TENNAIR 2026

In today’s complex higher education environment, the need for actionable, data-informed assessment has never been more pressing. Amid shifting expectations and diverse stakeholder needs, the Meta-Assessment Rubric offers a structured, collaborative tool to evaluate and elevate institutional assessment practices.

This session explores how institutions can use the Meta-Assessment Rubric to create harmony by turning fragmented or underutilized assessment efforts into integrated, mission-aligned strategies. Just as a symphony brings together varied instruments to create harmony, the rubric provides a framework for aligning assessment efforts across programs, divisions, and institutional goals. Through real-world examples and interactive discussion, participants will gain insights into how a rubric fosters clarity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Set in Nashville—a city built on the power of collaboration and innovation—this session invites participants to “find harmony” by transforming assessment challenges into opportunities for meaningful change.

The Office of Accreditation and Assessment (OAA) at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga implemented, as part of their outcomes assessment process, using a rubric to assess outcomes and associated information. By creating a rubric for assessing outcomes and the corresponding components, OAA is able to provide detailed feedback and guidance to programs, departments, colleges, and units across the institution. This rubric provides additional details and specific feedback related to the requirements of the outcomes assessment process and helps faculty, staff, and administrators recognize potential misalignments within outcomes assessment information.

This session provides a comprehensive overview of TICUA’s most recent statewide economic impact study, which examines the combined contributions of Tennessee’s 34 private colleges and universities on the state. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how institutional spending, student expenditures, alumni earnings, and workforce alignment contribute to a collective $22.4 billion annual impact and support more than 135,000 jobs statewide. The presentation will also highlight key data sources, methodology, and assumptions, equipping attendees to better interpret economic impact findings and apply them within their own institutional or policy contexts.

A question that Walters State sought to answer for many years was "When is the best time to have an event on campus?" In 2025, we created a dashboard titled the "Campus Flow Dashboard" that helped constituents visualize when students arrived, when students were in class, when students were (probably) waiting on their next class, and when their day at WSCC ended. What we did not realize at the time was the number of different ways this dashboard would be used on campus. This session will look at the design of the Campus Flow Dashboard (including how to create your own), who uses the dashboard at WSCC, and some communication that we provided early on that probably helped it become more widespread than initially thought.

In this session, four experts will engage in a panel discussion on the evolution of institutional research (IR).  Aimed primarily at newcomers to the TENNAIR Conference and to early-career professionals, this concurrent session will delve into IR’s essential roles, responsibilities, effective practices, and future directions. The panelists, representing different sectors of Tennessee higher education institutions and levels of institutional research, will share insight into how IR has changed, what the field’s future directions and needs are, and how IR professionals can prepare for an increasingly data-driven enterprise. Participants will receive a packet of resources highlighting opportunities for continued development. 

Effective academic program review is often assumed to rest primarily on the quality of program level responses. However, experience suggests that the success of program review is largely shaped long before programs begin writing, by the administrative structures, tools, timelines, and guidance that frame the process. When intentionally designed, this infrastructure can reduce rework and confusion, improve consistency and clarity across submissions, and better support data informed reflection and continuous improvement.

This session offers an administrator centered perspective common to institutional research, assessment, and planning roles, exploring how responsibilities shift when administrators act as translators of external expectations, designers of coherent review systems, and coaches supporting faculty and program leaders. Using examples aligned with Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) expectations, the presenter will share practical strategies such as guided self-study templates, standardized site visit itineraries, clear review timelines, and observer roles to build institutional capacity. These approaches have contributed to stronger narratives, fewer clarification cycles, and clearer links between review findings, decision making, and improvement planning.

The session also addresses the emerging use of artificial intelligence as an administrative support strategy within program review workflows. Rather than replacing professional judgment or program ownership, AI is positioned as a tool for improving clarity, identifying cross cutting themes, and generating reflective prompts, with clear guardrails emphasizing transparency and human review.

Participants will reflect on pain points in their own program review processes, consider where assumptions or inconsistent guidance create unnecessary burden, and identify administrative adjustments that could strengthen existing systems. Attendees will leave with transferable, scalable strategies that can be adapted across institution types to support more meaningful program review, without overhauling current models.

