Kentucky
In December 2011, AAC&U announced the launch of a LEAP States partnership with Kentucky. Building on several years of work, Kentucky’s public colleges and universities have joined forces to ensure that students achieve the learning outcomes necessary to become responsible citizens and compete in the global economy. Competency-based learning was incorporated by the Council of Chief Academic Officers (CCAO) into the Kentucky Transfer Action Plan, and state legislation KRS 164.2951, enacted in 2010, has a major focus on student learning outcomes in the context of general education and transfer.
Kentucky's new 2011-2015 strategic agenda for postsecondary and adult education, Stronger by Degrees, will continue to build on the LEAP foundation. With an emphasis on student success, Kentucky is identifying strategies that are critical to increasing high-quality degree production and completion rates at all levels and to closing achievement gaps, particularly for lower-income, underprepared, and underrepresented minority students.
Statewide Activities
- Institutions throughout Kentucky have already begun educational reform efforts working with the essential learning outcomes recommended in the LEAP national report, College Learning for the New Global Century. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education’s General Education Task Force endorsed these outcomes as a guiding framework for general education reform across Kentucky.
- In May of 2010, faculty from Kentucky’s public two and four year colleges and universities discussed what common learning outcomes all college students should be able to demonstrate regardless of their majors. Statewide general education student learning outcomes are the foundation for the newly revised statewide General Education Transfer Policy that serves as the basis for transfer of general education core courses among Kentucky’s public institutions. Adoption of the LEAP framework demonstrates the support of faculty and academic leadership on all of Kentucky’s public college and university campuses.
- The statewide student learning outcomes are also being incorporated into the Kentucky Learning Depot, an online repository for teaching and learning content and materials.
- Kentucky's next step in ensuring student success is to use the Lumina Foundation's Degree Qualifications Profile to begin assessment of students' cumulative learning over time. This pilot project will allow beta tests partnering two- and four-year institutions in Kentucky to draft and pilot shared assessment frameworks that measure achievement of broad, integrative knowledge in general education and majors.
News and Announcements
- Kentucky was the fifth state that received funding from the Lumina Foundation for Education to initiate a process called Tuning, which is modeled on the European Union's Bologna Process, meant to bring consistency to the continent's numerous and distinct higher education systems. Tuning is designed to improve transfer, articulation, and the expression of outcomes by asking what experiences and learning outcomes are essential to particular college degrees. Kentucky’s tuning of learning outcomes and competencies within disciplines builds upon and complements the AAC&U general education learning outcome movement across the state.
As part of the initial Tuning Process, Kentucky is involving biology, business, elementary education, nursing, and social work faculty in all eight of Kentucky’s public universities, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS), and five independent Kentucky colleges and universities (Asbury College, Bellarmine University, Berea College, Pikeville College, and Union College). Visit Kentucky’s Tuning website at http://cpe.ky.gov/committees/tuning/.
Kentucky’s General Education Task Force
Kentucky’s General Education Task Force is made up of institutional representatives from throughout the state who are committed to advancing liberal education for Kentucky’s students.
Garett Yoder
Eastern State University
garett.yoder@eku.edu
Julia Ledford
Kentucky Community and Technical College
julia.ledford@kctcs.edu
George Weick
Kentucky State University
george.weick@kysu.edu
Charlie Patrick
Morehead State University
c.patrick@moreheadstate.edu
Peter Murphy
Murray State University
peter.murphy@murraystate.edu
Kent Johnson
Northern Kentucky University
johnsond21@nku.edu
Anna Bosch
University of Kentucky
anna.bosch@uky.edu
Julia Dietrich
University of Louisville
j.dietrich@louisville.edu
Larry Snyder
Western Kentucky University
Lawrence.snyder@wku.edu
AAC&U Members in Kentucky
For more information about the Kentucky LEAP Initiative, please contact Melissa Bell,
Director for Student Success Policy and Initiatives, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, melissa.bell@ky.gov or Susan Albertine, Vice President, Office of Engagement, Inclusion, and Success, albertine@aacu.org.
|
 |
|
