April 6, 1998
The agenda was to share the progress to date of each sub-committee.
Community Conversation Sub-committee
Shiu-Kai and Ron met with the dean to discuss the AUSLOAC and in particular the notion of community conversations. Shiu-Kai pointed out that our most significant progress to date is that rather than having an assessment plan that is the work of one person all the faculty members on the AUSLOAC are involved in developing the plan.
They told the deans that we want to meet with faculty in natural groupings within schools and colleges. Although some deans may say that they prefer being told what to do Shiu-Kai emphasized that we did not want to go in and say here's what you need to do and here's how to do it. Instead we want to facilitate discussions of assessment. We are responsible for organize SU's consideration of assessment and, therefore, we need to ask faculty what advice they have for us.
Ongoing Efforts
Chairs from departments or programs who have done assessment were invited to speak with the sub-committee including Jim Wiggins (Religion), Larry Nafie (Chemistry), and Rosaria Champagne (English/Women's Studies). Craig also described the document on learning outcomes prepared by faculty in the Psychology Department. Craig suggested the following four points: (1) talk about what we mean by learning outcomes, (2) in approaching assessment departments usually connect with an important issues such as accreditation or with a problem that they perceive, (3) it is important to involve students, and (4) there needs to be a stipend for someone in the department to get this going.
Learning Outside the Classroom
John Adams made the comment that his students' learning is a result of many influences only some of which he provides and that he tries to teach "creative misbehavior." This reflected the discussion in the learning outside the classroom sub-committee. For example, Susan Bonzi pointed out that so much of what students learn comes from other places than the classroom and that what is important is to determine how students are different than they were before and what caused these changes. These changes include intended and unintended outcomes.
Dave Potter wondered to what extent we should be concerned about the historical aspects of the previous focus on budget during the Eggers' years and how this affected our culture.
Even though some faculty member will be frustrated by a very broad approach we should focus on motivation, methods, and environments. The strength of the group is that there are no constraints on our questions and our inquiry into learning outside the classroom.
AUSLOAC Web Page
Frank Wilbur briefly described the web page to be designed to support the SU assessment effort. It will reflect the formative, faculty-led nature of this process and will have a look and feel that engages people. It should help facilitate conversations about assessment. There should also be updates about AUSLOAC and sub-committee activities, relevant literature, and links to other useful sites.
A question was raised about the relationship of our efforts to the conversations being held by Bill Copland regarding the clarification of the meaning of a student-centered research university.
At the all-day meeting on April 30th, during the morning, each sub-committee will develop a plan for next year and in the afternoon the full committee will discuss these plans and talk about full committee plans.
Respectfully submitted by Peter J. Gray