In this third installment of our ongoing data governance series, we provide an updated look at how the University of Tennessee, Knoxville continues to mature its approach through coordinated strategy, functional engagement, and technical modernization.

This session will offer an overview of the institutional strategy guiding data governance, including efforts to support shared decision-making and accountability across the university. We then explore the functional work that supports data governance in practice, highlighting initiatives to engage campus partners and promote data literacy and discovery. Finally, we spotlight recent technical progress focused on improving efficiency, streamlining business processes, and strengthening data quality and trust through more robust validation and automation.

Together, these updates share practical insights and lessons learned, reflecting on what it takes to sustain momentum as data governance evolves, not as a one-time project or policy, but as a collaborative, ongoing effort embedded in institutional practice.

The Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is a relatively new and potentially game-changing position in the higher education landscape. In 2025, Lipscomb University aligned its IR/Analytics function with its newly appointed CRO to establish real-time insight and best practices for monitoring, forecasting, and projecting revenue. This presentation will showcase the first twelve months of the results of this work, with a special focus on the methodology and tools being used to create reporting solutions that supply the CRO, executive leadership, and finance team with strategic analytics for decision-making. The presentation will highlight the growing importance and opportunity that IR/Analytics offices have to make an outsized impact on their institutions' quest to maintain fiscal health and chart new frontiers for revenue generation.

Please join staff from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission for a deep dive into a comprehensive analysis of the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship (TELS) program. TELS is a set of 13 distinct financial aid programs that provide support for students to pursue college, funded from the state’s education lottery revenue. However, recent revenue projections from the State Funding Board point to a persistent and growing gap between available funds from the lottery and the growing demand for TELS programs. Recognizing those challenges, THEC has undertaken an agency-wide analysis of TELS to determine how the programs have evolved over time, who is supported by each program, and the overall impact the program has on postsecondary outcomes in the state. Participants in this session can expect to learn about: 1) the full suite of TELS programs 2) the student population served by each program, their outcomes, and how these dynamics have changed over time; and 3) how THEC is measuring the scope and impact of all TELS programs.

This session will walk through the process for creating ADA compliant reports, best tips to be successful, and ways to avoid potential conflicts.

As a member of the Reaffirmation Class of 2026, Tennessee Tech University recently submitted a successful Compliance Certification with no findings related to Institutional Effectiveness. This session will cover the narrative structure and evidentiary documentation that was developed to demonstrate compliance with SACSCOC Standard 8.2a. A key component of the evidentiary materials included a table that detailed each academic programs compliance with the Institutional Effectiveness standard. In this session, we will discuss how the materials were gathered, how program chairs played an active role in this process, and how this strategy could be used to establish similar compliance with SACSCOC Standards 8.2c and 7.3. Lastly, we will discuss how this process is evolving and leading to the development of Continuous Improvement Awards that will recognize programs and/or units who are seeking improvement. 

Traditional completions metrics tell us the number of earned credentials, but not what the student journey to completion looks like. This session presents a dashboard that emphasizes time to completion by examining key enrollment behaviors, including enrollment gaps and major changes. By focusing on students’ paths rather than solely their endpoints, this approach keeps student success at the center of completions reporting. Framing completions this way helps to highlight where students may need additional support. Attendees will gain ideas for using completions data to identify actionable opportunities to help students navigate their time to completion more effectively. 

The Impact Credential Model is the result of SCORE’s effort to align Tennessee around a collaborative vision for the educational credentials we want every Tennessean to attain. Through building an analytical model (twice!), SCORE encountered challenges demanding innovative solutions.  In this session, the audience will learn what the Impact Credential Model is, how SCORE translated ambiguous problems to data-driven answers, synthesized diverse external data sources, used a directed acyclic graph (DAG) to map data flow, collaboratively wrote code using Python and Git, and elevated the impact credential model in statewide conversations. Participants will additionally learn how we made mistakes and how we seek to improve the credential impact model in the future.

