About

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Our mission is to improve student learning through academic program assessment. Assessment is faculty-driven and faculty-supervised. It is a collaborative process that includes faculty, students, staff, administrators, and others. It involves establishing student learning outcomes, measuring/observing and documenting the extent to which outcomes are achieved, findings ways to improve, and implementing improvement plans.

The Assessment and Curriculum Support Center (formerly the Assessment Office)

  • Supports the use of program and institutional assessment to improve the quality of student learning
  • Collaborates with faculty, staff, students, and administrators to establish meaningful, manageable, and sustainable assessment
  • Disseminates assessment-related information
  • Assists programs with designing effective educational programs

What We Do

  • Workshops for faculty
  • Consultations with faculty and tailored workshops for programs
  • Events for students, faculty, administrators
  • General Education assessment in collaboration with faculty members
  • Research educational contexts to determine what contributes to student learning
  • Disseminate good assessment practices, examples, guides (see “How-to...” and “Resources“)
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Our Team

Assessment is a campus-wide activity, and all across campus are curriculum leaders and assessment coordinators who drive the assessment process at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Assessment leaders across campus are an invaluable part of the team and critical to high quality program assessment. To learn more about department/unit Assessment Coordinator roles and responsibilities, please go to our FAQ page. Within the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center are faculty and staff who support assessment activities and assessment leaders across campus.

Yao Z. Hill, Ph.D., is a faculty specialist in the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She assists with program learning outcomes assessment projects and coordinates institutional learning assessment activities. She specializes in faculty professional development in learning assessment. She has over 10 years of experience in program evaluation, educational measurement, and learning assessment. She initiated the assessment-leadership building model at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, which external reviewers stated is one of the nation’s best. She has offered over one hundreds workshops and 170 consultations on the topic of assessment, evaluation, and curriculum development. She is currently the President of Hawaiʻi-Pacific Evaluation Association and a member of the Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE) Recruitment and Retention Committee.

K. ʻAlohilani HN Okamura is an Assistant Professor of Languages, Culture and Practice in the School of Teacher Education in the College of Education and faculty specialist in the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She supports assessment programs on campus, specifically engaging faculty in conversations around culturally relevant and culturally sustaining practices in assessment to promote student learning. Her work in program evaluation includes experiences in higher education and K12 environments.

Rebecca L. Stotzer, MSW, PhD, is a Professor of Social Work and the Director of Distance Education at the Department of Social Work in the Thompson School of Social Work and Public Health. She is a Faculty Fellow with the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center. Dr. Stotzer has served in a variety of assessment roles in the Department of Social Work, specifically related to accreditation-related assessment requirements for professional programs. Her area of interest is in assessment of online programs and designing curriculum to create high quality, highly engaged online education. 

Amber Hall is a PhD student in Global and International Education at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Their research interests include media accessibility, cultural studies, and educational equity, with recent projects analyzing how anime can be used as a pedagogical tool to support science learning in primary education. They are a new member of the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center and also work as a Project Manager for the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, where they conduct regional policy research and coordinate academic events, and as Director of Development for Camp Magical Moments, a nonprofit cancer camp for children. Amber also holds a JLPT N3 Japanese language certification and values creating inclusive and engaging learning materials. They hope to pursue a career in public scholarship and developing educational programs that are accessible to all learners.

Austin Directo is our Program Assistant, specializing in media production and graphic design. He is a graduate student at the School of Communication and Information pursuing a master’s degree in Communications. He was an undergraduate student in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and has been received a degree in Cinematic Arts in Spring 2026. He has a great interest in writing, editing, and video production. He joined the Center in January 2024 as a Media Specialist and he hopes to help the Center tell its stories through the use of technology, visual media, and design.

We thank Monica Stitt-Bergh for her significant contributions over 15 years to the birth and growth of the center:

