April 13, 2011

TO: Faculty

FR: Tom Fikes, Tatiana Nazarenko, Warren Rogers, Bill Wright, John Blondell

RE: Proposal for adopting revised assessment documents

The Program Review Committee, the GE Committee, and the Dean of Curriculum and Educational Effectiveness have brought four documents to the Faculty that will guide us in our near-term assessment efforts. The Academic Senate has begun to vet these documents, and has affirmed much of the content of the documents, as well as the assessment process and strategy that are implicit in them. There are, however, still significant questions that will need to be addressed by the Senate and by full faculty. There is not time in the remainder of this academic year to address these questions, but our administrators need our assessment process in place in order to do the summer work necessary to prepare for WASC visits in Fall 2011 and beyond. In recognition of this, we have met with the goal of finding the most constructive way forward that honors the needs of all parties. The result of our meetings is the following proposal in which the faculty endorses the fundamental structure of the new assessment strategy and the specific learning outcomes (understanding that these documents are still malleable and will continue to evolve in the coming years), and to endorse a provisional version of a Goals document that provides structure to the learning outcomes and assessment strategy.

Included in this memo is a list of the documents, the specifics of our proposal, and a summary of how the four documents will function together to guide our assessment efforts.

In approving this proposal we commit ourselves to the learning outcomes for the 2011-2012 cycle, and to the assessment plan for 2011-2012 cycle (in its specifics and the general strategy); we commit ourselves provisionally to the learning goals; and we commit ourselves to discussing and finalizing the learning goals in Fall 2011.

The Documents

  1. Institutional Learning Goals
  2. Institutional Learning Outcomes
  3. General Education Student Learning Outcomes
  4. Six-Year Assessment Plan

The Proposal

  1. That the Faculty receive from Program Review Committee the 2011-2017 Six-Year Assessment Plan and the 2011-2017 Institutional Learning Standards, with the understanding that these documents may continue to evolve under the direction of the Committee. Receiving these documents also represents an endorsement of the general ideas they embody (one or a small number of institutional learning outcomes to guide our assessment efforts each year, organized around our institutional learning goals and described in a six-year plan; the alignment of GE and program student learning outcomes with this plan).
  2. That the Faculty similarly receive from the GE Committee the specific GE student learning outcomes for the 2011-2017 assessment cycle.
  3. That the Faculty vote to approve a provisional version of the Institutional Learning Goals document which (a) represents the adaptation of the Student Learning Standards (May, 2002) to our current assessment situation, (b) adds two additional goals relative to the six Student Learning Standards (CREATIVE EXPRESSION and PHYSICAL/EMOTIONAL HEALTH), and (c) reinstates language from the original six Student Learning Standards regarding INTERDISCIPLINARY THINKING and RESEARCH. This approval is provisional in the sense that the approved document would be valid for the 2011-2012 academic year, and will serve as a basis for substantial discussion of the role and content of such a Goals document in Academic Senate, Program Review Committee, and full faculty in Fall 2011.

Relationship Between The Four Assessment Documents

Draft: April 13, 2011, 10:30 a.m.

The purpose of this brief narrative is to describe the functions of each of the four assessment documents (Institutional Learning Goals, Institutional Learning Outcomes, General Education Student Learning Outcomes, and Six-Year Assessment Plan) proposed by the Dean of Educational Effectiveness in Spring 2011. The relationships between these documents are summarized graphically in the accompanying figure.

The Institutional Learning Goals replace the six Student Learning Standards (May, 2002), and as such describe who we are and who we aspire to be; they expand and interpret the mission relative to the academic program. They serve as a bridge between the Mission statement and the Institutional Learning Outcomes, and they function as labels for each year’s efforts in the Six-Year Assessment Plan. Not all institutional learning goals will necessarily be assessed in any given 6-year cycle. Primary stewardship of the Institutional Learning Goals document rests in the Academic Senate, and changes (including wholesale replacement of the document by another) must be approved by full faculty.

The Institutional Learning Outcomes represent measurable student learning outcomes derived from the Institutional Learning Goals. Each institutional learning outcome is attached to a goal. The institutional learning outcomes help coordinate and align the learning outcomes of the GE and academic programs, as described in the Six-Year Assessment Plan. These institutional learning outcomes will also help individual academic departments identify their own student learning outcomes each year, to the extent that the institutional outcomes are relevant to the department’s goals and mission. Whereas the institutional goals are general, relatively enduring and (in their current incarnation) comprehensive of our aspirations, the outcomes are specific, may change from one 6-year cycle to the next, and are not comprehensive (i.e., not all goals will necessarily be represented in the outcomes for a single 6-year cycle). Stewardship of the Institutional Learning Outcomes document rests in the Program Review Committee, which will work closely with Academic Senate in constructing the outcomes for each 6-year cycle.

The General Education Student Learning Outcomes represent measurable student learning outcomes derived from select GE categories. Stewardship of the General Education Student Learning Outcomes document rests in the General Education Committee, and the Program Review Committee is responsible for aligning these GE outcomes with the institutional outcomes and institutional goals.

The Six-Year Assessment Plan describes a particular 6-year cycle of assessment (e.g., 2011-2017), naming one or two learning goals that will be the primary focus of assessment efforts at the college each year, including efforts within GE and academic departments. Stewardship of the Six-Year Assessment Plan rests in the Program Review Committee and the General Education Committee.