General Education and Assessment: Maintaining Momentum, Achieving New Priorities

Network for Academic Renewal Conference
February 18-20, 2010
Seattle, Washington

About the Conference, Program and Resources

General Education and Assessment: Maintaining Momentum, Achieving New Priorities presented fresh thinking and new approaches to help faculty, staff, and administrators maintain momentum in general education and assessment during tough times, and reaffirmed a commitment to engaged liberal education as the guiding principle for campus action.  The conference drew on AAC&U’s long-standing projects and publications on general education reform including work to bring diversity, global, and civic learning into general education and models for advancing scientific and quantitative literacy through real-world curricula and problem-based pedagogies.

The conference was sponsored by Digication, Inside Higher Ed, TaskStream, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The following Academic Partners contributed to the development of the conference and the conference program: Association for General and Liberal Studies, Council for the Administration of General and Liberal Studies, and Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education. The conference was attended by nearly 700 educators (registrants list).

Conference Program and Resources

Thursday, February 18, 2010

2:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Pre-conference Workshops

Workshop 1: Navigating the Journey to General Education Reform (pdf)
This workshop will help participants navigate the path of general education reform.  Drawing upon the experience of two institutions that have recently completed major revisions in general education and using Leskes & Miller’s (2005) General Education: A Self-Study Guide for Review and Assessment and Gaston & Gaff’s (2009) Revising General Education – And Avoiding the Potholes: A Guide for Curricular Change, participants will examine the process of reform at their own institutions.  In particular, participants will review relevant strategies illustrated with examples and lessons learned from the presenters’ institutions. Participants will then work in small groups to develop plans to take home.
Frederick S. Foster-Clark, General Education Coordinator, John Ward, Associate Professor of Educational Foundations —both of Millersville University; Bonnie Orcutt, Coordinator, Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum, and Andrea Bilics, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning—both of Worcester State College

Workshop 2: Interdisciplinary Ethical Leadership Challenges
Participants will be introduced to designs and strategies for reframing their work to address ethics and ethical leadership on campus. This workshop will provide innovative theories and programs for integrating ethics into the disciplines and general education. A theoretical leadership approach supportive of academic rigor, social responsibility, cultural awareness, and inclusion will serve as the “tapestry” for addressing ethics within research, curriculum development, and academic programs.
Melvina Turner King, Leadership Studies—Morehouse College

Workshop 3: Preparing Students for an Interdependent and Unequal World
This workshop will feature emerging curricular designs from participating colleges and universities in Shared Futures: General Education for Global Learning, a three-year project started in 2005.  Participants will learn how to integrate global learning in general education with specific emphasis on developing learning opportunities that bridge the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. They will examine programs that expand knowledge about the world's peoples and problems and that nurture student agency for equity and justice at home and abroad.
Kevin Hovland, Director for Global Learning and Curricular Change—AAC&U

Workshop 4: Using Course and Program Assessment to Improve Learning What are some of the innovative ways in which faculty are assessing general education learning and using assessment results to improve that learning? How do results from general education assessment feed into and enhance learning in the disciplines? In what ways are programs assessing general education outcomes and using those results to compare learning of those outcomes across disciplines and if interested, across institutions? Participants will receive questions that will help them examine their own assessment initiatives prior to the conference and be asked to bring their current assessment plans and practices to the workshop for further review and modification.
Marilee Bresciani, Associate Professor, Administration, Rehabilitation, and Postsecondary Education—San Diego State University

Workshop 5: Developing and Sustaining Intentional Programs
The AAC&U LEAP articulation of student learning outcomes provides a vision for aligning policies and practices as campuses seek to provide contexts to enhance student learning. This workshop will provide both theoretical grounding and practical guidelines for designing and sustaining programs based on student learning outcomes—beginning with an articulation of those outcomes for entering students and continuing through the undergraduate curriculum and co-curriculum. Participants will also examine assessment of those outcomes and strategies for utilizing assessment results for program improvement. Workshop presenters will provide analyses of their programs, stressing assessment and improvement, and work with participants in developing plans for implementing and sustaining such intentional practices on their campuses.
Karen Erickson, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts—Southern New Hampshire University; Scott Evenbeck, Dean of University College andFrank Ross, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Life and Learning—both of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Sponsored by the American Conference of Academic Deans

7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
Welcome and Overview of the Conference  
Carol Geary Schneider, President—Association of American Colleges and Universities

Keynote Address podcast
Conceptualizing a 21st Century Renaissance for General Education
Is Core a bore inevitably? Can general education distribution requirements ever escape looking like a warehouse inventory? How can we convey the joy of the arts and sciences to the changing student population? Too many lukewarm results imply the need for new campus discussions about compelling versions of general education. Dr. Weisbuch will share insights on the kinds of general education and assessment that provide all students with the opportunity to achieve their educational goals, find purpose beyond their selves, and contribute to the well-being of society.
Robert Weisbuch, President—Drew University

8:30– 9:30 p.m.
Poster Session and Reception  

Assessment and Alignment
Poster 1: Tracking Experiential Learning for Graduate Outcomes Assessment
Assessment of outcomes at the senior-level is now at the forefront of many colleges and universities. However, most graduate outcomes assessment is left up to the majors. At Keuka College, campus leaders have implemented not only programmatic assessment of graduate outcomes, but also assessment that cuts across all class years, majors, and campus departments. This poster will outline two innovative approaches to student development—the co-curricular transcript and the field period (internship)—and demonstrate how data is being collected through these programs for the campus-wide assessment of student graduate outcomes achievement.
Jeanine Santelli, Associate Vice President for Academic Programs—Keuka College

Assessment and Alignment
Poster 2: Aligning Intentions, Resources, and Results to Sustain General Education Assessment
This poster will demonstrate how Millersville University, a public, regional comprehensive institution, has used an innovative approach to align the development and assessment of seven university outcomes with eleven general education objectives.  The intersection of University outcomes and general education objectives within a matrix creates opportunities to identify: (a) who will be assessed and at what level; (b) what instruments or tools will be used; (c) when the assessment will take place; (d) where the assessment activities fit in to overall general education assessment efforts; and (e) a single point from which to explore all the known data and methodology associated with each point of assessment.  The use of this assessment matrix builds a coherent, readily understood, and visually appealing dashboard of assessment-related information.
Scott Anderson, Associate Professor of Library Sciences, Adam Lawrence, Assistant Professor, Government and Political Science and Chair, Academic Assessment Outcomes Committee and (contributor, not attending), and Lisa R. Shibley, Assistant Vice President for Institutional Assessment and Planning—all of Millersville University

Assessment and Alignment
Poster 3: Intentional Integration of Critical Thinking Skills in Residence Life Activities
A program map is a visual display representing the relationship of program activities and assessments to intended learning outcomes. This poster will demonstrate a program mapping model that helps faculty and student affairs professionals: (a) evaluate how intentionally and coherently co-curricular programs are advancing and assessing institution-wide general education outcomes, such as critical thinking skills; (b) design targeted developmental interventions and programming innovations to ensure that students are engaged in appropriate learning and assessment experiences; and (c) create a visual snapshot of a co-curricular program at a particular point in its development to document program intentionality and coherence for accountability, planning, and budgeting purposes.  To facilitate replication of the presented model, the session attendees will receive guidelines for developing and analyzing program maps.
Alexei G. Matveev, Director, Quality Enhancement and Assessment and (contributors not attending) Faith M. Fitzgerald, Director, Residence Life and Housing and Enrique G. Zapatero, Chair, General Education Council and Associate Professor, Management Information Systems—all of Norfolk State University

Assessment and Alignment
Poster 4: Developing High-Quality Learning Goals: The Benefits of a Course Design Retreat
In the AAC&U monograph, Assessment in Cycles of Improvement (2007), Miller writes that “a learner-centered campus strives for more effective levels of learning based upon clear goals, aligned experiences, multiple assessments, and improvements suggested by data from assessment” (p. 1).  Foundational to this learning-centered cycle is the clear articulation of effective learning goals.  However, many faculty lack experience in writing effective learning goals.  This poster will highlight what the Air Force Academy has done as an institution to help faculty write effective learning goals and incorporate them into their course design.
Kenneth S. Sagendorf, Deputy Director of Faculty Development, Center for Educational Excellence, D. Brent Morris, Director of Faculty Development, Center for Educational Excellence, and Steven K. Jones, Director of Academic Assessment, Center for Educational Excellence—all of United States Air Force Academy

