Grants in Higher Education
TEAGLE FOUNDATION GRANTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
GRANTS FOR FACULTY-DRIVEN VALUE-ADDED ASSESSMENT COLLABORATIVES
Click here for other projects in Outcomes and Assessment.
November 2008
Implementation Grants
Belmont University and Wagner CollegeLearning by Doing: Assessing the relationship between liberal learning and experiential education
Project Leader: Jeffrey Coker
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$288,000 over 36 months to assess liberal learning outcomes achieved through experiential learning requirements that are embedded in the two institutions' general education core. This project was developed with a planning grant from the Teagle Foundation. |
Assessing students' moral and spiritual growth in liberal arts colleges | Project website
Project Leader: Timothy Austin
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$297,441 over 36 months to employ data from national survey instruments, responses to essay questions embedded in course examinations, and student-led focus groups to explore the degree to which students at these three liberal arts colleges mature as moral and spiritual persons. This project was developed with a planning grant from the Teagle Foundation. |
Assessment of the Jesuit Universities Humanitarian Action Network (JUHAN)
Project Leader: Richard Ryscavage
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$296,105 over 36 months to assess student learning in the context of humanitarian content coursework, the impact on students participating in the JUHAN project, and the organizational impact of the student leadership teams on their home campuses in developing effective means of aiding in humanitarian crises. This project was developed with a planning grant from the Teagle Foundation. |
Systematic assessment of student learning in community-based learning programs
Project Leader: Suzanne Bonefas
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$280,713 over 36 months to assess the added value of community-based learning courses and programs on student learning and civic engagement. This project was developed with a planning grant from the Teagle Foundation. |
Using embedded assignments to create cultures of assessment in the major and the core
Project Leader: John Bean
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$300,000 over 36 months to help departments assess the ability of graduating seniors to think and write like professionals in their disciplines (majors), and to develop core structures driven by learning outcomes and amenable to a discourse approach to assessment. This project was developed with a planning grant from the Teagle Foundation. |
Think, Feel, Do: Enhancing student engagement with diversity through a holistic assessment approach
Project Leader: Annette Lucas
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$300,000 over 36 months to use quantitative and qualitative data from faculty, students, and staff to assess how diversity initiatives in four areas—access and equity, formal and informal curriculum, campus climate, and student learning and development—shape the student experience, and to identify the conditions associated with value-added change. This project was developed with planning grants led by Goucher College and Ursinus College from the Teagle Foundation. |
May 2008
Implementation Grants
Wellesley College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Middlebury College, Smith College, Trinity College, and the New England Association of Schools and CollegesTo continue the work of the New England consortium on assessment and student learning | Project Website
Project Leader: Lee Cuba
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$196,000 over 36 months to complete a panel study of a subset of the Class of 2010 on each campus of the New England consortium by following their junior and senior years, as well as a year beyond graduation. This study focuses on several critical transition points in the academic careers of students: the transition from high school to college, the choice of a major, the decision whether or not to study abroad or participate in other significant off-campus experiences, and capstone experiences and post-graduate planning during the senior year. |
Assessing the impact of diversity courses on students' higher order thinking skills
Project Leader: Darnell Cole
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$299,912 over 36 months to determine whether the study of difference—between peoples of different races, sexes, religions, abilities, sexual orientations, etc.—improve both students' respect for those unlike themselves, as well as their higher order cognitive skills. |
May 2007
First-Step Grants
Belmont University and Wagner CollegeLearning By Doing: Assessing the Relationship between Liberal Learning and Experiential Education at two Liberal Arts Comprehensive Institutions
Project Leader: Jeffrey Coker
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$25,000 over 12 months. Belmont University and Wagner College seek to assess liberal education outcomes that are achieved through the experiential education requirements embedded in each institution's general education core. The collaborative defines experiential education as education in settings outside the classroom that are integral to achieving course learning goals. Examples include field observation and field studies, community-based research, service learning, practica and internships, and public presentations of research projects. The institutions posit that experiential learning is a point at which critical thinking, communication skills, ethical reflection, and subject area knowledge can take deep root in students' habits of thinking and action because it facilitates connections among subject, social context, and ethical reflection. With some common assessment measures already in place, the collaborative seeks to enrich their assessment strategy in this area. They will establish criteria for assessing the value added by experiential learning in their general education programs; explore ways in which the nationally recognized assessment instruments that they already use in other contexts-the National Survey of Student Assessment (NSSE), the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), and others-might be of use for assessing experiential education; identify direct and indirect measures that provide evidence of student learning which can be widely used on each campus; share data; and discuss best practices. Both institutions will meet and present the project for discussion at the Association of New American Colleges (ANAC) Summer Institute in June 2008. |