As higher education institutions invest in artificial intelligence, Institutional Research (IR) offices are uniquely positioned to translate these capabilities into meaningful, trusted insights. However, AI adoption is only as effective as the data foundations that support it.
This session explores how data modernization efforts—standardized definitions, governed data pipelines, and scalable reporting structures—enable practical and responsible AI use within IR. Rather than focusing on theory, the session highlights concrete use cases where AI can enhance IR functions, including reporting automation, enrollment analysis, and workforce alignment.
Presenters will also examine the evolving role of IR in an AI-enabled environment, with particular attention to governance, data quality, and maintaining institutional trust. Attendees will leave with a pragmatic framework for identifying AI opportunities, avoiding common pitfalls, and positioning their IR office as a leader in data-informed decision-making.

Institutional Research (IR) professionals often seek to go beyond simply providing data to contribute more to analysis, consultation, and strategic decision-making. However, their ability to do so is shaped not only by what they produce, but by how their work is perceived across campus. When IR is primarily understood as a reporting or compliance function, opportunities to engage more deeply in interpretation and strategy may be limited, regardless of an office’s capacity or intent. This challenge can be especially pronounced during institutional transitions, when leadership turnover, shifting responsibilities, and gaps in institutional knowledge complicate the role of IR.

This session presents a case study of a qualitative approach with theory-informed analysis used to better understand the role and perception of an IR office at a mid-sized private university. The presenter entered the role as a first-time IR leader following a multi-year vacancy in the position, during a period marked by significant turnover among campus leaders and staff who regularly interact with IR. As a result, both the office's identity and its relationships across campus were unclear.

To better understand this context, the presenter conducted a series of structured listening sessions with administrative leaders across campus. Interview data were analyzed using an integrated framework that combines stages of IR office development (data supplier, analyst, consultant, leader) and institutional logics (market, state, and profession) (Brown et al, 2017; Brown, 2017). This approach enabled a more nuanced understanding of how different stakeholders interpret IR work, how misalignment in institutional logics may shape perceptions of value and expertise, and potential strategies for increasing IR's influence at the institution.

Rather than prescribing a single model for IR practice, this session offers a structured approach to conducting listening sessions, analyzing qualitative data using theoretical frameworks, and identifying patterns in institutional perceptions. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on how their own offices may be perceived and will leave with practical strategies for using qualitative inquiry to better understand and navigate their institutional context, particularly in periods of transition or ambiguity.

Innovation requires more than bold ideas—it requires alignment and accountability. This session highlights JSCC’s six-month, inclusive strategic planning process that intentionally brought diverse voices into tune to define a shared, measurable direction.

The process began with a review and revision of the mission statement, followed by parallel work from five subcommittees focused on Academic Innovation, Financial Vitality, Student Success, Workforce Partnerships, and Institutional Culture. Employees, students, and community partners contributed through a comprehensive survey, ensuring broad engagement and shared ownership.

This collaboration produced six strategic pillars—Relationships, Resources, Reputation, Reach, Relevance, and Results—each supported by a strategic goal and priorities. High-level KPIs were developed for each goal and are reviewed annually to track progress. Unit?level Institutional Effectiveness plans align expected outcomes to the strategic goals and priorities, reinforcing coherence and support across the five-year plan.

Shared values emerged—student-centered care; momentum and growth; reliability and stewardship; grit, culture, and community pride; and opportunity and promise—shaping the vision: JSCC is a catalyst for opportunity where students, partners, and communities see their future through education. Together, these elements formed the plan’s theme, SEE JSCC—Strengthen, Empower, Enhance, drawn from the revised mission.

Participants will gain practical insights into building an inclusive, data-informed strategic planning process that aligns innovation with mission, values, and measurable outcomes.

What if your survey dashboard didn’t just show results, but let users explore, compare, and ask better questions in real time? This presentation is a hands-on guide to building interactive survey visualizations that are reliable and scalable. The first half will focus on the backend infrastructure required to support complex survey data over multiple years, including data modeling, performance considerations, and best practices that keep the system robust as surveys evolve. The second half demonstrates how thoughtful interactive design makes it easy to explore trends across time or questions without overwhelming users. Attendees will leave with concrete patterns and technical strategies for turning static survey outputs into powerful, self-service analytical tools.