Assessment and Alignment
Poster 5: Assessing a General Education Unit at the Three-Year Mark
At the University of Washington Bothell, campus leaders had one year to mount an entire lower-division curriculum after seventeen years as a strictly upper-division campus.  The institution now has its third cohort of first-year students.  Has the curriculum been effective?  Does it prepare students for the majors? Campus leaders devised a multifaceted plan to assess the curriculum’s strengths and challenges and the alignment of learning goals with the curriculum.  With this poster, the facilitators (general education co-chairs and a student) will highlight: (a) key assessment tools and findings, including longitudinal freshman survey data, advisor and program director interviews, a faculty survey, and analysis of portfolio essays and a first-year learning goal matrix; (b) the need for inclusion of cross-programmatic staff, faculty, and student perspectives to critically inform the review process; and (c) recommendations for fostering campus-wide discussions of data in support of general education review.  Participants will explore implications of adapting this review process to meet the needs of their institutions.
Jerelyn Resnick, Lecturer in Nursing, David S. Goldstein, Interim Director of the Teaching and Learning Center, and Amira Davis, Junior—all of University of Washington Bothell

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
Poster 6: Engaging Faculty Across Disciplines in Assessing General Education
CSU Monterey Bay’s learning-based general education program is designed to prepare students for successful and meaningful lives in the new millennium. The university’s English Communication A and B requirements embody this commitment.  The cross-disciplinary faculty learning community (FLC) charged with overseeing these requirements has designed learning outcomes to help develop students’ abilities to communicate ethically and effectively across cultural boundaries.  This poster presentation will trace the process by which the FLC is undertaking systematic assessment of student learning to determine how well intentions align with outcomes.  This process includes: (a) identifying outcomes for assessment; (b) reviewing assignments for common elements; (c) developing, piloting, and revising a rubric with sample student work; (d) conducting assessment of student work; (e) analyzing the data; and (f) using the data to guide discussions of the efficacy of the curriculum and pedagogy.
Becky Reed Rosenberg, Director of Center for Teaching, Learning—California State University-Monterey Bay

Maintaining Momentum
Poster 7: Understanding the Impact of General Education: Capitalizing on Existing Assessment Strategies
In order to maintain momentum in movements aimed at reforming and improving general education programs and curriculum, institutions need to include creative assessment strategies that balance impact and cost.  This poster aims to showcase ways in which existing assessments can inform general education reform and ongoing implementation.  Specifically, this  study capitalized on existing quantitative and qualitative assessments, a university exit survey, and course assignments to examine the impact of general education courses on student development.  These assessments asked students to report on their academic skills (e.g., writing and research) and reflect on the variety of general education courses offered, whether these courses met program goals (e.g., provided exploration and challenged ways of thinking), and the impact of general education courses on their choice of major and minor.  The data gathered and analyses conducted inform general education program development, reform, and assessment.
Marc Levis-Fitzgerald, Director, Center for Educational Assessment and Alice Y. Ho, Postdoctoral Scholar—both of University of California-Los Angeles

Maintaining Momentum
Poster 8: After Re-accreditation: Sustaining the Change, Reframing the Conversation
This poster will highlight the transformation that occurred at The University of Texas at Dallas as part of the recent reaffirmation of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. The process leading to and following this successful outcome catalyzed changes in academic program, general education, and service unit assessment; organizational structure; and student success initiatives.  In the process, the university created the Office of Student Success and Assessment, comprised of several synergistic departments that prior to the reaccreditation process were either non-existent or worked largely independently of one another.  The poster will detail: (a) the measurable outcomes and impact of this change; (b) how it was conducted and could be replicated elsewhere under tremendous budgetary pressures; and (c) plans for sustainability.
Thom Chesney, Associate Provost for Student Success and Assessment—University of Texas at Dallas

LEAP Featured Session
Vision, Goals, and Designs
Poster 9: Developing an Integrative General Education Program
Roanoke College has recently adopted a new, highly integrative general education curriculum.  Based on the Roanoke College liberal learning goals and reflecting the LEAP essential learning outcomes and principles of excellence, this curriculum prepares students for the 21st century by integrating disciplinary skills with focused real-world issues and integrating course content with skills in writing, oral communication, and quantitative reasoning.  This poster will describe both the structure of the curriculum, focusing on how it targets the outcomes and principles above, and the curriculum development process.  Faculty development for this curriculum will be explored in a separate session, titled “Preparing Faculty for an Integrative General Education Curriculum.”
Adrienne Bloss, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and General Education and (contributor, not attending) Paul Hanstedt, Professor of English—both of Roanoke College

Vision, Goals, and Designs
Poster 10: Creating Communities of Engaged Learners
On July 1, 2009, Utah Valley State College became Utah Valley University (UVU).  According to then-president Bill Sederburg, the university’s goal is to create “communities of engaged learners connected in meaningful ways to the world we live in while developing students of strong character and ethics.”  During the last six years, the administration has provided guidance and rewards as faculty committees developed a new mission statement and helped to develop the UVU engagement model, which combines profession (professionally competent), place, (stewards of place), and people (people of integrity) into a framework of engaged learning through community.  Programs such as service learning, general education, and faculty excellence contribute to this model across campus.  The university’s Center for Engaged Learning provides resources for faculty to engage with students and with the community.  This poster will highlight the model and the facilitator will encourage discussion about using such a model to integrate new and existing programs on campus.
Janice L. Gygi, Chair of General Education Committee, Kathy Andrist, Professor of Mathematics, and Kathie Debenham, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs—all of Utah Valley University

Vision, Goals, and Designs
Poster 11: Strategic Planning and Assessment for Increasing Racial/Ethnic Diversity
Research has demonstrated that the ethnic/racial diversity of students attending institutions of higher education in the United States is growing more with each passing year.  With this increased diversity, questions of how to recruit and retain students, faculty, and staff of color are of the utmost importance. To create a more inclusive campus, Villanova University, a mid-sized, Catholic university in Pennsylvania, created a comprehensive plan for increasing racial/ethnic diversity.  This poster will highlight the progress of this five-year plan, including: (a) the planning, procedures, and resources needed to execute and assess a strategic plan for increasing racial/ethnic diversity; (b) how Villanova University has successfully developed this plan; (c) emerging best practices for recruiting and retaining employees of color; (d) the numerical changes in the University population; and (e) assessment tools and strategies for gauging campus climate and student satisfaction with diversity.
Kristina Ruiz-Mesa, Coordinator for the Diversity Blueprint/Assistant Director Center for Multicultural—Villanova University

Vision, Goals, and Designs
Poster 12: General Education at the Malaysian Higher Institutions: One Campus Experience
This poster will examine the history and development of general education at the University Kebangsaan Malaysia. The presenter will share their current general education program—a comprehensive combination of courses leading to appreciation of virtues and values, organizational and individual skills, a knowledge-based society, and competency in local and international languages.  The poster will also display items from a national conference on general education in Malaysia.  Participants will have the opportunity to discuss how lessons learned in Malaysia, particularly in the area of multicultural understanding and respect, are transferrable to other settings.
Zaharah Hassan Lecturer in General Studies—University Kebangsaan Malaysia

Vision, Goals, and Designs
Poster 13: The LEAP Campus Action Network
Designed to champion the value of undergraduate liberal education for all students, AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative engages the public with core questions about what really matters in college and promotes a set of essential learning outcomes as the preferred framework for educational excellence.The Campus Action Network (CAN) component brings together colleges, universities, and organizations that are committed to liberal education, helps them to improve their efforts to ensure all students achieve essential liberal education outcomes, and highlights campus practices that work.Participants are invited to visit this poster to learn more about campus exemplars and the LEAP vision, essential learning outcomes, and principles of excellence, as well as action plans developed during today’s CAN pre-conference workshop.
Alma R. Clayton-Pedersen, Vice President, Office of Education and Institutional Renewal and Director of CAN—AAC&U