Effective Approaches to Refining Skills in Oral Communication
Project Leader: Peter Whiting
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$25,000 over 12 months. Building on shared traditions of rigorous assessment, and using common assessment tools that will allow direct comparison of student experiences and outcomes, Case Western Reserve University and John Carroll University will form a ten-member working group to assess students' oral communication skills and their programs'—Case's Seminar Approach to General Education and Scholarship (SAGES) and John Carroll's first year seminars and course on oral communication—success in enhancing student learning and engagement. Two external experts in the field of oral communication instruction will serve as project advisers. The group will inventory what has been done so far on their campuses to assess oral communication. They will compare more general student learning outcomes through a study of data already gathered from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP). With that preparatory work done, the collaborative will then seek to develop a long-range, comprehensive assessment plan for oral communication on their campuses. |
Assessing Students' Moral and Spiritual Growth in Liberal Arts Colleges
Project Leader: Timothy Austin
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$22,895 over 12 months. Three Catholic colleges—College of the Holy Cross, Assumption College, and Saint Anselm College—will partner to assess how effectively their undergraduate students acquire and refine certain moral, ethical, civic, and/or spiritual values that lie at the heart of their institutional missions. More specifically, they will assess the extent to which they are successful in providing opportunities—especially academic ones—that encourage the development of these values in their students. A six-member steering committee will lead the project and will involve those individuals and committees on each campus who are responsible for ongoing assessment activities. They will examine key written documents in which these moral and spiritual goals are outlined, and the role played by campus culture in articulating them. Each campus, and then the group as a whole, will identify relevant curricular and co-curricular activities and support students' acquisition or refinement of these goals. They will examine and inventory relevant assessment data collected from instruments used by all three campuses such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), as well as consider adaptations of such instruments. Based on what this research indicates, the collaborative will develop a program to assess students' moral and spiritual development that can be adopted by other liberal arts colleges. |
Assessment of the Jesuit Humanitarian Action Network (JUHAN)
Project Leader: Richard Ryscavage
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$24,858 over 12 months. A Jesuit education seeks to develop students to become "men and women for others" by fostering the development of higher-order analytic skills and social responsibility, and emphasizing the importance of teaching and learning in a real-world context. The Jesuit Humanitarian Action Network (JUHAN) was created to help Jesuit liberal arts colleges further these goals, and in particular, to develop a "signature" reputation for preparing students intellectually, morally, and experientially to respond to communities in need. For their planning year, Fairfield, Fordham, and Georgetown Universities—all members of JUHAN—will design an assessment methodology for the network which they can model and then see replicated by the other member campuses. The primary components of the work include:
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Assessing the Benefits of Multicultural Efforts
Project Leader: Janet Shope
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$25,000 over 12 months. Building on past cooperative efforts to create diverse communities and multicultural programming, Goucher, McDaniel, and Washington Colleges will design a quantitative and qualitative tool that assesses the efficacy of multicultural efforts. The campuses each articulate this goal, in some form, in their mission statement, strategic plan, or general education requirement. Led by a facilitator, faculty members, assessment officers, student life administrators and students will meet to learn more about the assessment of multicultural endeavors and discuss how to measure effectiveness in this area. Based on the information gained through these two efforts, they will create an assessment process involving a formative and summative portfolio informed by qualitative and quantitative responses; a longitudinal study that examines student outcomes over time; and the addition of specific questions to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)—which all three institutions use—to gain some common data. Each campus will also conduct activities appropriate for their communities, for example, study circles, workshops, brown-bag lunches, and lecture-discussions. Through this work, the collaborative hopes to shed new light on the design and implementation of assessment strategies for multiculturalism at the partner colleges and at liberal arts colleges more generally. |
