning. Accordingly, Institutional Effectiveness is committed to providing, facilitating, coordinating, and guiding the college's strategic planning process; supervising and completing the college's institutional research functions; providing data and analysis for decision-making at a variety of levels throughout the college; assisting internal "customers" with their research/grant and assessment needs; coordinating compliance for SACSCOC accreditation and risk assessment, and coordinating college reporting to governmental agencies and external constituents where possible and appropriate, in the most timely and accurate manner possible.
Further, the Office is committed to providing senior managers with accurate and timely measures of institutional progress to help guide decisions toward continuous improvement of systems and services.
Institutional Research
The primary function of Institutional Research is to collect, analyze, interpret and disseminate accurate and timely information to facilitate administrative decision-making, college planning, assessment and reporting activities. Numerous accountability reports to external entities, such as, Tennessee Board of Regents/Tennessee Higher Education Commission, multiple Federal agencies, contracted research collaborators and various higher education publications.
Institutional Research also supports faculty research and curriculum development by serving as a resource for questions related to survey design, research methodology, data collection and analysis, and interpretation of results.
Grant Support and the Institutional Review Board (IRB)
The Institutional Effectiveness and Research Office serves ChSCC in competitively researching and developing grants in support of a variety of disciplines and areas. Although the Office is not primarily responsible for preparing grant applications, it supports that function with critiques, data and analyses when appropriate. All Federal, State, and external research/ grant proposals must be coordinated through the Office in order to centralize monitoring of institutional resource commitments and ensure consistency with the College mission.
Institutional Research supports college-based applications for external funding through consultation and presentation of available data. College personnel who wish to apply for an external funding opportunity should contact the Office as early as possible in the process in order to expedite the assistance provided. Office staff will coordinate Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval process, if it is required as part of a funding application.