Assessment Plan for General Education (Curriculum I)

Rationale

The mission of the college is to provide all students with a liberal arts education. It is at the very core of what we do. The General Education portion of the curriculum is an important way we ensure that all Gustavus students receive a broad liberal arts education.

Recognizing the variety and diversity of student needs and choices, we have chosen to build the General Education requirements in such a way to make certain that all students have a serious exposure to what we call “liberal arts perspectives” rather than developing a set of specific outcomes or knowledge and skill sets to be acquired.

Focusing on “courses” rather than “skills” places a challenge on how we approach assessment of the General Education program. In order to ascertain that the general education requirements as well as the criteria for courses fulfilling the requirements are providing students with a serious exposure in an effective and efficient manner, and to keep alive the ongoing conversation about the role of General Education in the Gustavus curriculum, we propose that:

• Course designations not be permanent, but be renewed on a rotating schedule;
• Responses be gathered from students and faculty to inform periodic review of specific course criteria, leading to approval/reapproval of individual course designations;
• A review of the whole Curriculum I-Liberal Arts Perspectives program follows each complete cycle of area reviews.

General Process

Each area of the Curriculum I-Liberal Arts Perspectives will be reviewed separately, one or two areas per year.

Year 1 –

• The Program Assessment and Development Committee (PADC), in consultation with the chair of the Curriculum Committee and the Director of General Education, will appoint a three-person committee to review each Area(s) being assessed. At least one of the three will be from outside the division or departments most responsible for delivery of the particular Area(s).
• This Area review committee will:
  (a) study the Area criteria and work with the Director of General Education, the PADC, and the Institutional Research officer to develop questions to be included with the annual Senior Survey that solicit responses from students relative to their experience with the particular Area under review.
  (b) The area committees will ask faculty to submit representative samples of course work which they feel demonstrate how students have been exposed to this Area in their course. Examples of this work might include lecture notes, test questions, descriptions of class activities, research papers, lab reports, creative projects or student portfolios.
  (d) Faculty who teach such courses will be invited to participate in a focus group meeting with the review committee.
  (e) Written faculty comments regarding the Area criteria will also be solicited by the committee.

Year 2 –

• The Area committee will:
  (a) Review the data collected.
  (b) Recommend any proposed Area changes to the Curriculum Committee.
• Once the faculty has approved any Area changes, all courses desiring to carry that Area designation must be resubmitted to the Area Committee, which will forward its recommendation to the Director of General Education and then on to the Curriculum Committee. For this round, course proposals must also include course syllabi that describe how the Area is addressed in the course. No previous Area designations will persist beyond this point in the process.
• The Area Committee will submit a written report of their work to be kept on file by the Curriculum Committee, with copies to the Director of General Education.

• New Area designations will become effective as of the fall of Year 3.

The review of Areas will begin in the spring of 2009, when this year's FY students will be seniors, and hence mostly have completed their General Education coursework.

Each year, another Area (or two) will begin the process. The number of Areas reviewed each year will depend on the number of courses that hold that Area designation.

A larger committee composed of 3 members from the Curriculum Committee and 4 members at-large, will review the entire Curriculum I-Liberal Arts Perspectives program once all Areas have accomplished the individual reviews. The purpose of this larger review is to analyze what has been learned from the Area review cycle and consider whether there are any essential changes that should be made to the General Education program.

Note: This assessment plan focuses only on the nine Area requirements and does not include the writing requirement, non-English language, First Term Seminar, Curriculum II, or any other graduation requirements. The Curriculum Committee recommends that these programs, which have missions complementary to but unique from Curriculum I, have separate assessment plans.

Timeline

The review of the general education areas could be accomplished using the following rotation and timeline:

Start Year	Area
(2005)	(First class matriculates, will graduate in 2009)
2008-09	ARTS and THEOL
2009-10	LARS
2010-11	MATHL and NWEST
2011-12	SOSCI and NASP
2012-13	FIT/ACT and HIPHI
2013-14	GENERAL EDUCATION REVIEW
2014-15	General Education Review Cont’d.
2015-16	ARTS and THEOL
2016-17	LARS
2017-18	MATHL and NWEST
2018-19	SOSCI and NASP
2019-20	FIT/ACT and HIPHI
2020-21	GENERAL EDUCATION REVIEW