University Assessment Team

Ensuring Best Practices

University Assessment Team members collaborate with one another and with faculty members from the various Colleges and the School of Law to share best practices and to promote a culture of assessment around campus. Our goals include providing resources for individuals, departments and programs who have assessment or accreditation questions and facilitating communication related to data collection, evidence-based assessment, effective data-based decision making, and professional development opportunities in assessment. Ultimately, through various campus-wide assessment endeavors, we strive to see improvement in student learning and success.

Team Members

Josephine Rodriguez

Josephine Rodriguez is the Associate Provost at Western New England University. In this role, she oversees institutional assessment and accreditation efforts, faculty grants, and the Institutional Review Board. Additionally, she serves as the Accreditation Liaison Officer for WNE with the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE). She has served as a peer evaluator on a couple of NECHE site teams and was one of the co-chairs of the 2022 NECHE self-study process at WNE. Her involvement in assessment and accreditation endeavors since 2008 has included strategic planning for and assessment of general education requirements, university-wide implementation of a data analytics platform, making annual department assessment reports and program reviews more meaningful, faculty and chair assessment training and support, and promotion of a culture of assessment and data transparency. She has presented at regional and national conferences on topics such as assessing general education, measuring inter-rater reliability, program assessment, and assessing co-curricular learning outcomes.

M.S. in Mathematics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
B.S. in Mathematics & Biology, Providence College

Lisa Hansen

Lisa Hansen is the Director of Assessment for Western New England University and has served in an assessment leadership role since 2013. In this capacity, Lisa coordinates the assessment of general education for the institution and provides support to faculty and administration in various assessment programs and initiatives, including accreditation and program review. As a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science and an Excellence in Teaching Award winner, she is deeply committed to enhancing teaching and learning experiences in her own classroom as well as supporting faculty in using assessment practices for continuous improvement. She regularly provides faculty development in assessment through various workshops, facilitating best practices and utilizing data-driven insights to drive strategic initiatives. Through her interactions with faculty, Lisa focuses on fostering a positive culture of assessment, emphasizing collaboration and dialogue as well as sharing success stories that have resulted from assessment activities. At regional assessment conferences, Lisa has shared her expertise on various topics such as using artificial intelligence in assessment, inter-rater reliability, continuous improvement in general education, fostering a culture of assessment, and leveraging NSSE data to engage faculty and staff.

Ph.D. in Mathematics, Western Michigan University
M.S. in Mathematics, Michigan State University
B.S. in Mathematics, Western Michigan University

Denine Northrup

Dr. Denine Northrup is the Associate Director of Assessment and a Professor of Psychology at Western New England. Her expertise in program evaluation, applied research methods and data analytics is a nice addition to the strong assessment team. Dr. Northrup’s research and evaluation experience has focused on pragmatic evaluation strategies to provide system-level feedback to promote continuous improvement to the system and processes to enhance the student experience. Dr. Northrup has a breadth of experiences at Western New England University including service as chair of the psychology department, leading a living learning community for women in STEM, conducting research with students, serving on the strategic planning and future directions committee, as a NECHE Standard chair, and as the lead of the WNE retention task force. Her previous faculty appointments at Yale and Vanderbilt prioritized leading federally funded multi-site research on behavioral health services. In addition, as the Director of Quality Management and Improvement at the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the importance of effective communication across a system and closing the loop by using data to inform service provision was essential for positive outcomes. Dr. Northrup continues to collaborate with community organizations to develop infrastructure to systematically assess progress toward programmatic goals.

Ph.D. in Applied Social Psychology, Vanderbilt University
M.S. in Clinical Psychology, Eastern Michigan University
B.A. in Psychology, University of Michigan

Erin Buzuvis

Erin Buzuvis is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the Law School. She has served as a member of both the Curriculum Committee and the Academic Success Committee, and she was responsible for demonstrating compliance with the standards governing the program of legal education for the Law School’s recent reaccreditation effort with the American Bar Association (ABA). Dean Buzuvis researches and writes about gender and discrimination in education and athletics, including such topics as Title IX's application to campus disciplinary proceedings for sexual assault, Title IX and college athletics reform, LGBTQ inclusion in high school and college athletics, and retaliation and related discrimination against female college coaches. Dean Buzuvis teaches courses at the law school on administrative law, employment discrimination, Title IX, torts, property, and has co-directed our comparative gender law course in Israel. She has been quoted in stories about Title IX in such media outlets as the New York Times, NPR, Sports Illustrated, Inside Higher Ed, and in many other national and local publications and broadcasts.

J.D. from Cornell Law School
B.S from University of New Hampshire

Sanjeev Jha

Sanjeev Jha is an Associate Professor of Business Analytics and Information Management in the College of Business. He serves as the AACSB Coordinator for the College of Business. In this role, Sanjeev coordinates the College of Business’ assessment endeavors for accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. He also chairs the ad hoc Assurance of Learning Innovation Committee in the College of Business. After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Sanjeev started his teaching career as an Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences at the University of New Hampshire. Later, he also taught at Valparaiso University, prior to coming to WNE in the Fall of 2023. He teaches Data Analytics courses at WNE, and his research interests are in the areas of pedagogy and healthcare analytics.

Ph.D. in Management Information Systems, University of Illinois at Chicago
MBA. in Marketing, International Management Institute, New Delhi
B.S.. in Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Bhagalpur

Neeraj Magotra

Neeraj Magotra is Chair and Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering. Prior to coming to WNE, Dr. Magotra’s career included a joint appointment at the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories, as well as a position at Texas Instruments. He has also been involved in several start-ups and currently is the CTO at Acoustic Acuity Inc. While at Western New England, he has successfully managed two cycles of ABET approval for the Electrical Engineering Program and lead the effort to launch an ABET accredited Computer Engineering Program in 2017. Dr. Magotra has authored/co-authored over a hundred technical articles, including journal papers, conference papers and technical reports, and supervised 39 PhD/MS dissertations/theses.

Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, University of New Mexico
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Kansas State University
B.Tech in Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay, India)

Kimberly Pesaturo

Kimberly Pesaturo is the Assistant Dean for Assessment and Accreditation for the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. She completed two post-graduate pharmacy residencies, first at Saint Joseph Health in Lexington, KY, and then at UK HealthCare in Lexington, KY, specializing in pediatrics, and is credentialed as a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist. Dr. Pesaturo previously held a faculty appointment with MCPHS University’s College of Pharmacy, an adjunct appointment with MCPHS University’s School of Professional Studies, and an adjunct appointment with the Higher Education Consortium of Central Massachusetts. Since joining Western New England University, she was involved with the steering team for the College of Pharmacy’s 2021 Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) self-study, has continued her research in learner-centered assessment, and was a speaker in WNE’s inaugural TEDx Conference.

Pharm.D., University of Rhode Island

Contact Information

Josephine Rodriguez, Associate Provost (413-782-1692, jrodrigu@wne.edu)

Lisa Hansen, Director of Assessment (413-782-1763, lisa.hansen@wne.edu)