Developing Collaborations to Assess and Improve Community-Based Learning within the Tri-College Consortium
Project Leader: Kaye Edwards
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$25,000 over 12 months. These three colleges propose to refine and develop tools to evaluate community-based learning at each campus: community partnerships developed through Bryn Mawr's Civic Engagement Office; the summer internship program of the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at Haverford; and academic courses designed in collaboration with Swarthmore's Lang Center. A survey of pre-existing assessment instruments-Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), Reasoning about Current Issues (RCI), and College Senior Survey (CSS)-will form the basis for further work. Project leaders will also identify additional assessment tools already in use on each campus. Faculty members, institutional research officers, and staff will undertake meetings, discussions, and research opportunities to identify areas of cross-campus evaluation, to discover and adapt assessment tools, to perform assessment of each program's components, and to share strengths and weaknesses of the tools and programs. The project promises to help model community-based learning assessment in the context of a richly articulated suite of programs within a liberal arts environment. The educational opportunities that such centers at these colleges make possible and available to students are becoming increasingly important as institutions of higher education seek to build stronger links to communities in which they reside, and to restructure their learning environments in relation to an increasingly global society. |
From the Ancillary to the Embedded: Assessing Student Engaged Learning and Curricular Centrality
Project Leader: Robert Entzminger
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$25,000 over 12 months. Hendrix College, Birmingham Southern College, Millsaps College, and Southwestern University will explore how colleges can accurately assess and assign value to students' engaged learning, that is, learning that brings critical thought into action. Such learning, the institutions argue, leads students—guided by faculty—to reflect on what they do, ultimately enhancing their capacity for analytical and critical thought, for problem solving, and for communicating this action to the broader public. Two working sessions, both led by national assessment authorities, will anchor the project. At the first meeting, institutions will share existing data, discuss how best to understand what the data say about the relationship between their academic curriculum and engaged learning initiatives, and determine next steps (either more data gathering or more intense study of current data). The second meeting will focus on a discussion of how institutions can apply the data they have gathered. At this session, they would also like to develop a pilot instrument to measure the effectiveness of programs that make engaged learning central to students' academic work, as opposed to those that consider it ancillary to the curriculum, as well as to assess one component of engaged learning, perhaps internships. |
College/Community Partnerships Consortium: A Planning Grant to Explore Systematic Assessment of the Impact of Community Partnerships on Student Civic Engagement and Learning
Project Leader: Suzanne Bonefas
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$25,000 over 12 months. Rhodes College, Franklin & Marshall College, and Niagara University share a commitment to college-community partnerships that are genuinely reciprocal and fundamentally linked to students' educational experiences. Building on this mutual understanding, they seek to assess the value added that involvement in such partnerships has for student learning outcomes. The group will begin with an inventory of similarities and differences in members' approaches to college-community partnerships, and will go on to develop a plan for assessing their programs, focusing especially on the roles of students, faculty and community partners in achieving success in community-based programs. They will read in the relevant literature, and ask questions about specific outcomes to assess; about how assessment of civic engagement integrates with assessment of curricular and classroom learning assessment; about how the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) and other assessment measure might inform their work; and more. Working in consultation with the group as a whole, each campus will develop and then implement a preliminary assessment plan. Project leaders will meet to analyze results and prepare for a second cycle of work. As the work goes forward, the collaborative hopes to engage other partner institutions. |
Connecting Assessment Data to Institutional Change: Using Findings from National Assessment to Inform Pedagogy and Decision Making for Better Learning Outcomes
Project Leader: Sonia Gonsalves
