AALHE 2026 Keynote
The Case We Haven't Made: Turning Assessment into the Argument for Higher Education
Dr. Kate Drezek McConnell
As assessment professionals, we have collectively spent decades building the infrastructure of evidence—evidence that, when leveraged appropriately, informed curricular change and improved learning and/or the learning environment for our students. We have diligently documented processes, satisfied accreditors, reviewed programs, and produced reports. We have invested in offices dedicated to assessment, institutional research, and effectiveness. We revised rubrics. We charreted in the name of assignment (re)design. We have closed oh-so-many loops. But what if, in doing what has been meaningful and excellent work, we missed today’s most consequential opportunity: helping to make the public case for the value of a college degree?
This keynote argues that our field is at an inflection point. Excellence in assessment can no longer be defined by documentation and compliance. Instead, it must be measured by integration, impact, and demonstrated value. That means connecting assessment praxis to pedagogy, curriculum, cocurricular programming, and student success in coherent, visible ways. It means asking not just what we assess, but what has actually changed because of it. And it means expanding our conception of evidence to encompass the full complexity of student learning and success, including disaggregated outcomes that reveal who is and who is not being served by our educational models.
The argument for higher education should not be made exclusively by economists or politicians. It must include the evidence assessment professionals are uniquely positioned to generate, interpret, and communicate. This will require moving from assessment as institutional ritual to assessment as institutional proof: integrated across silos, grounded in methodological rigor, and transparent to the multiple stakeholders who need it most. This session invites assessment professionals to reconsider what excellence looks like, and to lay claim to the role that only they can play in demonstrating the enduring value of the outcomes and experiences promised by and delivered through the pursuit of a college degree.
Kate Drezek McConnell, PhD, is Vice President for Curricular and Pedagogical Innovation and Executive Director of VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). An educational psychologist by training—with a BA from the University of Virginia, an MA in history from Providence College, and a PhD from Virginia Tech—she has spent her career at the intersection of assessment, faculty development, and the learning sciences, which is a long way of saying she thinks very hard about how we know whether college is actually working the way we hope it does. Before her current role, Kate served as AAC&U's Assistant Vice President for Research and Assessment and Director of the VALUE Scoring Collaborative. She has written extensively on the reliability and validity of the VALUE approach to assessment. Her other research and campus consultations focus on general education reform; course-embedded assessment; aligning pedagogy with assessment efforts; faculty development; and leveraging the learning sciences in teaching, assessment, and evaluation. Prior to joining AAC&U, she spent a decade at Virginia Tech in assessment and evaluation and as affiliate faculty in educational psychology, teaching courses on cognitive processes and effective college teaching.
A self-described military/government kid, Kate credits her peripatetic upbringing and years on the water as a high school and collegiate rower for most of what she's gotten right professionally. A New England transplant now firmly rooted in the Blue Ridge Mountains, she lives with her husband, her teenage daughter (who has opinions about her accent broadly and her pronunciation of the word “coffee” specifically), and a rescue pit bull who is, without question, her biggest fan—and the only member of the household who has never once made fun of her for losing her keys. Kate's greatest professional joy is connecting kind and creative colleagues, whether across campuses and systems or state and national borders, because this work is hard enough and infinitely better when you do not have to do it alone.
Past Keynote Speakers
Wednesday, May 28th, 2025
Reflections on Assessment Evolution: Taking Stock, Collecting Impact and Tracking Emerging Practice
Dr. Jillian Kinzie
Thursday, June 6th, 2024
Thinking with A.I. and the Future of Assessment
José Antonio Bowen, Ph.D., F.R.S.A.
José Bowen teaches techniques to transform assignments and assessments to motivate and engage students by placing greater emphasis on the process and experience of learning.
Wednesday, June 6th, 2023
The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories That Inform, Influence, and Inspire
Karen Eber
Karen Eber demonstrates how to scientifically hack the art of storytelling by leveraging the Five Factory Settings of the Brain and showing how to tell stories that inform, influence, and inspire.
Monday, June 6th, 2022
Strengthening Communities of Assessment by Centering Equity and Racial Justice
Dr. Tia Brown McNair, American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)
Tia Brown McNair will draw from multiple AAC&U-sponsored projects to highlight efforts that build institutional capacity to achieve shared goals for making excellence inclusive.
Wednesday, June 8th, 2022
Assessing Nuance: Including Voices of Student Populations that are Challenging to Quantify
Dr. Sonja Ardoin, Appalachian State University
Sonja Ardoin will discuss the nuances and complications of assessing the learning of the full campus community, centering on first-generation college students and students from poor and working-class background.
Monday, June 7th, 2021
Exemplars of Assessment in Higher Education
Dr. Jane Marie Souza, University of Rochester and Dr. Tara Rose, Louisiana State University
Jane Marie Souza and Tara Rose will discuss their edited compendium, Exemplars of Assessment in Higher Education: Diverse Approaches to Addressing Accreditation Standards
Tuesday, June 8th, 2021
People-Centered Intelligences
Dr. John Mayer, University of New Hampshire
A discussion with Dr. John D. Mayer, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of New Hampshire on key measures and their relations to school and workplace behavior.
Wednesday, June 9th, 2021
Clear, Simple, and Wrong
Dr. David Eubanks, Furman University and Dr. Kate Drezek McConnell, Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U)
This session weaves together three recent studies of student learning to show how common assumptions about data summaries can lead us astray, and how to avoid that fate.
Monday, June 16th, 2020
Looking Back to Move Forward: Building Towards Equitable Assessment
Dr. Natasha Jankowski
This keynote takes time to project forward while looking back, building upon the growth of diverse approaches to assess student learning which have unfolded over the past ten years of AALHE supporting assessment professionals.
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Diversity Makes All the Difference: Assessing Student Learning and Educational Outcomes in Higher Education Institutions
Dr. Keena Arbuthnot
In this keynote address, Dr. Arbuthnot will encourage the audience to think more broadly about how higher education institutions can ensure that they develop and utilize culturally responsive assessments.
Monday, June 10, 2019
Aligning Assessment Efforts for Impact and Success
Dr. Adrianna Kezar
Dr. Kezar will describe her research on how, and under what conditions, assessment can improve teaching and learning.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Weaving Assessment into the Institutional Fabric: The Benefits of Cross-functional Teams
Dr. Amelia Parnell
The session will provide examples of collaborative work at campuses across the United States and will conclude with considerations regarding the intersections of communication and leadership and how to sustain a culture of assessment in the years ahead.
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