It’s May. The academic year is winding down for many of us.👏🏽
In a perfect world, this is the season when higher education leaders bask in the glow of clean, actionable assessment data. Decisions are driven by insight. Improvements are made. Teams feel energized. But in reality? For many institutions, this is the season of disillusionment.
The Disconnect
“Closing the loop” should mean using assessment results to make meaningful improvements—and documenting those changes. At its best, it’s transformative. At its worst, it’s a ritual of reports that never spark renewal.
From my years working across institutions, here are the three most common reasons why closing the loop fails to live up to its potential:
1️⃣ What loop?
Believe it or not, some campuses still don’t have a process for closing the loop. Reports get written, emailed, and buried in committee folders. No real change follows. Often, it’s due to leadership turnover or cultural stasis. The result? A ritual of reporting, without renewal.
2️⃣ Why won’t this loop close?
Sometimes, the insight driving action is just… off. I worked with a college in 2018 trying to boost STEM performance. They read their data and launched a mentorship program. Relationships flourished, but students still struggled academically. Why? Because the real issue wasn’t connection—it was competence. We pivoted to a Peer Learning Strategist program focused on building academic work skills. Two years later, faculty reported better engagement, and students performed—and persisted—at higher rates. That closed the loop.
3️⃣ We closed the loop… but missed the problem.
Back in 2014, I worked briefly with an institution whose leadership was determined to close their loop through a tech-based solution. The dashboards were flashy, the reports were colorful, and the branding was everywhere—mugs, shirts, the works. Enthusiasm was high. But I had my doubts. Years later, at the SACSCOC Annual Summit in 2019, a professor I’d met during that engagement approached me after a session. When I asked how things were going, he looked down and said, “They just fired leadership. Graduation rates barely moved—28% to 29%.”
They’d closed loops. But they hadn’t solved the real problem.
So what now?
Here we are. It’s May again. Loops are being closed—or at least attempted.
The work we do now sets up next year’s success—or next year’s disappointment.
📣 Whether you’re a learning center director, a dean, or somewhere in between—you play a role in this process. And it can work.
I’ve seen frustration turn into motivation, and motivation turn into movement.
Want to learn the biggest reason we don’t close the loop?
How do you close the loop?
It’s not too late to turn reports into results.
Let’s talk. Meet me in the comments below.👇🏿