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$24,993 over 12 months. These three New Jersey institutions will undertake a collaborative study to develop both a rationale for, and an appropriate means of using standardized assessment data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) to improve the practice of teaching and its impact on students' learning in the liberal arts and sciences. More specifically, the project aims to assess students' critical thinking, analytic reasoning, written communication and problem solving abilities; to identify areas needing improvement; to examine and share practices for changes in instructional focus in general or for specific groups of students through the curriculum; to plan ways to use the data to guide institutional improvement. Campus teams of 5-6 faculty will comprise the core planning group. They will develop a systematic method of analysis which combines the data from NSSE and CLA in a process of convergent validation; that is, they will group together those NSSE questions that relate to primary learning outcomes targeted by the CLA (critical thinking, analytic reasoning, written communication, and problem solving) to uncover any relationship between students' reports of instructional and co-curricular experiences (as gauged by NSSE) and their performance on the CLA in these areas. Both tests will be administered to freshmen and seniors. Focus groups with students who have taken the tests will provide further information about the testing process (how students approached it possible sources of ambiguity and other error variables and so on), while focus groups with faculty will help determine how the data—and analysis of the data—can be used to modify instruction in order to enhance student learning. The use of these direct and indirect assessment data will enrich understanding of the gains that students make in these areas and will be the basis for a continuing dialogue about outcomes, instruction, and co-curricular opportunities offered by the colleges. |
A Discourse Approach to Assessment at the Departmental and University Levels
Project Leader: John Bean
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$25,000 over 12 months. Building on recent work these peer Jesuit institutions have done together on assessment, Seattle and Gonzaga Universities propose to assess disciplinary outcomes for given majors and mission-related outcomes beyond the major, such as commitment to social justice. The partners will undertake a "discourse approach" in this project, applying rubrics (that can identify patterns of strength and weakness in student performance across specified criteria) to grade a selection of "course-embedded" assignments, and then using these findings to fuel faculty discussion about how changes in course design, assignments, or instructional methods might lead to the amelioration of weakness. They will embark on a two-part plan:
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Assessing the Impact of Diversity Courses on Student Learning and Skill Development
Project Leader: Darnell Cole
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$24,998 over 12 months. The contemporary liberal arts curriculum requires students to study difference—between peoples of different races, sexes, religions, abilities, sexual orientations, and so on—with the expectation that their study will improve both students' respect for those different from themselves, as well as their cognitive skills. But does this really happen? How can learning outcomes related to students' experience in diversity courses be determined given that: 1) students generally enroll in only 1 course to meet the requirement; 2) students can choose from a variety of "diversity" courses; 3) multiple instructors deliver these courses; and 4) students can fulfill the requirement at any point during their undergraduate career? Researchers at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education propose to design the measures and methodology that would address these questions for the 16,500 undergraduates at a large private university which has over 100 specified courses that can meet the requirement. They will begin by consulting with faculty on how they define and/or delimit what is and what is not a diversity course and what they articulate as the learning outcomes one should expect from these courses; identifying all active courses meeting the diversity requirement and analyzing the syllabi to generate a rubric for sorting courses by common characteristics. The project team will also consult with outside experts, including researchers at the Council for Aid to Education who will help them explore how the Collegiate Learning Assessment might be adapted to this project. USC plans to produce a White Paper that will be useful to institutions seeking more clarity about the diversity requirements on their own campuses. |
Diversity of Thought, Diversity in Practice: Assessing Student Learning and Engagement
Project Leader: Judtih Levy
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$24,990 over 12 months. Like many liberal arts colleges, Ursinus and Washington & Jefferson Colleges see the integration of students' classroom learning with their everyday lives as a key indicator of a successful liberal education. They wish to assess the extent to which this occurs on their campuses and propose to anchor their study in issues related to diversity because of its relevance to both colleges' missions. The collaborative will begin by gathering this data (for example, about courses taught, diversity surveys completed, and student behavior) and consulting with various on-campus groups. They will meet to share best practices, as well as current strategies and results, to establish a common base from which to plan steps forward. A consultant will help hone focus on those approaches to diversity that the colleges will assess, especially with regard to their effectiveness in affecting student behavior beyond the classroom. A second gathering will convene administrators, faculty, students, and an assessment consultant to help generate ideas for an improved assessment strategy. The remainder of the project will be spent crafting the actual strategy. |
May 2006 (Round 2)
Implementation Grants
Agnes Scott College, Converse College, University of North Carolina - Asheville, and Wofford CollegeImproving and Assessing Integrative Learning Experiences | Project website
Project Leader: James Diedrick
