Assessment of General Education Requirements School of Arts and Sciences

1. Notes by Juan Manfredi February 11, 2008 Assessment ofGeneral Education Requirements School of Arts and Sciences

2. A & S Curriculum Document, I • Passed by Arts and Sciences faculty in April 2002 and published in the A & S Gazette on April 15, 2003 (Vol. 37, No. 7) • Motion A-2: “…culture of continuous and ongoing curricular discussions within and across departments about the appropriate content, goals, and pedagogical strategies for presenting general education courses…”

3. A & S Curriculum Document, II • Motion B-6: “Whereas, It is critical to the success of CAS that both the General Education Curriculum and the curricula that departments and programs offer to students within their major fields of study enable students to achieve their educational potential. Resolved, That FAS calls on faculty members and the FAS departments to develop discipline-appropriate mechanisms to monitor educational outcomes that our students achieve, and that the results be presented to CAS council, and evaluated at FAS mini reviews and at external reviews.”

4. A & S Curriculum Document, III • Motion C-4: “Resolved, That the General Education Courses offered by departments and programs be reviewed by those units every five years to determine whether they are still appropriate elements of the General Education Curriculum….”

5. Assessment Basics • Overarching GOAL: To be successful in educating our students. • Required for accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. • Credibility: Assessment emanates from the faculty • Professional, not personality driven, process to identify weak elements in the curriculum. • “Effective assessments are simple rather than elaborate, and they may focus on just a few key goals in each program, unit, and curriculum” (Middle States document) • Potential impact on future programmatic resource allocation. Set goals and priorities. • Gradual: Assess SOME outcomes per year.

6. What we have to do • General Education Assessment PLANS due on March 1, 2008 at the Provost’s Office. • Initial assessment conducted in time to report on March 1, 2009. • Identify (3 to 5) Learning Outcomes, Methods of Assessment, and Standards of Comparison for 10 Specific Requirements plus Quantitative and Formal Reasoning, Composition and Writing Requirements. • Map to Core Learning Goals outlined by the Provost.

7. General Education Requirements • Literature (LIT) • Arts (ARTS) • Philosophy (PHIL) • 2nd Literature, Arts or Creative Expression - (2nd LIT-ARTS-CREXPR) • Foreign Language (2 courses) (FL) • Foreign Culture/Intl (3 courses) (FC) • Non-Western Culture (NON-W) • Historical Change (HIST) • Social Science (SOC) • Natural Science (3 courses.) (NATSCI)

8. Student Goals outlined by the Provost • Master an academic discipline • Think critically and analytically • Gather and evaluate information effectively and appropriately • Understand and be able to apply basic scientific and quantitative reasoning • Communicate clearly and effectively • Ability to apply the knowledge to new situations • Be technologically fluent • Understand and appreciate other countries and cultures • Have a sense of self • Have a sense of responsibility to others • Connectiveness to the University

9. GER Assessment Plan, I • Plan drafted and approved by the Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Council on January 28, 2008, following discussions over several Council sessions during the Fall, including a meeting with Vice Provost Beeson. • Starting point: Curriculum Document. • Provost Student Goals as a guide. • Plan presented to A&S Deans, A&S Council, and to A&S PBC.

10. GER Assessment Plan, II • There are more than one thousand courses approved to meet General Education Requirements. • In each category (e.g. Course in the Arts, Course in Historical Change), a substantial number of students meet the requirement through completion of a small selection of these courses. • Focus on this subset of courses, which have been identified by data analysis. [Show spreadsheet]

11. GER Assessment Plan, III We propose a three year schedule as follows: • Year 1: FL, NATSCI, LIT and W • Year 2: HIST, NON-W, ARTS and QFR • Year 3: PHIL, SOC, FC and COMP (The Second Course in Literature, the Arts, or Creative Expression requirement can be assessed in combination with the Arts and Literature requirements.)

12. GER Assessment Plan, IV • Chairs and Program Directors of the departments involved have being contacted and asked to consult with their faculty. • Our objective is to develop, in conjunction with the faculty, three to five learning outcomes for these courses that reflect both their relationship to the major and to General Education. • We also solicit from the faculty teaching these courses suggestions on proposed assessment techniques and on the expected standard of comparison for each learning objective that is submitted. • Faculty within each department will be asked to implement the assessment of these courses. • Initial Assessment matrices, one per selected course are due on February 26, 2008.