In January, 2012, William H. Rickards joined the USC Rossier School of Education as a senior research associate in program evaluation.
Dr. Rickards brings over 20 years of experience as a researcher in Educational Research and Evaluation at Alverno College. With a primary focus on program evaluation in higher education, he contributed to Alverno’s landmark study of student learning and development, Learning That Lasts (Mentkowski and Associates, 2000) and has continued evaluative studies of student learning and faculty practice in teacher education, nursing education, and engineering education. For several years, he contributed to studies of reflective learning and self assessment in Alverno’s diagnostic digital portfolio, editing a special Journal of General Education issue on electronic portfolios. He has also been involved as an external evaluator for an NEA Foundation project on urban schools, most recently studying the implementation of action research fellowships for Milwaukee teachers; he developed an experimental, graphic novel format for the evaluation report—Confessions of an Action Researcher: City Schools Confidential—to further study the relationships between practice-based approaches to action research (located in a school district) and academic approaches located in masters level education.
William Rickards with USC Social Work professor Ron Avi Astor at the 2012 AERA Conference in Vancouver
Originally from San Bernardino, California, he studied anthropology and implemented applied social sciences approaches to study recreation and related educational programs for adjudicated youth. Completing graduate studies at the University of Illinois, he taught for several years at Illinois State University. He began working as an evaluation consultant as his wife began her career as a teacher education faculty member, then specialized in higher education research and evaluation at Alverno College. Working with that college’s assessment principles and practices, Dr. Rickards continued to developed mixed method approaches to evaluation that focus on student learning and participant outcomes as well as implementation in order to support deliberations at the curriculum and program level.
This has led to additional research approaches to address the developing discourse as educators and practitioners make meaning out of evaluative evidence. In the context of contemporary positions on higher education assessment, he has been concerned with how evaluative lenses can increase our understanding of educational practices that integrate accountability and learning as well as, in Rossier’s own frameworks, fundamental concerns for leadership and diversity.