Anchoring Equity Efforts for Effectiveness

ABSTRACT Assessment and institutional effectiveness (IE) continuous improvement efforts persist in being regularly ineffective in advancing an equity agenda. They often seem to be relegated to in-name-only endeavors, with gross mismatches occurring between intentions, actions, and impact. This disconnect results in the maintenance of unjust and inequitable status quo around student and educator success. How can and should assessment professionals responsible for institutional accountability demand and elicit justice in higher education’s ways of being so that students may thrive? How can assessment professionals change the landscape and culture of institutions, assess the meaningfulness and impact of equity-building work, and increase personal efficacy? This article uses the equity framework offered by Samuga_Gyaanam+Bheda (2022) and in the book Centering Equity in Assessment to share three case studies of infusing equity in and by assessment/IE work for educational success—in student support, in institutional programming, and on the curricular front—for practitioners to learn from and deploy.