AALHE Member Spotlight
Jill Allison Kern, PhD
Director for Accreditation & Assessment
Brown University School of Public Health
Providence, Rhode Island
Years in Assessment: 20
Member of AALHE Since: 2018
What brought you to assessment?
What brought me to assessment was my work as the accreditation director at a newly-launched freestanding graduate school of clinical psychology in the WASC region when SLO assessment was first becoming a requirement. My doctoral studies in organizational behavior equipped me with the theoretical grounding and research skills needed to develop an effective approach to accreditation and assessment. Unsatisfied in my previous tenure-track position in a business school, I was gratified to find a job in which I could apply my training to organizations I cared to help improve—namely, higher ed institutions—and to a mission I found meaningful—that is, strengthening the quality of education colleges and universities deliver. I just took to the work!
How have you benefited from your AALHE membership?
AALHE is my professional home base. It’s where I’ve made dear friends and forged a wide colleague network. I knew AALHE was to be “my organization” when a keynote session at my first conference was devoted to a panel of assessment critics because it demonstrated that AALHE valued open dialogue and self-reflection. Since that time, I’ve been an active member, having served on the AAHLE Guiding Statement Taskforce; Conference Committee; Webinar Committee; Professional Development Committee; President’s Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Member Engagement Committee.
What do you think the future of assessment will look like?
This is an especially challenging moment to make any sort of predictions, especially about higher education in the US given the potentially consequential changes afoot. The history of assessment has been tied to that of accreditation, and I suspect its future will be as well. Given the uncertainty around what the accreditation landscape will look like in two or three years’ time, I’m not able to anticipate what assessment will look like.
What is the best career advice you can give?
The best career advice I can give is advice that I have shamefacedly not followed: publishing. In my long career in the field, I’ve only written one article although there’s a book sitting in my proverbial desk that I’m too timid to put “out there.” Publishing is an excellent way to get others to know your name and work. And it helps build the field’s knowledge base.
The other advice I have to offer, and it’s advice I have followed, is to become an active member in assessment professional associations. Join AALHE, if you haven’t already, and serve on one or more committees. Attend assessment conferences, including those of any local assessment associations in your region, such as the Virginia Assessment Group or the New England Educational Assessment Network. Forge connections with others in the field so that you can lend support to and get support from those doing this hard, important work.
Describe a challenge you have faced in the world of assessment.
A key challenge I’ve faced in assessment is that it’s lonely work. In the five assessment director positions I’ve held, I was the only assessment professional at three institutions and had one colleague, an assistant director, in two. The role typically sits on the boundary between administration and faculty, which can be further isolating. Having colleagues that I’ve met at AALHE has been vital to my sense of membership in a community of people with shared experiences.
What are your hobbies or leisure activities.
I’m an avid Scrabble player. I play against the computer on my phone every day and attend the Providence Scrabble Club. I also love podcasts. I listen to a large number, some of which focus on current events like the New York Times’ “The Daily” and others of which focus on people’s life narratives like “The Moth” and “Family Secrets.” Finally, my partner and I enjoy day trips. We like to pretend that Providence is a bedroom community for Manhattan. So, we routinely go back and forth to NYC in a single day: a three-hour trip each way!
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