Becky Brodigan, vice president for institutional planning and assessment, will step down from her job at the College at the end of December. Brodigan has been with the Office of Institutional Research at the College for six years.
“She’s really, really talented,” said President Barry Mills. “And I think she’s decided that it’s time to think about doing some other things...She and I have talked about all kinds of interesting life changes that she’s contemplating.”
Brodigan declined to comment on her departure from the College.
During her time at Bowdoin, Brodigan has spearheaded many important projects for the Office of Institutional Research, such as the one-, five- and ten-year-out alumni data projects. These surveys track the percentage of Bowdoin graduates who are employed, enrolled in graduate or professional schools, traveling or seeking employment.
They also provide data about how well students feel the College has prepared them with certain skills and abilities and how often they use these skills, such as managing time and writing effectively. Before Brodigan’s arrival, Bowdoin “did not keep track of post-graduation data in a comprehensive way,” according to a 2012 Orient article.
“We’ve always had a very good institutional research capacity here at the College and when Becky came, it stepped up even more,” said Mills. “She brought a level of rigor and analysis to all of the survey work and analysis that she did that really stepped up the analysis for the College.”
On Monday, Brodigan received the Distinguished Service Award at the North Eastern Association of Institutional Research (NEAIR) conference. The award is given each year to a person who has made, according to NEAIR's website, “significant and substantial contributions to the field of institutional research, to the professional development of NEAIR colleagues and to the vitality and success of NEAIR as an organization over a period of years."
Before coming to Bowdoin, Brodigan served as the director of institutional research and planning at Middlebury for ten years.
Mills said that Brodigan’s departure will leave the College with “a big hole to fill.”
Dean of Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd said in a statement that in the wake of Brodigan's departure, the Office of Institutional Research will be reorganized to include Information Technology's data warehousing efforts. This new department, called the Office of Institutional Research, Analytics and Consulting, will be headed by Tina Finneran, the current director of academic technology and consulting.
“We’re in the process of trying to think about how we continue on the important trajectory that [Brodigan] put us on,” said Mills, regarding the restructuring of the College's institutional research efforts. “We’re trying to think about how the intersection between institutional research, data warehousing, data collection and storage can be even more technologically managed going forward.”
According to Judd's statement, the new Office of Institutional Research, Analytics and Consulting will "provide an opportunity to deepen existing synergies between the library and academic technology."