Monica Stitt-Bergh, Ph.D. Effective December 1, 2023, Dr. Stitt-Bergh is the Interim Director of Program Development and Review in the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Excellence.
Dr. Stitt-Bergh is an educational psychologist, and along with Dr. Marlene Lowe, she started what was then called the Assessment Office in 2008. Her specialization is in teaching and assessing written communication. While in the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center, she provided technical support, generated resource materials, and assisted with learning outcomes assessment, program evaluation, and curriculum development. She also planned and collaborated on institution-level assessment projects. Previously (1993-2008), she assisted with UHM’s writing-across-the-curriculum program, oversaw the writing placement exam for first-year writing, and helped implement a new general education program. Her classroom experience includes teaching first-year writing and social science research methods courses. Dr. Stitt-Bergh has published and given conference presentations on learning outcomes assessment, equity in assessment, data visualization, program evaluation, and writing-across-the-curriculum. Her service work includes leading the Learning Improvement Community and being a design team member of UHM’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Center. She is a former president of the Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education and of the Hawai‘i-Pacific Evaluation Association. She holds a BA in English (University of Michigan), an MA in Composition and Rhetoric and PhD in Educational Psychology (UHM). Her recent work includes a book chapter (co-authored), “Centering ‘āina in assessment: Striving for equity and social justice,” in Reframing assessment to center equity: Theories, models, and practice and a co-authored article, “Fields, professions, and disciplines: Exploring professional identity in assessment” in Research and Practice in Assessment.

View Monica’s curriculum vitae. You may also view Monica’s work on her ResearchGate page or her Academia.edu page.

We also acknowledge the contributions to ACSC from the following individual(s):

Monica Esquivel, PhD, RDN, CSSD is an Associate Professor of Human Nutrition in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences within the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She was also an Assessment Faculty Fellow with the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center (from January 1 to July 31, 2026). Dr. Esquivel brings extensive expertise in program-level assessment and continuous quality improvement, with a particular focus on accreditation-driven assessment processes. Her experience leading assessment efforts for the UH Mānoa Dietetics Program supports faculty and academic units in developing meaningful, evidence-based assessment strategies that strengthen student learning outcomes and institutional effectiveness.

Bhargav Kaushik has a D.Arch. in Architecture at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, specializing in urban resilience, policy design, and stakeholder engagement. He has over a decade of experience in architectural practice, research, and teaching across Asia and the U.S. His interdisciplinary work integrates spatial analysis, assessment, and community outreach. Bhargav is a LEED Green Associate and has coordinated regional STEM and resilience programs. His contribution to ACSC includes:

  • Undergraduate Research and Creative Work Scholarship Opportunities Survey Data Report 2025
  • Program Assessment Report Summary Analysis 2018-2024
  • Deductive Thematic Analysis of CEA practices reported in the 2024 Assessment Report by 163 programs.
  • AALHE 2026 Conference presentation with Dr. Yao Hill “From Principle to Practice – A Thematic Analysis of Strategies for Culturally Responsive and Equitable Assessment.”
  • Updates to the Assessment Coordinator Contacts Database until April 2026.
  • Assistance in preparing, organizing, and reporting EʻALA workshop events and other administrative assistance.

Gregory Gillis has a Ph.D. in Finance within the Shidler College of Business. His research and teaching interests include the areas of Financial Crises, Stock Crash Risk, International Financial Markets & Institutions, and Corporate Finance. He joined the Assessment and Curriculum Support Center as a Graduate Assistant from July 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025. Greg’s contributions to the ACSC include:

  • 2025 Assessment Leadership Institute: Evaluation Summary Report, workshop planning and facilitation, achievement badge progress tracking, and technical support
  • 2024 Assessment Reports: Learning Achievement Results, Methodology Evaluation, and Learning Outcomes Assessment Unit Summary analysis and reports; Program feedback
  • Unleash Assessment Superpower workshop analysis and report
  • 2025 NSSE Results on Institutional-Level Competencies report analysis
  • Assistance with workshops and clerical tasks

MB Ogawa, Ph.D. is a faculty specialist in the Information and Computer Sciences Department at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. He supports assessment programs on campus and coordinates professional development opportunities. His work in program evaluation includes experiences in higher education and K12 environments. He joined the ACSC as a faculty specialist from January 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025.

So-Hyeon Lee is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Educational Psychology, with research interests in assessments, language testing, and the use of AI in education. She has over a decade of experience as an English teacher in public education. She joined the ACSC as a Graduate Assistant in 2024 and assisted Dr. Hill and Dr. Ogawa with assessment reports, workshop facilitation, and clerical tasks.

TJ Buckley is an MLISc student in the Library & Information Science Department. His research interests include open scholarly communication, methods of facilitating cross-disciplinary scholarship, and evidence-based program development in higher education. He joined the Center as a Graduate Assistant in 2023 and assisted Dr. Stitt-Bergh and Dr. Hill with assessment reports, workshop facilitation, and clerical tasks.

Updated on 8/26/2026