This session highlights how the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) is using integrated education and labor market data to support workforce-aligned decision-making across its community colleges and colleges of applied technology.

Presenters will showcase a coordinated suite of system-level tools that link student outcomes, labor market demand, and near–real?time institutional data to inform action at both the system and campus levels. Together, these tools provide a unified approach to understanding workforce outcomes, career pathways, and program alignment.

The session will demonstrate features of Careers Start Here, an interactive platform developed in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development that tracks graduate employment rates, earnings, and industries of employment over the past decade. Participants will also explore a job postings and occupational outlook tool that integrates National Labor Exchange postings data with Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics to assess workforce demand, employment growth, credential requirements, and advertised salary trends across Tennessee and neighboring states. In addition, presenters will discuss the system’s emerging Workforce Student Information System (SIS) initiative, which is creating a centralized, standardized data environment to support operational and strategic dashboards aligned with the TBR Analytics and Reporting Platform (TARP).

This session will emphasize how integrated workforce data can be operationalized to improve career advising, guide program investment and review, strengthen credentials of value alignment, and reduce reporting burden for IR/IE staff. Attendees will leave with practical examples of how workforce data can move beyond reporting to support coordinated, data-informed decision-making within their own institutional contexts.

Approximately 80% of students in Tennessee's community colleges enroll in transfer programs, yet fewer than 30% successfully transfer to a four-year institution. Students who complete transfer degrees but do not go on to earn a bachelor's degree often face weak labor market outcomes, earning less, on average, than peers with other community college credentials. Improving outcomes for these students requires a clearer understanding of their enrollment decisions, program choices, and the institutional factors that shape their paths.

This presentation would share initial findings from TBR's Transfer Student Success project, an ongoing policy research initiative examining enrollment patterns and outcomes across Tennessee's transfer pathways, transfer barriers, and opportunities to improve student supports to improve transfer success. Drawing on TBR end-of-term data, the project explores how students move through, and between, these pathways, and how outcomes differ across programs, institutions, student populations, and geographies.

Attendees will be introduced to key findings from a series of Research Spotlights currently in development. Topics include: how University Parallel (UP) enrollment trends and student populations compare to those in Tennessee Transfer Pathways (TTPs); how often students switch between transfer and applied technical programs, and when those switches tend to occur; how transfer and bachelor's degree attainment rates differ across pathway types; and how students in applied technical programs navigate the leap to four-year institutions, including patterns in credit transferability and bachelor's degree program selection. Together, these spotlights offer a statewide picture of where Tennessee's transfer ecosystem is working well and where there are opportunities to improve current policies and practices.

In March, I gave a TENNAIR workshop showing Claude fix a broken script, recover from missing data, and generate a president's report from a CSV. Those demos were a slice of a larger system. This session shows the rest of it.

Union University does not have a formal IR office. I function as the institutional research and data infrastructure layer alongside our SACSCOC and assessment leadership. Over the past year, I have used AI coding tools to build a dimensional warehouse on top of Colleague (6.5M GL transactions, three dimensions, two facts), a nightly Slate-to-warehouse ETL feeding department chair reports, a weekly intelligence brief delivered to the Provost, and a library of on-prem Informer dashboards spanning enrollment, finance, and academic KPIs. I will walk through what shipped, what failed, and the governance discipline (source plus formula plus falsifier, verification before briefing) that keeps the output trustworthy. Attendees will leave with a realistic picture of what is achievable, what to avoid, and where to start.

As institutional research and data teams scale to meet increasing reporting needs, ensuring visual and analytical consistency becomes important. Without deliberate standardization, reports developed by multiple team members often differ in layout, naming conventions, and design - leading to confusion, misinterpretation, and diminished stakeholder trust. In this presentation we 1) share strategies for centralizing data transformation logic using a dataflow so that all report builders work from a common, governed data layer and 2) present a template-based design framework called SLAB (Scope, Layout, Aesthetics, Build), which provides reusable, standardized dashboard structures applicable across an entire reporting portfolio. Together, these approaches reduce development time, minimize inconsistency, and produce polished data products that stakeholders can more readily interpret and trust. While grounded in Power BI, the concepts are transferable to any BI platform.