Friday, February 19

8:00 – 9:00 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions

Assessment and Alignment
CS1: General Education Assessment: Connecting People, Technology and Process to Produce Actionable Results
In this facilitated discussion, the story of the recent revision of general education and implementation of an assessment plan at the University of Saint Francis (USF) will serve as a backdrop for participants to strategize actions to move their own general education reform forward. The facilitators will briefly discuss USF’s general education reform and how campus leaders identified various stakeholders and their needs related to assessment. USF ultimately used both indirect and direct measures—including results from the Individual Development Educational Assessment (IDEA) Student Ratings of Instruction—to examine student progress on general education goals and learning outcomes. More recently, the campus has begun moving from paper-based assessments to using the Blackboard Outcomes System to make reporting more efficient and transparent. The facilitators will present results from two cycles of assessment, including experiences related to reporting “actionable” results that yield opportunities to “close the loop” on assessment. Participants will have the opportunity to identify stakeholders, stakeholder needs, and existing measures that could be adapted, modified, and/or integrated into their own general education assessment plans. They will also have the opportunity to discuss assessment within a framework of institutional effectiveness and accreditation.
Stephanie Oetting, Director of Institutional Research and Matt J. Smith, Director of General Education—both of University of Saint Francis

Assessment and Alignment
CS2: General Education Assessment through “Educated Perspective Seminars” (pdf)
In this facilitated discussion, participants will discover how Wayne State College is assessing the college’s four general education goals through newly designed culminating courses.  These courses, called “Educated Perspective Seminars” (EPS), provide students with an opportunity to integrate the knowledge and skills emphasized in the general education program.  Each EPS instructor completes a General Education Program Goals Assessment Form, which asks the instructor to identify a primary project(s) or activity(ties) from the course that demonstrates student learning related to each of the program goals.  Based on student performance on those projects or activities, instructors rate each student’s achievement of that goal on a five-point scale, and students also self-rate their achievement on each goal.  Faculty and students are also given an opportunity to reflect on their experiences with the four general education goals evaluated in their seminars.  The results are compiled and reported electronically to the college’s office of assessment.  Participants will learn more about this process and other forms of assessment, and they will have an opportunity to consider its use at their own institutions.
Suzanne R. Sydow, Director of Assessment and Patricia Arneson, Professor of Business—both of Wayne State College

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
CS3: Push Without Pushback: A Faculty Initiative to Take Control of General Education
This facilitated discussion will focus on the conceptual frameworks, or “ways of seeing and thinking,” that faculty leaders and administrators drew upon at Western Washington University to successfully shift the balance of shared governance for general education to the faculty.  These frameworks, while different for the faculty and administrators involved, required a forward-looking perspective and the establishment of a metanarrative large enough and attractive enough to subsume conflict that had impeded previous joint-governance initiatives.  The facilitators will relay the story of this shift in shared governance and engage participants in a participatory exercise to establish metanarratives that subsume conventional opposition for a variety of policy conflicts.  Handouts and advice for applying the strategy will be provided.
Steven VanderStaay, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Roger R. Thompson, Associate Professor of History—both of Western Washington University

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
CS4: Escaping the Silos: Building Community Around General Education and Assessment (pdf)
At many institutions, faculty are inherently interested in curriculum reform within their disciplines but often see general education as peripheral to both their professional lives and the lives of their students.  In this session, the facilitators will focus on building a sense of excitement and community around general education.  They will first introduce programs initiated at Worcester State College to build community and interest in assessment, including book discussions, LEAP outcomes-based workshops, a summer institute on course development, and other professional development programs.  In the process, they will share what worked and what didn’t, discuss institutional inertia, and reflect on the process based on their respective college roles.  Participants will be asked to share their experiences with building momentum around general education and generate creative ideas and strategies for making assessment meaningful.
Andrea R. Bilics, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, Lori J. Dawson, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Bonnie L. Orcutt, Coordinator, Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum—all of Worcester State College

Maintaining Momentum
CS5: Avoiding Potholes: General Education Revision in a Time of Budgetary Cutbacks (pdf)
Administrators making cut-backs and pressing departments and faculty to “do more with less” can give the appearance of making decisions without consulting faculty and otherwise discounting faculty governance.  In this process, general education reform can become hamstrung in larger debates between faculty governance and the administration, especially when cut-backs and program reductions are grounded in Delaware Study data on instructional costs and productivity.  With the current academic environment as a backdrop, the presenters will discuss how they used the recommendations in Gaston and Gaff’s Revising General Education—And Avoiding the Potholes (2009) to re-frame discussion and use the general education re-visioning process to create a dynamic general education program, incorporate the institution’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) as part of that process, and rebuild a sense of faculty empowerment.
Ned Scott Laff, Director for General Education and Co-Director for the Center for Engaged Learning and Joyce Fields, Associate Professor of Child and Family Studies—both of Columbia College

Maintaining Momentum
CS6: Observations on the Bologna Agreement:Analyzing the Impact on U.S. Higher Education (ppt)
The Bologna Agreement has often been described as the largest educational reform movement in history. With specific attention focused on achieving high levels of academic mobility across the EU and other signatory countries, the Bologna Agreement serves as a compelling example of what can be achieved through a broad, transformative movement.The fact that so many diverse countries arrived at educational reform founded on the American system is important, and the Agreement should serve as a wake-up call to those in the U.S. who are interested in major educational reform. However, the issue at the heart of the process—identification of three years as the time for attainment of an undergraduate degree—poses serious questions about when, how, and even if general education will be part of three-year curricular designs. Participants are invited to join this conversation to learn more about the status and prospects of the Bologna Agreement and its potential impact on higher education in the United States.
Ronald W. Daniel, Academic Director—Webster University, Geneva, Switzerland and Margaret J. Downes, Professor of Literature and Language—University of North Carolina at Asheville
Sponsored by the Association for General and Liberal Studies

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS7: General Education and At-Risk Students: Redesigning Developmental Studies
Many universities have dismantled or redesigned remedial/developmental programs in response to various mandates.  In this session, the facilitators will present findings from a program at Middle Tennessee State University that is designed to integrate students with developmental requirements into college-level, general education courses while continuing to address student needs.  The effort was a monumental task of transformation, necessitating broad campus input and cooperation from faculty, staff, and administrators.  Included in this transformation were courses in developmental mathematics, English, reading, and learning strategies.  The presenters will: (a) discuss the process of designing and implementing the revised curricula; (b) present a summary of data from three years, including student success rates in achieving learning outcomes, pass rates for redesigned and new courses, and pass rates in subsequent college courses; and (c) facilitate discussion to assist other institutions considering similar initiatives.  Faculty and administrators who are interested in redesigning developmental education courses into general education courses at their institutions should take a particular interest in this session.
William Badley, Director of General Education and Interim Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Sheila Otto, Stretch English Program Coordinator and Associate Professor of English, and Marva Lucas, Director of Academic Enrichment and Associate Professor of Mathematics—all of Middle Tennessee State University

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS8: Developing and Using a Statement of Integrated Student Learning Outcomes to Improve Programs
In this session, the facilitators will share their experiences crafting an aspirational statement of student learning outcomes and using that statement to assess and improve both curricular and co-curricular programs.  The facilitators will focus on the ways in which they attempted to legitimize the statement and how the final statement was used in a mapping exercise to find out how well existing programs were aligned with the new outcomes.  In the session, participants will engage in exercises that will encourage them to think about how a similar process might proceed on their campuses.  The session will emphasize several key themes—the value of including perspectives from both academic affairs and student affairs, as well as from students themselves; innovative ways to use surveys and the resulting data to shape curricular change; and the key role that an overarching statement of learning can play in leveraging reform in specific programs such as general education.
Doug Roscoe, Director of General Education and David Milstone, Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs—all of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS9: Assessing Liberal Learning Outcomes through Multi-Modal Student Projects
Columbia College’s new first-year seminar, New Millennium Studies (NMS), aims to cultivate liberal learning outcomes by wedding creative expression in different media to wide-ranging intellectual inquiry. The cornerstone of the college’s liberal arts and sciences core curriculum, NMS is interdisciplinary in its content and its faculty, taught by instructors from fields as diverse as English, dance, art, and radio.  NMS students are evaluated with a multi-modal portfolio that comprises artistic/creative projects in different media and accompanying written documents that demonstrate the pieces’ engagement with the key questions of the curriculum.  This session will invite participants to assess authentic student work, raising questions about the potential of artistic/creative production to generate, and, more importantly, serve as evidence of, liberal learning.
Robert C. Lagueux, Director, New Millennium Studies: The First-Year Seminar and Neil Pagano, Associate Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences—both of Columbia College Chicago

