Thank you for attending the meeting on April 1 and giving me the opportunity to update you on a number of important issues facing the university. I appreciate the input several of you have given me about the meeting, and would appreciate additional input as we address the issues raised. I plan to hold a similar meeting next fall, ideally in a room more conducive to discussion. This memo is intended to provide some of the written documentation promised and should supplement the handout that was distributed at that meeting.

First, departmental assessment summaries must be submitted via the Web form demonstrated at the meeting by June 30, 1997. The form is on the Student Outcomes Assessment site and can be found by following this set of links:

        MSU-Bozeman's home page

          Information Resources

            MSUinfo

              Student Outcomes Assessment

                Form for Submitting Assessment Summaries 

Please submit an assessment summary for every assessment plan developed last year. Assessment plans are available on the above site through the link:

        Assessment Plans for Undergraduate Majors

Instructions are available on the form.

Joe Fedock and Cel Johnson will need to meet with all department heads whose undergraduate degree programs do not yet have capstone courses. Our office will schedule those meetings.

As soon as details are available concerning the Core Survey and the Oral Communication Across the Curriculum workshop, I will send that information.

Assessment Meeting, April 1, 1997: Summary of Topics Discussed

• Our next accreditation visit from the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges (NASC) is scheduled for October, 1999.

• Writing the report requires year-long institutional study during AY98-99.

• We will hire an accreditation coordinator and an administrative support person, and also appoint a committee to lead the self-study.

• The biggest change in accreditation standards since our previous review in 1990 is the expectation that we assess student learning. This represents a national trend; assessment is now required by all regional accrediting bodies and many professional accrediting agencies. The Board of Regents is also stressing assessment of student competencies.

• The revised standard detailing the AEducation Program and Its Effectiveness@ requires that each program articulate learning expectations for student majors, evaluate students= progress with respect to those expectations, and develop strategies for improving teaching and learning to help students meet the expectations. The Aresults@ of assessment is evidence of improvement in teaching and learning.

• Faculty and departments assess students and programs all the time. For accreditation, we need to document our efforts. The Assessment and Outcomes Committee has developed a reporting format for all undergraduate degree programs to meet the accreditation standard, but departments are free to develop additional activities to meet their needs. Our assessment program will be ongoing, with some efforts made annually; it won't end in October of 1999.

• Applications for Faculty Assessment Representative are due today. This individual will serve as a liaison between the Provost's office, academic departments, and the A&O committee. He or she will help departments develop assessment strategies, plan workshops for faculty, etc.

• Last year all undergraduate degree programs submitted assessment plans which detailed expected competencies in discipline-specific knowledge, communication, and problem-solving as well as the activities departments would use to evaluate whether students were achieving these competencies.

• We now need to collect summaries of the results of departmental assessment activities--what was learned about undergraduate degree programs and what improvements you propose to make. Departments will submit their summaries on a Web form.

The institution must also develop expected outcomes for general education and assess its program to determine whether the expectations are being met.

The Core Curriculum Committee has been working this year to develop assessment strategies for general education. The committee has developed a survey of core courses to be administered this spring.

• The NASC requires that "In each field of study ... degree objectives are clearly defined: the content to be covered, the intellectual skills, creative capabilities, and methods of inquiry to be acquired; and, if applicable, the specific career-participation competencies to be mastered."

• Each program submitted a statement of degree objectives with its assessment plan. These can be modified if desired for inclusion in the 1998-2000 catalog.

• For PQO, we need a capstone course for each undergraduate degree program. President Malone has approved the following definition of a capstone course:
  • Required senior-level class
  • Not independent, although it may have an independent component or corequisite
  • Has a communications component
  • Requires a synthesizing project

• Existing capstone courses are described on the Student Outcomes Assessment Web site. Programs without capstone courses will need to develop them in the near future for inclusion in the 1998-2000 catalog. Joe Fedock and Cel Johnson will be meeting with departments currently lacking capstone courses.

• PQO requires us to commit resources to faculty development in instruction. As part of this commitment, we are sponsoring a faculty development workshop on oral communication across the curriculum.

• The speech faculty in the Department of Psychology are arranging an all-day workshop, which will be held May 12. We expect each department to send at least one faculty member to participate.

• The first hour of the workshop will be an overview of oral communication across the curriculum. All deans and department heads should plan to attend. The Provost=s office will send a memo describing the workshop as soon as details are finalized.

• The PQO Task Force on Advising has been meeting all year and will be making recommendations to the Provost. Margaretha Wessel chairs this task force and will present an update on their activities and findings to date.

• Also in conjunction with PQO, an advising survey based on an instrument developed at Kansas State University is being sent to 800 undergraduates. The results will be analyzed by the Task Force on Advising.

Return to regular view	Text-only	Updated: 8/08/2002