The Center for Assessment, Research and Evaluation (CARE) team gathered on Dec. 3 at the Oviatt Library for a kick-off and meet and greet, but most importantly to talk about the needs of students and faculty.

CARE is a multidisciplinary team that was created to connect faculty and students who are trained in assessment, research, and evaluation with researchers, principal investigators, and community agencies.

At today’s event CARE came to present and explain what exactly it is that they do and begin a conversation on research.

As the event started around lunch time, the staff opened up by inviting everyone to grab refreshments, which consisted of beverages, sandwiches, salads, fruits and cookies.

While the audience was eating, Andrew Ainsworth, the associate director of CARE took to the podium and made an introduction of the two hour long event. He then presented guest speakers such as Carrie Saetermoe, a psychology professor and former program director and coordinator, and William Watkins the Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students.

Both Saetermoe and Watkins said they were excited about the conversation and what the center had in store with its new resources.

Omar Ruvalcaba a Psychology professor who became part of the CSUN faculty just this year came to hear about what the center offers.

“We didn’t have a center at UC Santa Cruz where I worked before,” Ruvalcaba said.

Ainsworth later gave the voice to the audience, letting everyone interact and talk amongst each other about what they felt was needed.

Beverly Cabello, director of CARE introduced the audience to some of the graduate students present at the event.

“One of the components of our missions is to engage undergraduate and graduate students in evaluation, assessment, and research,” said Cabello.

Graduate student Aleksey Reshetnikov said CARE has given him a lot of experience and opportunities that he will have use of in his future.

“I’m a sociology person, and I want to get phd so this will look fantastic on my CV… And generally just really good research experience working with quantitative data sets,” said Reshetnikov.

Michelle Revels-Macalinao, who is part of the general experimental Psychology Masters Program, said that CARE has helped her in field of work,

“For me since I don’t want to go on and get a PhD and still do some sort of research, CARE is really helping me with qualitative research because experimental program is more quantitative based, and this is helping me with the qualitative aspects… benefiting me since I want to get into a research organization, ” said Macalinao.

Cabello also said by spring they will hopefully have their offices set up and provide workshops for students and faculty to take part of.