9:15 – 10:30 a.m.
Plenary  podcast
Speaking Frankly: General Education for the Unknown
Students from the Seattle area will respond to the essential learning outcomes named in the College Learning for a New Global Century—from what they think students need to know and be able to do given contemporary realities to whether they think their education is adequately preparing them for the “unscripted challenges” of the future. Students will offer recommendations regarding the kind of general education that is truly engaging, the campus services they especially appreciate, and what they would like us to stop doing.
Rebecca Berryhill Jessup—Seattle University; Isiah Bingley—Seattle Central Community College; Megan Otis—Western Washington University; Marina Pita—University of Washington Seattle; and Wassan Singh—Highline Community College
Facilitators: Gillies Malnarich and Emily Lardner, Co-directors, Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education—both of The Evergreen State College

10:45 a.m. – Noon
Concurrent Sessions

Assessment and Alignment
CS10: Doing the Right Thing: The Moral and Practical Imperatives of Systemic Collaboration
It is well known and accepted that collaboration is a good idea and a good practice. But effectively bringing large numbers of campuses into collaboration with each other, and with the system of which they are a part, offers many significant challenges.  Leaders in AAC&U’s Give Students a Compass project, part of the LEAP State Initiatives, have learned serious lessons about doing the right thing and working together for students and higher education’s collective future.  Join these leaders for a session on systemic collaboration and large-scale alignment.  Discussion will address essential learning outcomes, assessment, general education redesign, high impact practices, and making excellence inclusive.
Susan Albertine, Senior Director for LEAP State Initiatives and Alma R. Clayton-Pedersen, Vice President, Office of Education and Institutional Renewal—both of AAC&U

Assessment and Alignment
CS11: Direct Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes Across Multiple Courses (pdf)
As institutions move from distribution-based to outcomes-based models for general education, many find the resulting curriculum difficult to assess in meaningful ways.  As a result, assessment plans can frequently become burdensome for directors of assessment, for students, and for faculty.  This session will highlight a project that successfully approached multicourse outcomes assessment through interdisciplinary collaboration.  The facilitator will: (a) describe the impulse for and implementation of the project; (b) highlight the use of outcome portfolios (rather than student portfolios); and (c) discuss the benefits of faculty-driven, interdisciplinary assessment communities as an approach to general education assessment.  Participants will consider how to adapt the principles, values, and process to their institutional own contexts.  Those attending from large institutions or from institutions with a large number of general education courses should find the session to be particularly useful.
Michael A. Tew, Basic Communication Course Director—Eastern Michigan University

Assessment and Alignment
CS12: Leveraging Information Literacy to  Advance General Education and Disciplinary Outcomes
Faculty and students are drowning in content.  More information is available than there is classroom time to achieve learning or clear application of meaningful principles, and students often resort to short-term learning strategies that result in short-term retention.  This session will introduce participants to a model that is grounded in the idea that information literacy is best treated as part of the discipline or general education.  Using information literacy as a lever, students can attain disciplinary and general education goals while building critical and process thinking abilities.  The facilitators will share innovative strategies for designing assignments that use information literacy as the basis to advance classroom learning. Participants will redesign assignments, use other practical strategies and "knowledge bursts" provided by session leaders, and explore how models and strategies might translate to their own campus contexts.
Lisa Hinchliffe, Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction and Associate Professor for Library Administration—University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and Debra Gilchrist, Dean of Libraries and Institutional Effectiveness—Pierce College

Assessment and Alignment
CS13: Comparing Approaches to the Critical Thinking Dilemma
Although “critical thinking” is widely recommended as an outcome of liberal education programs, and a variety of assessment methods and measures are available to assess it, both conceptual and practical issues make assessment of this construct less straightforward than it may at first appear.  In this session, the facilitators will use the experiences of two public universities to compare and contrast how campus realities have interacted with conceptual models and pedagogical aspirations in embedding critical thinking in the curriculum.  They will present obstacles and choices made along the way and discuss an evolving series of strategies for assessing critical thinking on each campus.  Participants will have an opportunity to consider their own defintions of critical thinking and plans for fostering and assessing this outcome.  The facilitators will help them to address the difficulties in moving from measurement to useful changes in the curriculum and develop strategies for fruitful engagement of faculty in this process.
John F. Stevenson, Professor of Psychology—University of Rhode Island and Blase S. Scarnati, Director, First Year Seminar Program—Northern Arizona University

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
CS14: Preparing Faculty for an Integrative General Education Curriculum
Integrative learning is becoming widely recognized as essential for education in the 21st century.  However, even faculty who embrace the concept can face challenges in developing and teaching integrative courses.  Roanoke College recently adopted a highly integrative general education curriculum for which dozens of integrative courses had to be developed.  This session will feature the multi-pronged faculty development program that Roanoke implemented to help faculty develop and teach integrative courses.  Supported by a FIPSE grant, this program has proven effective in the start-up phase of the curriculum and provides a roadmap for a sustained program of faculty development.  The facilitators will describe the rationale for and design of the program and share materials related to both the program itself and its assessment.  Participants will discuss their own faculty development challenges and successes related to integrative learning, and together will identify aspects of this model that they might adapt.
Susan Kirby, Project Coordinator, FIPSE Grant, Adrienne Bloss, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and General Education—both of Roanoke College

Maintaining Momentum
CS15: Connecting Assessment Data to Understand Underserved Student Learning Experiences
In this session, facilitators from Portland State University’s University Studies program will describe the ways in which they are combining existing assessment methods to identify underserved students, explore their learning experiences, and inform programs to support student success—all with few additional resources.  Specifically, the facilitators will: (a) describe how results from student surveys, university data, and student portfolio data were combined to create a rich source of information on student learning and the academic experience; (b) share a holistic model of the student experience developed using the findings; and (c) discuss strategies for sharing the findings that have led to increased collaboration between the general education program and other areas of campus and that have helped inform wider campus conversations about underserved student success.  Participants will discuss the types of assessment data at their institutions that might be combined to create deeper understanding of the student learning experience. They will also consider ways in which assessment findings can be used as leverage to create conversations regarding underserved students and improve their success.
Rowanna L. Carpenter, Assessment Associate and Sukhwant Jhaj, Director, University Studies—both of Portland State University

LEAP Featured Session
Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS16: The Challenges and Successes of One College’s Journey into the Great Unknown
Keene State College has completed its second year of implementing its new Integrative Studies Program, the College’s liberal arts/general education program.  As with other institutions, the college has moved from a distribution curriculum to an integrative liberal education program.  Drawing on AAC&U’s Greater Expectations report and LEAP initiative, the Integrative Studies Program outcomes are based on assuring that students have a grounding in various modes of inquiry, develop skills that enhance liberal learning, and are able to integrate knowledge gained and skills developed.  Administrators and faculty have collaborated in developing a leadership model that purposefully links curriculum development and assessment with faculty instructional and student learning development.  In this session, facilitators will discuss the challenges and successes associated with: (a) program development and implementation, including the development and assessment of program outcomes; (b) a process to develop cohorts of faculty who truly commit to delivering the program; (c) garnering administrative support; (d) communication; and (e) quality control. The facilitators will share strategies they are implementing that have led to early, and likely sustainable, success and that other institutions might find useful.
Ann Marie Rancourt, Associate Provost, Anne-Marie Mallon, Professor English and Women's Studies, and Peter Nielsen, Professor Geology—all of Keene State College