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$300,000 over 36 months. The collaborative will develop and implement a three-year project designed to measure student learning outcomes—critical thinking and writing skills, creativity, collaborative abilities, and ethical judgment—as they emerge through integrative learning experiences in the first year. Evidence from within and beyond the collaborative supports the premise that integrative experiences—those experiences that help students integrate discrete parts of their education—provide an important component of the "value added" of a liberal arts education. Building on this research, these four schools will evaluate the degree to which integrative experience programs produce gains in student learning outcomes. The collaborative will assess student learning outcomes through both quantitative and qualitative means. In addition to using national assessment instruments—the Cooperative Institutional Research Project (CIRP), Your First College Year (YFCY), and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)—each institution will develop a targeted assessment of its integrative experience programs. Agnes Scott will evaluate the benefits of linking first-year seminars to living and learning communities; Converse College will analyze the impact of its new leadership and learning initiative (a partnership between academic and student affairs); University of North Carolina - Asheville will assess the impact of integrative academic experiences on student learning in its Liberal Students Introductory Colloquium; and Wofford College will focus on the impact of its Learning Communities that link laboratory science courses for non-science majors and freshman humanities seminars. |
Assessing the Value Added to Liberal Education by Academic Majors | Project website
Project Leader: Marion Field Fass
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$297,109 over 36 months. These four colleges will examine the complementary relationship between general education and the major by (1) assessing how general education goals—critical thinking, civic engagement, and quantitative reasoning—are enhanced by coursework and advising in selected majors; (2) identifying strategies for using the information collected to improve student learning and realize liberal education goals. The project will begin with reviewing and comparing campus-wide data routinely collected using national assessment instruments, and with the administration of the Collegiate Learning Assessment in order to generate a benchmark for students' overall critical thinking skills. The collaborative will then focus on four departments at each campus to:
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Creativity and Critical Thinking: Assessing the Foundations of a Liberal Arts Education | Project website
Project Leader: Iain Crawford
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$297,353 over 36 months. The Five Colleges of Ohio will undertake a three-year project to assess student growth in the areas of creativity and critical thinking. Using Primary Trait Analysis (PTA), a methodology that identifies behaviors and attitudes associated with specific learning outcomes, the group will develop validate and implement rubrics (scoring scales) for assessing creativity and critical thinking at all levels of the curriculum, longitudinally, and in various disciplines. The first year of the project will be devoted to research and rubric design, beginning with a fall 2006 meeting of the faculty working group. In the second year, faculty members—both those in the working group and others who are teaching courses at various levels of the curriculum—will meet on their respective campuses to calibrate the rubrics for use during the 2007-08 academic year. Results from the use of the rubrics will be evaluated with the help of an assessment expert, and the rubrics will be revised and more widely implemented in the third year of the project. In addition, the faculty working group will work with an assessment expert to produce student surveys for use in classes and focus groups to evaluate student definitions of creativity and critical thinking. The outcome of this project will be rubrics that can be used with confidence to assess creativity and critical thinking, and to provide an initial understanding of how student definitions of these two attributes change as a result of their academic experiences. |
Value-Added Assessment of Programs of Intense Student-Faculty Interaction: Developing Intentional Learners | Project website
Project Leader: Curt Keim
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$300,000 over 36 months. Bringing together five private liberal arts colleges and universities, the collaborative will explore whether and how selected programs foster both program-specific goals and the broader liberal arts goal of educating students to be active and intentional learners, able to integrate disparate kinds of information in different contexts for different purposes. Collectively and separately, the institutions will develop tools to assess various programs of intense student-faculty interaction: first-year seminars (Drew), lower- and upper-level writing-intensive courses (Moravian), capstone courses and student-faculty research (Muhlenberg), freshman orientation and first-year seminar (Roanoke), and first-year core and senior capstone courses (Susquehanna). Using national and local surveys, direct assessment of student work, and focus groups, the collaborative will develop assessment protocols compatible with the personal, student-oriented environment of the liberal arts college. |
Assessing Classmate Peer Effects on Student Learning: Statistical and Qualitative Evidence for Gateway Courses at Three Liberal Arts Colleges | Project website
Project Leader: Jeffrey Parker
