Yvonne Kirby

Yvonne Kochera Kirby joined Central in 2011 as the Director of Institutional Research and Assessment and in 2019 became the University Liaison to the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) and promoted to AVP for Planning and Institutional Effectiveness. Yvonne is actively involved in strategic planning, coordinating campus-wide planning and assessment activities as well as data analyses to inform senior leadership decisions. Her leadership on the University Academic Assessment Committee was instrumental in the institution’s participation in the Multi-state Collaborative assessment initiative. As a result, the institution now utilizes an authentic way of measuring general education outcomes. She served as a long-time national Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Educator through the Association for Institutional Research (AIR), educating others on completing IPEDS and how to use the data for benchmarking to inform and support institutional policy and long-range planning. Yvonne’s experience with data and institutional effectiveness has contributed to her successful membership on multiple regional accreditation steering committees (University of Arkansas 10-Year Self-study, HLC; CCSU Interim Fifth-Year Report and 10-year Self-study, NECHE) and more recently has served on evaluation teams for NECHE. Prior to working in institutional research, she worked as scientist studying physiology and genetics. Her B.S. is from Oregon State University and her M.S. is from the University of Nebraska.