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS17: Diversity, Global, and Civic Learning in the Core Curriculum
Participants in this workshop will learn about the process by which Texas Christian University (TCU) revised its core curriculum to align general education goals with institutional mission and values and to incorporate global learning, diversity, and civic responsibility into the curriculum.  In this session, participants will learn about the process used by TCU to develop the competencies and student learning outcomes for the core, with particular focus on three categories: Cultural Awareness, Global Awareness, and Citizenship and Social Values. Specifically, the facilitators will share details about the course vetting process at TCU and why such a process is vital to a meaningful assessment process.  Participants will: (a) examine course proposals to determine how (and if) they fit into the learning outcomes identified for the three categories listed above; (b) discuss appropriate assessment instruments that might be used to determine if students are achieving these learning outcomes; and (c) consider how they might apply useful parts of TCU’s approach to curriculum building in their home institutions. 
Edward M. McNertney, Director of the Core Curriculum and Chair of the Department of Economics, Blaise J. Ferrandino, Associate Professor of Music, and Catherine M. Wehlburg, Executive Director of the Office of Assessment and Quality Enhancement—all of Texas Christian University

12:15 – 2:00 p.m.
Luncheon Plenary 
podcast
General Education and Assessment: Planning Today, Looking to the Future
In this period of intense scrutiny, persuasive information about the value of general education is especially needed.  What can institutions do to support and improve general education and assessment in the face of epic budget cuts?  How can institutions avoid sacrificing important progress in strengthening general education and assessment?  Panelists will share insights on the future of general education and assessment and the role accreditation agencies might play in helping to prepare students for complex challenges throughout their lives.
Pamela Goad, Associate Vice President—Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities; Stephen D. Spangehl, Vice President—Higher Learning Commission; and Barbara Wright, Associate Director, Accreditation—Western  Association of Schools and Colleges
Moderator:  Terrel Rhodes, Vice President, Office of Quality, Curriculum and Assessment—AAC&U

2:15 – 3:30 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions

CS18: Administrative Strategies for General Education Administrators
The Council for the Administration of General and Liberal Studies (CAGLS) was created to provide strategies, discussion, and promising practices for administrators in general and liberal studies.   It offers an electronic networking system enabling members to share information about their revision processes, accreditation and policy issues, and approaches to enhancing the rigor of undergraduate education.  Session facilitators will describe the governance or administrative structures for their own programs and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these structures relative to achieving expected outcomes.  They will share results of a survey of governance structures and invite participants to engage in conversation about the elements that lead to effective administration of general education programs.  Also addressed will be resolutions to specific administrative problems that concern those attending the session including strategies used to achieve ends central to curriculum reform and program coordination. 
Alice Walters, President of CAGLS, Associate Dean of General Education—Saint Francis University; and Larry Peterson, President-elect of CAGLS, General Education Chair—North Dakota State University
Sponsored by the Council for the Administration of General and Liberal Studies

Assessment and Alignment
CS19: Gauging Writing and Engagement Levels to Improve General Education Outcomes
Colleges and universities need economical and reliable ways to assess general education learning.  The session facilitators developed one such method, adding 27 questions about writing to the 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Results from 23,000 students at 84 schools indicate that gains in general education learning are associated with three “best practices” for writing assignments: (a) create meaning-constructing assignments, (b) engage students in interactive writing processes, and (c) explain expectations clearly.  By comparing responses from subgroups of students (by gender, major, etc.), institutions can create targeted initiatives for improving faculty’s use of writing, thereby increasing students’ general education learning.  The more than 1000 schools that use NSSE can add the 27 writing questions for free.  Other schools can incorporate them into locally administered surveys without cost.  In this session, the facilitators will describe this research, present results, and discuss with participants ways in which their institutions can use the writing questions to assess and improve general education learning.
Paul Anderson, Director, Howe Center for Writing Excellence—Miami University; and Robert Gonyea, Associate Director, Center for Post-secondary Research and Coordinating Research Analyst for NSSE—Indiana University

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
CS20: Engaging Faculty with Assessment through a Faculty Learning Community
Many campuses have explored faculty learning communities as a mechanism to advance faculty engagement with teaching and learning.  The evidence suggests that this model may be effective in engaging faculty in institutional assessment of general education outcomes as well.  This facilitated discussion will focus on how the learning community model engages faculty, and how it can be leveraged to establish college-wide assessment of general education learning outcomes.  Discussion will encompass ideas for creating conditions for success including: (a) the sharing of ideas and of tacit knowledge through mentoring and apprenticeship; (b) the variety of cultural perspectives; (c) the critical role of willingness toward experimentation; (d) the development of different kinds of expertise; (e) cognitive conflict and discussion; (f) systematic reflection; and (g) synthesis (Bielaczyc & Collins, 2006). Participants will share institutional  experiences and promising strategies via problem-based scenarios.
Nancy B. Pawlyshyn, Associate Provost and Howard Miller, Professor of Education—both of Mercy College

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
CS21: Breaking Down Traditional Barriers: Lessons Learned from the Use of “Outcome Teams”
Several years ago, the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) adopted a set of institutional outcomes outlining the responsibilities, skills, and knowledge required of its graduates.  As is the case in many institutions, USAFA students complete a wide array of academic courses and participate in a wide array of co-curricular activities and the Academy strives to integrate these many learning experiences in meaningful ways.  In this session, the facilitators will describe the creation of interdisciplinary “outcome teams” charged with overseeing the development and assessment of the institutional outcomes and how faculty and staff are now working across traditional boundaries to develop and assess these outcomes in an aligned, integrated way.  The focus of the subsequent discussion will be on both the lessons learned and what attendees can do to adapt and build upon this work at their home institutions.
Rich Hughes, Transformation Chair, Steven K. Jones, Director of Academic Assessment, and Rolf C. Enger, Director of Education—all of United States Air Force Academy

Maintaining Momentum
CS22: General Education Phase II: Negotiating Problems and Concerns in Implementation
This session will focus on making general education program implementation and maintenance (Phase II) as productive as the initial general education reform process (Phase I).  If Phase I is about debating ideas, Phase II is about managing details.  By the time attention shifts to implementation, faculty are tired. It is harder to energize the campus community, but doing so continues to be critical.  In truth, the hard work is just beginning.  Realities like program budgets, office management, course lists, and transfer credits become pressing—and these are issues which academics often feel ill-equipped to address.  The University of North Dakota has been negotiating Phase II, and although the specific problems and solutions may be unique, the need for proactive planning is not. In this session, the facilitators will use their experiences to generate discussion, providing participants with the opportunity to anticipate—and plan for—challenges likely to be encountered post-reform.
Anne V. Kelsch, Director of Instructional Development, Joan Hawthorne, Assistant Provost, and Tom Steen, Director of Essential Studies—all of University of North Dakota

LEAP Featured Session
Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS23: Unifying General Education, the Major and the Broader Co-Curricular Experience
The first LEAP Principle of Excellence urges educators to “make the essential learning outcomes a framework for the entire educational experience, connecting school, college, work, and life.”  Yet, a 2009 survey of chief academic officers at AAC&U member institutions finds fewer than one-half of those campus leaders believe their general education programs are well integrated with students’ major requirements.  This interactive session will explore how learning outcomes can be employed to assist educators in their efforts to help students integrate what they learn in general education courses with the rest of their education.  The facilitators investigated this question through a content analysis of how courses in the major and co-curricular experiences offered at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are incorporating general education learning outcomes.  They will share some of the interesting characteristics this investigation revealed that participants may wish to consider as they try to provide a more unified educational experience for students.
Jessica L. Jonson, Director of Institutional Assessment and Nancy Mitchell, Director of General Education—both of University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS24: Creating Valid Research Experiences through General Education Courses
The session will present an innovative plan and implementation process for incorporating undergraduate research within a research university’s general education curriculum.  The facilitators will present an overview of the plan and models for incorporating valid research experiences into large general education lecture courses as well as capstone exit courses.  An applied anthropology group research project designed for introductory classes of 200+ students will be featured.  This project and other examples to be presented may be adapted for use in lower- or upper-level courses, small or large classes, and different disciplines.  Participants will be engaged in designing a general education course that enhances critical thinking and the creation of new knowledge through inquiry-based learning.  Through guided small-group discussions, participants will brainstorm strategies for adapting the featured research models within the general education curricula of their home institutions.  The session will conclude with a question-and-answer period, addressing potential challenges and methods of assessment.
Naomi Yavneh, Associate Dean, Honors College and Director, Office of Undergraduate Research, Janet L.S. Moore, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Associate Professor of Music, and Karla L. Davis-Salazar, Associate Professor of Anthropology—all of University of South Florida

