Faculty & Staff   Ross Professor Attends Harvard Macy Course at White Oaks Plantation   Dr. Diana Callender, associate professor in the Department of Preclinical/ICM at the School of Medicine, recently had the privilege of attending the Harvard Macy Institute’s Program for Comprehensive Assessment in Health Science Education, at the White Oak Plantation in Jacksonville, Florida.   Dr. Callender noted that attending the program was a “career changing and enhancing experience.”   The goal of the program was to advance the professional development of health science educators in the area of assessment and program evaluation. The program focused on a range of methodologies in measurement in four major areas: student learning, faculty teaching, curriculum programs, and institutional quality. Participants were encouraged to integrate these elements into a coordinated assessment system to insure continual advancement of the educational mission of their own institutions. Major areas of focus included assessment theory; benefits and shortcomings of assessment approaches; development of relevant evaluation criteria for courses, programs, and institutions; translating educational goals into measurable outcomes; and designing assessment systems that support continuous quality improvement.   “This intensive program covered areas of assessment, including that of students by faculty and the issues surrounding assessing students in clinical rotations, such as the use of the RIME model,” Dr. Callender said.   According to Dr. Callender, the RIME model requires that medical students function at increasingly complex levels as they proceed through their medical education. RIME stresses the importance of the evaluation of faculty and programs by students, and the use of such feedback to improve courses and programs. In addition, RIME emphasizes the need for systems thinking and continuous quality improvement at all levels of an institution.   “Some of the areas most relevant to Ross University at this time are the need to develop frameworks to allow assessment of clinical students across many clinical sites, and the need to ensure that faculty at different locations use the same framework,” Dr. Callender explained.   She noted that one of the highlights of the program was when Dr. Peter Scoles, of the National Board of Medical Examiners, spoke about “the Board’s move to integrate assessment of basic and clinical sciences together. This is both a response to, and a catalyst for, change in medical curricula in the United States towards vertical and horizontal integration of the basic and clinical sciences,” Dr. Callender said.