Running head: INTERVIEW REPORT 1

Interview Report: Assistant Director of Residential Student Success and Retention

Chelsea Mason

Georgia Southern University

 INTERVIEW REPORT 2

Interview Report: Assistant Director of Residential Student Success and Retention

Executive Summary

On February 17th at 3:00pm Chelsea Mason met with Justin Hua, the Assistant Director

for Residential Student Success and Retention, at Georgia State University. In additional Hua

serves as the co-chair for the assessment and evaluation committee within the University

Housing department. Below is an executive summary highlighting the topics and notable

responses collected from the interview.

Questions

1. What is your role in assessment and/or evaluation for the department?

2. Why is assessment and evaluation important within Higher Education, and student affairs
specifically?
3. What changes has your unit experienced over the last few years? What do you associate
these changes to?
4. What has been the unit’s or institution’s biggest accomplishment during the last five
years?
5. What has been the biggest difficulty the unit or institution has experienced over the last
five years?
6. What are the challenges of assessment and evaluation at the unit and institution level?
What are the opportunities?
7. How do you utilize the result of SkyFactor Benchworks Resident Satisfaction Survey
data in the department?
8. How can assessment and evaluation within University Housing apply to the institution at
large?
9. How does the person incorporate stakeholders into the assessment and evaluation
process?
10. What do you think are the major issues facing Higher Education today?

Educational Background

Justin Hua started his career at Davidson College (Davidson, North Carolina). He

graduated in 2011 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology with a Neuroscience

concentration. Hua went on to complete the M.Ed. Higher Education Administration

concentration on Student Affairs program at Vanderbilt University in 2016. Currently Hua is

 INTERVIEW REPORT 3

pursuing his Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision at the University of Georgia

(anticipated graduation May 2022).

Career Information
 Admission Counselor, Davidson College (2011-2013)
 Assistant Dean of Admission, Davidson College (2013-2014)
 Graduate Assistant, Office of Inclusion Initiatives and Cultural Competence, Vanderbilt
University (2014-2016)
o Graduate Coordinator, Office of Housing and Residential Education (2015-2016)
 Conference Coordinator, Conference Services, Emory University (Summer 2015)
 Residence Hall Director, Georgia State University (July 2016-December 2019)
 Assistant Director, Residential Student Success and Retention, Georgia State University
(January 2020-present)

Key Points from Interview

Justin Hua highlighted some of the following points during the interview. These points

led a meaningful interview and presented many opportunities to critically think about the

purpose of assessment and evaluation specifically within Georgia State University Housing and

beyond.

 Measurement and assessment initiatives help us engage as practitioner-scholars through

empirical validation of our work
 Challenges of assessment and evaluation include training for staff; alignment with greater
university stakeholders, administrators, and other, higher-order institutional priorities.
 Big accomplishment - Innovative and student-responsive methods of supporting
enrollment and retention
 INTERVIEW REPORT 4

Critical Reaction
Justin Hua currently serves within the University Housing Department at Georgia State

University as the Assistant Director for Student Success and Retention. He also serves as the

coordinator for the assessment and evaluation committee within the department. Justin is

primarily responsible for the responsible for creating, implementing and assessing the student

success initiatives and programs within our residence halls. For this reason, I was interested to

hear about Justins unique perspective on assessment, evaluation and specifically how this

impacts his role within the system of higher education. My key take aways from this interview

revolved around how we can utilize assessment in the housing department, what challenges exist,

and how to involve multiple stakeholders.

Considering that we are colleagues in the same department, it was refreshing to hear a

deeper explanation of what measures we take as a department to improve. Initially I was

impressed by Justin Hua’s ability to connect assessment and evaluation within his role to a larger

context of higher education as a whole. Hua states, “Measurement and assessment initiatives

help us engage as practitioner-scholars through empirical validation of our work” which in my

opinion is an inclusive purpose statement. In a time framed by budget cuts and the increasing

need to validate budget lines and a even broader campaign to understand what is valuable, what

is equitable, and what is essential, while also measuring impact, satisfaction, and learning

assessment and evaluation is essential.

In the context of his role, Justin has a great understand of how assessment and evaluation

is useful. Specifically, utilizing analyzing data presented from verbal feedback, formal

evaluations such as the SkyFactor Benchworks Resident Satisfaction Survey, retention statistics

for both student and staff, etc. Highlighting the SkyFactor Benchworks Resident Satisfaction

Survey, which is used to collect and analyze data within our residential community, we use this
 INTERVIEW REPORT 5

as a mode of accountability and awareness. We use satisfaction feedback from SkyFactor to

inform what physical spaces or resources need immediate, interim replacement or need to be

queued up to replace. Justin was able to outline some other uses of this data within our

department. This included using the Skyfactor data to inform “student staff training, inform some

policy recommendations impacting residents, student staff, and/or professional staff, and lastly,

to inform timelines for when critical departmental functions must/ought to occur.” This brought

up a very interesting point regarding the continued relevance of data as a determinate of

progress, and growth. Georgia State University has been using SkyFactor for approximately

eight years, and it has proven extremely useful as it allows for easy assess and methods in which

we can compare results to previous years.

Another interesting topic of our conversation included challenges. This was a

multifaceted conversation which included challenges facing higher education, our institution and

our department. Such challenges within our department include an imbalanced flow of crises-

response-restoration. Using a solution minded framework for this conversation we discussed how

data has already proven useful. Based on an evaluation of our on-call protocol, we were able to

identify areas of growth. We analyzed the frequency of incidents on campus, location, and staff

feedback and as a result proposed a update to the protocol. Other challenges discussed included

shrinking federal contributions, state contributions, which have added burden to

students/families.

Lastly, Justin Hua and I were able to reflect on how this model of assessment and

evaluation can help the institution as a whole. Assessment and evaluation can support

institution’s student success and retention initiatives. This would require, as Hua suggests that
 INTERVIEW REPORT 6

we meet, identify mutual interests and measures, co-develop an assessment plan, implement

assessment plan, review/analyze results, and repeat.

Overall, I believe this interview provided a critical opportunity to reflect on my

department, and how we support progress. We were able to engage in meaningful conversation

that clearly correlated with the question I asked. For this reason I believe I was able to get all

questions answered fully and thoughtfully, and have no follow-up questions. I do however

believe this was a great first step towards making assessment and evaluation a priority in my

position.