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS25: Scientific Literacy, Global Learning, and General Education
The problems we face today and the challenges our graduates will confront with growing urgency are increasingly defined as global, interdisciplinary problems with important scientific dimensions: environment and development, health and biotechnology, energy and security. These kinds of problems necessitate graduates from different disciplinary backgrounds who are scientifically literate—adept consumers of scientific information—as well as socially responsible and culturally responsive. This session will focus on the role of scientific literacy as an outcome of general education, particularly within programs that focus on interdisciplinary or “big global questions.” Leaders from AAC&U’s Shared Futures: General Education for Global Learning and Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) initiatives will engage participants in defining scientific literacy as a general education outcome and thinking about how it can be assessed, especially through having students integrate and apply their learning to complex, global problems.
Susan Elrod, Director, Project Kaleidoscope and Kevin Hovland, Director of Global Learning and Curricular Change—both of AAC&U

4:00 – 5:15 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions

Assessment and Alignment
CS26: Moving from Goal to Implementation in General Education Assessment (pdf)
Recently, Pace University’s regional accreditation team recognized the university’s core curriculum for reflecting best practices related to general education, and noted that the university had successfully developed an administrative assessment infrastructure, created an internal culture of assessment, and made a strong commitment to a complete assessment cycle.  In this session, the facilitators will: (a) describe the journey towards systematic development of a learning outcomes assessment model for assessing the core; (b) share strategies for developing an institutional context for assessment and motivating and supporting faculty to adopt the steps needed to go forward; and (c) involve participants in exchange of ideas about best practices for maintaining a campus “culture of evidence” and accountability for student learning.
Barbara S. Pennipede, Assistant Vice President, Planning, Assessment and Institutional Research, Linda Anstendig, Professor of English, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, and Adelia Williams-Lubitz, Associate Dean, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences—all of Pace University

LEAP Featured Session
Assessment and Alignment
CS27: Using Games to Support Learning, Assessment, and Community Building
The Global Village Playground (GVP) is a capstone learning experience designed to address institutional assessment needs while providing an integrated, contextualized, and authentic learning experience for students.  In the GVP, students work on simulated and real-world problems as a design team tasked with developing an alternate reality game that makes an impact on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.  In this session, the facilitators will describe the design of this capstone experience created with both essential learning outcomes and assessment of institutional and statewide learning goals in mind.  Participants will explore how they might devise similar problem- or project-based capstone learning experiences that align with program assessment goals while building community.
Mary Jo Dondlinger, Director, Institutional Effectiveness—Richland College; and Scott J. Warren, Assistant Professor—University of North Texas

Assessment and Alignment
CS28: Assessing Critical Thinking with the CAT Instrument
This session will provide participants with information about a new tool for assessing students’ critical thinking skills. The CAT Instrument is the result of a nine-year nationwide project (funded by NSF) to refine and disseminate an interdisciplinary instrument to assess critical thinking/real-world problem solving skills. Project efforts have been focused on: (a) developing an instrument to assess critical thinking that has high validity for faculty across disciplines and for experts in learning science; (b) creating an assessment tool that involves faculty in the scoring process to help them understand student weaknesses; and (c) creating an assessment system that supports broad-based efforts to improve student learning. The session will provide an overview of the development process, research findings, and the unique ways the CAT Instrument supports faculty involvement in program improvement efforts.  The session will provide numerous opportunities for discussion and exploring issues related to assessing and improving students’ critical thinking.
Barry Stein, Professor of Psychology and Principle Investigator, Center for Assessment and Improvement of Learning and Ada Haynes, Professor of Sociology and Co-Principle Investigator, Center for Assessment and Improvement of Learning—both of Tennessee Tech University

Assessment and Alignment
CS29: Effectively Communicating Assessment Results to Different Campus Constituencies
When it comes to assessment, collecting good data is only half of the battle.  In order to understand the extent to which general education is advancing learning, members of the campus community must come together—with the data and with one another—and examine what the specific findings tell them about ways to improve learning given their specific roles.  This session will address strategies for discussing data collected from national surveys with different campus constituencies and how to assist these constituencies in using the data in their decision making.  Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute’s CIRP Freshman Survey, the Your First College Year Survey, and the Faculty Survey the facilitators will: (a) highlight the value of using survey measures as assessment tools; (b) use institutional examples to discuss the relationship between survey responses and measured learning outcomes; and (c) discuss strategies for making sense of the results.
Linda DeAngelo, CIRP Assistant Director for Research—University of California-Los Angeles and Jim Diedrick, Assistant Dean of the College and Professor of English—Agnes Scott College

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
CS30: Interdisciplinary Capstone Courses in General Education (pdf)
Interdisciplinary courses can be used to engage content-area faculty in general education and provide students with opportunities to integrate their learning and understand connections across academic fields. Lehman College, CUNY, with a student population that has been historically underserved by the academy, requires as part of its general education curriculum the completion of two upper-division (post 60-credit) interdisciplinary courses.  These courses extend the objectives of general education to include juniors and seniors and also integrate transfer students into the college community.  In this session, the facilitators will focus on: (a) the faculty’s role in establishing learning objectives for these courses; (b) strategies to recruit full-time and adjunct instructors to teach them; (c) faculty development; and (d) preliminary assessments of how well the courses’ objectives are being met.  Participants will be encouraged to explore the roadblocks that might prevent their institutions from establishing such courses and how the featured experiences might suggest means to eliminate those blocks.
Vincent Prohaska, Associate Professor of Psychology and Robert Whittaker, Associate Provost for Undergraduate Studies and Online Education—both of City University of New York Herbert H. Lehman College

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
CS31: Engaging Faculty in General Education Assessment
Upon creating a new general education program based in part on the LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes, a task force at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was faced with creating a sustainable assessment process that would lead to the systematic use of assessment data for multiple purposes and audiences: instructors, programs, colleges, the university, governing bodies, taxpayers, potential students and their parents, and potential employers.  Given that the outcomes often crossed disciplinary and departmental boundaries, the group brought together faculty from across the university to design and pilot an assessment system for one outcome, which could then serve as a model for other outcomes.  Drawing on the perspectives of task force participants, including one administrator, two faculty members, and one graduate student, the facilitators will introduce attendees to the pilot outcome and rubric and provide opportunity to reflect on lessons learned in designing and enacting this process.
David E. Wilson, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Shari J. Stenberg, Associate Professor, English, Erin E. Blankenship, Associate Professor, Statistics, and Susan Martens-Baker, Graduate Student, English—all of University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Maintaining Momentum
CS32: Assessing General Education: Promise and Perils of a Statewide Community of Practice
This session will focus on a long-term, ongoing effort in Washington state to support and sustain intra- and inter-institutional innovations in general education assessment across the community and technical college system.  The discussion will provide participants with an opportunity to consider the benefits and challenges of multi-institution or systemic collaborative networks around general education assessment. What role can such a network play in shaping institutional perspectives and practices around assessment?  What value does it offer over and above the local networks and communities doing ground-level campus general education assessment work?  How can such a network integrate its efforts effectively with pressing accountability and accreditation issues facing colleges and universities?  This session will explore these questions and others and offer practical advice from the 20-year history of the Washington Assessment, Teaching and Learning network.
William S. Moore, Policy Associate, Assessment, Teaching and Learning—Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges and Robin Jeffers, Coordinator, Assessment/ Effectiveness—Bellevue College

