Trudy Bers

Trudy Bers, Oakton Community College

Trudy Bers is the Executive Director of Research, Curriculum and Planning at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Illinois.  She is a Data Facilitator for Achieving the Dream; a consultant-evaluator for the Higher Learning Commission regional accrediting association; a faculty member at the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition institutes on transfer and community college students; and teaches a course in institutional effectiveness and assessment for the University of Maryland University College doctor of management in community college leadership program.

Bers’ research interests include the community college, the assessment of student learning outcomes, and college choice for community college students and their parents.  She has been president of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR), the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, the National Community College Council for Research and Planning and the Illinois Association for Institutional Research, and is former chair of the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative Executive Committee.   She has been or is on the editorial boards of Research in Higher Education, the Enrollment Management Journal, and the Community College Review, and has published more than more than fifty articles in professional journals, edited or co-edited four issues of New Directions for Community Colleges, co-authored two AIR online professional development courses, and made more than fifty presentations at professional conferences.  Her most recent publications include a monograph for the National Institute on Learning Outcomes Assessment, co-authored with Charlene Nunley and Terri Manning, a chapter on program review in the New Directions for Community Colleges 2011 issue on Institutional Effectiveness, edited by Ron Head, and a chapter on benchmarking in the Handbook on Measurement, Assessment, and Evaluation in Higher Education co-authored with Jeffrey Seybert and Ellen Weed.    She has also co-edited a forthcoming New Directions for Institution Research on institutional research in the community college with Christopher Mullen and Linda Hagedorn.