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS33: General Education in the Third Year: Assessing the "Intangibles" of Problem-Based, Experiential Learning
Many institutions require experiential learning as part of general education, and research shows that experiential learning can motivate students to recognize that they are members of the global community.  Yet individuals responsible for assessment are frequently perplexed by the lack of tools available to assess the “intangibles” of experiential education.  In this session, the facilitators, who oversee assessment of general education at Belmont University, will: (a) present the rationale behind the creation of the Junior Cornerstone, a third-year, problem-based learning seminar; (b) demonstrate assessment tools in use in the Junior Cornerstone courses; (c) share results and concerns about the results that these tools have produced; and (d) introduce newer assessment tools being piloted by Belmont University and Wagner College, partners in a Teagle Grant targeting the development of such measures.  Participants will explore the implications, applicability, and limitations of the piloted tools at their own institutions.
Linda E. Holt, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of Assessment for General Education and Jeffrey W. Coker, Associate Professor of History and Director of General Education—both of Belmont University

5:30 – 7:15 p.m.
Community Forum 
podcast
Global Citizenship and the Role of Higher Education
If there is a single foundational purpose of liberal higher education, it is to make great citizens.  But what is a citizen?  What are the obligations that come with membership in this or any country?  And what, in the end, does the idea of global citizenship rest upon?  In their book The True Patriot, AAC&U LEAP National Leadership Council member Eric Liu and co-author Nick Hanauer lay out a moral framework for purposeful citizenship.  That framework belongs to no party, but it is inherently progressive.  It need not be limited to any single nation, though it is uniquely American in its origins.  In this community forum, participants will engage in discussion about how we can more intentionally expose students to moral frameworks of citizenship and encourage them to sharpen their sense of public values and purpose.
Eric Liu, Fellow, Author, Educator, and Civic Leader

Saturday, February 20

8:00 – 9:00 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions

Assessment and Alignment
CS34: Senior Capstones as Portals
A capstone provides insight into student learning and performance at a point in a student’s undergraduate career when she/he can draw upon the full range of baccalaureate experience.  Through capstone experiences, faculty can assess aspects of student learning that extend beyond content and skills.  This workshop will explore the senior capstone experience as a powerful assessment tool that is transformational for students and faculty alike.  The term “capstone” is common in higher education, but the term that better captures the characteristics of the experience is “portal.”  By considering senior capstones as portals, participants will develop new understandings of assessment through capstones.
David J. Sill, Senior Scholar and Professor—Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Assessment and Alignment
CS35: General Education in an Era of Transfer: The Challenge of Creating Coherence
Bers (2000) notes that the difficulties of developing useful assessment programs is “particularly true in institutions characterized by large numbers of part-time commuter students who swirl through their academic careers by attending multiple institutions...” This statement applies to an increasing number of institutions whose student population is primarily transfer students, such as Antioch University Los Angeles.  Using Antioch’s experience as a case study, this session will cover the challenges of assessing general education skills across a diverse curriculum, where students enter with widely disparate coursework and very different baseline skills.  Antioch strengthened the assessment of its general education curriculum in preparation for a program review and re-accreditation visit, and this in turn drove faculty to re-think what they were doing in the classroom and directed program leaders to re-think what was being offered in general education.  The facilitators will lead discussion around what it means for institutions with large transfer student populations to: (a) evaluate students’ movement toward general education objectives using course-embedded assessments and (b) examine the effectiveness of a general education program in providing flexible opportunities for students to develop particular skills. Participants will receive materials related to faculty training sessions, including curriculum mapping templates and rubrics for assessing critical thinking and academic writing skills.
MeHee Hyun, Bachelor of Arts Core Faculty and Andrea L. Richards, Director of Academic Asssessment, Bachelor of Arts Core Faculty—both of Antioch University Los Angeles

Assessment and Alignment
CS36: Fostering Faculty Ownership of General Education Assessment
Ask faculty to name the five things they like most about their jobs, and neither “assessment” nor “committee work” are very likely to show up on anyone’s list.  But at St. Olaf College, faculty committees have championed general education assessment in ways that have stimulated and engaged their colleagues.  Under the leadership of its elected curriculum committee, the St. Olaf College faculty has collectively articulated intended learning outcomes for each component of its general education curriculum and developed and piloted a campus-wide program for assessing these outcomes.  This session will share insights from St. Olaf’s experience, examining the contributions of faculty culture and governance to general education assessment and the strengths and limitations of the specific assessment strategies that have been piloted.  Participants will consider whether and how St. Olaf’s practices, in both designing and conducting general education assessment, might be adapted for use at their own institutions.
Assessment Pilot Project Web Page: http://www.stolaf.edu/offices/ir-e/assessment/domains/ge/pilot.htm
Jo M. Beld, Professor of Political Science and Director of Evaluation and Assessment and David Booth, Professor of Religion and Chair of the Curriculum Committee—both of St. Olaf College

Maintaining Momentum
CS37: External Support for General Education: Strategic Approaches Post-Economic Downturn
The national economy is beginning to stabilize following the 2008 stock market collapse; the Obama administration is settling into patterns that will define the next few years of federal education funding; and campuses are adapting to a new environment of increasing costs, reduced public subsidies, concerns about access and evaluation, and need for curricular change.Join national higher education funders for a frank discussion of how these trends play out in the search for external support for general education and core curricula. The session will feature brief background presentations by the funders followed by an open dialogue regarding funding trends.Additional one-on-one consultations with the funders will be scheduled throughout the conference.
Barbara Gombach, Project Manager, National Program—Carnegie Corporation of New York; and Frederick A. Winter, Senior Director, Office of Advancement and Leadership Development—AAC&U

Maintaining Momentum
CS38: Facilitators or Police? Turning Statewide Legislation into a Viable General Education Model
How can a college-wide committee facilitate a major change in focus within general education in just one year?  What is the impact on students, faculty, administrators, and staff when the change is driven by state legislation?  How can a college create a viable general education model without strictly policing the curriculum?  These topics and others were part of the discussion that surrounded a general education model revision at one community college and form the basis for this facilitated discussion.
Gail Harrigan, Associate Professor, Nursing and Shay Delcurla, Associate Professor of Library Sciences—both of Brookdale Community College

Maintaining Momentum
CS39: Connecting the Educational Dots: The Advisers’ Role in General Education
Through this discussion, participants working to institute sustainable general education programs will find specific, practical ideas for valuing and enhancing the role of academic advisers in the process. Recognizing the potential of advisers to contribute to general education also helps satisfy the LEAP principle of excellence that urges educators to “give students a compass [by] focus[ing] each student’s plan of study on achieving the essential learning outcomes and assess[ing] progress.”  The facilitators will open the session by describing a model used at their university, which involved collaboration between advisers, general education faculty, and administrators to develop guidelines that would help implement and sustain the new program.  This model should spur a broader discussion about how advisers can be engaged in becoming advocates for new programs, increasing the likelihood that such programs become  truly transformative learning opportunities that have a real impact on improving students’ education.
Nancy Mitchell, Director of General Education and William Watts, Assistant Dean for Advising Services, College of Arts and Sciences—both of University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS40: Affirming a Commitment to the General Education of Art Students (pdf)
Representatives from the Consortium for the Liberal Education of Artists* will lead a discussion on challenges of general education in specialized undergraduate programs that prepare students for careers as artists.  Open to all conference participants, this session will examine what is most important for the liberal education of art students, including priorities to consider in designing a liberal arts program that: (a) links with artistic study and (b) highlights connections across performance, fine arts, liberal arts, and sciences.  The facilitators will share information about the learning outcomes, objectives, and missions of the general education programs at their institutions.  *CLEA members include Berklee College of Music; Columbia College Chicago; College of Visual Arts; Cornish College of Arts; Eastman School of Music; Juilliard; McNally Smith College of Music; Musicians Institute; New World School of the Arts; the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University; Purchase College—SUNY; University of the Arts; and University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
Camille Colatosti, Chair, Liberal Arts Department—Berklee College of Music; Ron Levy, Chair, Humanities Department—Peabody Institute; and Jenifer K. Ward, Associate Provost—Cornish College of the Arts

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS41: System-Wide General Education: Moving from Campus Reform to Statewide Collaboration
In this session, general education program leaders from three of North Dakota’s eleven colleges and universities will discuss their recent work in the state’s development of a system-wide collaboration for general education.  Because the work is aimed at exploring a common direction for general education across the state, the session is offered under the theme of “vision, goals, and designs.”  In some ways, this large-scale program work is similar to the work done on individual campuses, but in other ways, efforts to establish system partnerships face special challenges.  Trying to find common ground in spite of differences in institutional mission, size, and student bodies is different than working in the more familiar setting of the home institution.  Yet with student transfer on the rise, working “outside the home” to improve general education programs is practically inevitable if educators are to effect genuine improvements that will influence the learning of all our students.
Thomas B. Steen, Director of Essential Studies—University of North Dakota; Larry R. Peterson, General Education Committee Chair—North Dakota State University; and Andrea E. Donovan, Assistant Professor, Art History and Humanities—Minot State University

9:15 – 10:45 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions

Assessment and Alignment
CS42: Faculty Use of Primary Trait Analysis to Assess Creative Thinking
College faculty from the “Ohio 5” consortium have been pursuing work on the project, “Creativity and Critical Thinking: Assessing the Foundations of a Liberal Arts Education,” which has been funded by the Teagle Foundation.  While critical thinking has been defined and assessed in a variety of ways, the project leaders found fewer valid measures to assess creative thinking, so this became a primary focus of the grant.  Faculty in the project used primary trait analysis to develop rubrics to assess creative and critical thinking.  During this third year, twenty-five faculty across three colleges used a common rubric to measure the presence of creative and critical thinking among their students.  The facilitators will briefly describe rubric development process and present data from this direct measure of student learning that was used to determine whether students’ scores on the various traits improved over time.  They will also present faculty members’ survey and interview responses concerning their participation in the project. These data provide important information about the types of assignments and institutional practices that faculty indicate promote creative and critical thinking.
Sarah K. Murnen, Professor of Psychology—Kenyon College; and Barbara Andereck, Professor of Physics—Ohio Wesleyan University

Assessment and Alignment
CS43: Capstone Course ePortfolios: Showcasing Student Learning
This session will focus on the process through which Portland State University arrived at an innovative course-based ePortfolio system as a mechanism for assessing general education outcomes in community-based senior capstone courses.  The session facilitators will discuss the challenges in assessing individual student learning in a group-focused community-based course and share attempts that were only partially successful in meeting that challenge.  Then they will highlight examples of capstone course ePortfolios that include instructor and student reflections on the course and samples of group final projects, focusing assessment at the course level.  Finally, they will also discuss the ways in which the ePortfolios are being used as a communication tool, providing students with specific information about general education expectations at the senior level.  Participants will explore this approach to assessment of general education outcomes, the benefits and drawbacks of this approach, and the ways it might be implemented in other contexts.
Rowanna L. Carpenter, Assessment Associate, Seanna Kerrigan, Director of Capstone Programs, and Heather Petzold, Capstone Faculty—all of Portland State University

Faculty Engagement and Collaboration
CS44: Faculty Development and Assessment: Gateways to Measuring Student Gains
Faculty development is, at its best, curricular in nature. That is, successful training for faculty resembles high-quality undergraduate education: a curriculum composed of goal-oriented, iterative, active learning that is responsive to assessment.  Although faculty development efforts vary from institution to institution, rarely are they conceived as a curriculum except in the sense that certain programs (e.g., a pre-service orientation or workshop) will be offered regularly.  In this session, participants will examine and discuss assessment instruments, rubrics, and research designs that link faculty development to student learning.  Examples will be drawn from Carleton College’s work with cross-cutting literacies such as writing and quantitative reasoning across the curriculum, programs that align with AAC&U’s VALUE rubrics.
Carol Rutz, Director, Writing Program, Elizabeth Ciner, Associate Dean of the College, and Greg Marfleet, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Political Economy—all of Carleton College

Maintaining Momentum
CS46: Avoiding “Business as Usual” When Implementing New General Education Programs
In a recent AAC&U survey of chief academic officers, 89 percent of institutions reported being currently engaged in assessing or revising their general education programs.  This session is for those institutions now in the process of implementing recent general educations reforms and beginning to assess the results. The facilitators will discuss several of the challenges involved in this phase of general education revision and strategies for addressing them.  These challenges include navigating the transitional period when old and new requirements are simultaneously in effect; educating students, faculty, advisors, and transfer coordinators about the new program; helping faculty to develop and implement meaningful assessments of new general education outcomes; and dealing with faculty anxiety and resistance to change.  Hawaii Pacific University launched a new theme-based general education curriculum in 2008.
Laurie Leach, Director of General Education and Nancy Hedlund, Vice President of Planning and Assessment—both of Hawaii Pacific University

Maintaining Momentum
CS47: Keeping a Focus on Learning while Slashing Budgets
Sharing survival and growth strategies in a time of severe cutbacks is critical for educators who are tasked with maintaining momentum.  Having to make huge budget cuts several years in a row, Shoreline's administrators have learned to stay on course and maintain morale while the college's budget shrinks each year. Two deans will share successful models for cutting and subsequent building, and participants will be asked to share their own budget cutting strategies and scenarios. The group will examine whether streamlining their general education programs and degree requirements could make a difference.
Norma W. Goldstein, Dean of Academic Standards, Accreditation, Articulation and Transfer, and K-12 Relations and Ken Lawson, Dean of Global Studies, Service Learning, IntraAmerican Studies and Social Science—both of Shoreline Community College

LEAP Featured Session
Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS48: Thinking Globally, Assessing Locally: A Workshop on Global Competence
This session will address the general education learning outcome “global competence.”  What is meant by it?  How and where can it be measured?  How can campuses structure a sequence of intentional learning experiences across the undergraduate experience to nurture and develop it?  Participants will be presented with a variety of global competence examples and models based on a range of philosophical underpinnings and conceptual frames.  These successful models will be discussed and evaluated throughout the workshop as individual participants develop definitions and strategies that will work on their home campuses.  Session activities will include a series of “conversations,” each with a specific outcome designed to move participants to a more complex understanding of global competence and processes/strategies that can be used to assess it.  Participants will explore and build on core issues collaboratively through a series of focused questions and facilitated discussion.
Marsha Watson, Director of Assessment—University of Kentucky; Jonathan Keiser, Director of Institutional Evaluation—Columbia College Chicago; and Steve Bullock, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs—University of Nebraska at Omaha

Vision, Goals, and Designs
CS49: Communicating Effectively About General Education and Assessment
This session will draw on new research conducted as part of AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative.The facilitator will: (a) provide an overview of findings from a new survey of employers about college graduates’ skills and readiness for success in the global workplace; (b) share the latest trends in general education reform and assessment as revealed in a survey of AAC&U members; and (c) discuss public opinion research that highlights how students, recent graduates, and business leaders view the most important outcomes of college and the role of general education in teaching those outcomes.  Participants will also be introduced to messages and language proven effective in making the case for liberal and general education to a variety of constituents.  They also will learn about several AAC&U resources designed to help institutions communicate effectively, advise students on academic pathways, and align their practices with the messages they send through a variety of means—including curriculum, admissions, Web sites, and external relations.
Debra Humphreys, Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs—AAC&U

11:00 a.m. - Noon
Plenary  podcast
Betting On Gravity (ppt, 7.1 MB)
Advocates for reform at all levels can improve the odds for success by taking into account revolutions—in demographics, technology, and the nature of work—that are already changing higher education. How can campus leaders mobilize these dynamics to help shape and advance a coherent, compelling account of their institution’s next steps? Who will listen? What will they need to know? Mr. O’Donnell will integrate projections from the Departments of Education and Labor, the Census Bureau, and various higher education think tanks to argue that we can influence the future by hitching a ride on the inevitable.
Ken O’Donnell, Associate Dean, Academic Program Planning—California State University, Office of the Chancellor