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$292,218 over 30 months. These three colleges will conduct a study of classroom peer effects in required courses for first-year students with the aim of gaining a fuller understanding of the degree to which students are helped—or hindered—by the composition of their classes. Beginning with a quantitative regression analysis of student data (from 1990 to 2000, the most recent cohorts for which students will have completed their undergraduate careers), the collaborative will identify student characteristics linked—in a statistically significant way—with better or worse academic outcomes. These results will be combined—and contextualized—with qualitative evidence gathered from interviews with course instructors. Following two years of analysis, Reed will host a symposium to detail project findings and to spur discussion about the degree to which colleges may improve student performance by adjusting class enrollments. |
May 2005 (Round 1)
Implementation Grants
Augustana College, Alma College, Gustavus Adolphus College, Illinois Wesleyan University, Luther College, and Wittenberg UniversityMeasuring Intellectual Development and Civic Engagement through Value-Added Assessment
Project Leader: Jeff Abernathy
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$300,000 over 36 months. As selective liberal arts colleges, the collaborating institutions assert that their coursework and co-curricular opportunities help students develop fundamental thinking and communication skills as well as an openness and flexibility of mind that contribute to greater awareness of and participation in the community. The proposed research project seeks to detail more precisely the relationship of students' intellectual growth—measured in terms of two skills central to a liberal arts education, writing and critical-thinking—and students' growth in civic engagement. The study aims to create an empirically based model of civic engagement, by exploring whether such factors as lowered materialism actually correlate with greater civic participation; by tracking actual participation of students and alumni; and by identifying college experiences that lead to greatest improvement. This research will require direct assessment of student work by faculty from the participating consortium schools. Through this collaborative, these six colleges will gain a better understanding of their students' level of achievement as they learn more of best practices in student learning and its assessment for their institutions. |
Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Middlebury College, Smith College, Trinity College, Wellesley College, and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges
Assessment of Educational Practices and Student Learning in Selective Liberal Arts Colleges
Project Leader: Jill Reich
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$300,000 over 36 months. Seven highly selective liberal arts colleges and a regional accrediting agency will undertake a collaborative project that enables faculty to compare the ways that students make key educational decisions, engage the curriculum, and learn. To produce the data, which build upon an earlier pilot study, the colleges will investigate student learning at points when students make choices that influence the scope and quality of their education as well as prepare them for what they do when they graduate. Their experience indicates that data about student learning, especially when it contains comparative information, motivates broad interest among our constituencies. The study is greatly enriched by the number and range of institutions that are taking part. They plan to use the data gathered at each step of the project to reflect back to faculty information about student experiences at their own colleges and at others as part of a continuing faculty development effort. The intense faculty exchange that marks this project will increase both the value and the vibrancy of the work and strengthen the nature of the unique student learning experiences they provide. The proposed study also continues the foundation for future research collaboration among the colleges. |
Carleton College, Grinnell College, Macalester College, and St. Olaf College
Collaborative Assessment for Liberal Learning
Project Leader: Liz Ciner
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$300,000 over 36 months. The "Collaborative Assessment for Liberal Learning" (CALL) project will focus on four learning outcomes, with each institution taking the lead on one of the four: effective writing (Carleton), analytical reasoning (Macalester), critical thinking (St. Olaf), and global understanding (Grinnell). Each of these outcomes is central to the institutional values and missions of the colleges; each outcome is one the colleges are individually and collectively interested in; each outcome is the focus of an assessment initiative currently underway or in the process of development. The project aims for two complementary goals. The first is to examine a wide variety of assessment approaches, determine their feasibility for use at small liberal arts colleges, and evaluate their effectiveness in providing data that can help the consortium colleges identify and sustain what they do well and improve what they need to do better. The second is to continue the work of making assessment part of the ongoing work of the colleges as they endeavor to improve teaching and learning in the liberal arts. |
Furman University, Austin College, Juniata College, and Washington and Lee University
Value-Added Assessment of Student Learning in the Liberal Arts: Assessing the Impact of Engaged Learning
Project Leader: Bill Berg
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$300,000 over 36 months. The collaborative aims to develop assessment methods that will provide a rich source of insight into the mechanics of student instruction and motivation at the level of the small liberal arts college. The project will begin with sharing information gleaned from all four institutions' use of the National Survey of Student Engagement and the Collegiate Learning Assessment instruments. Moving into the heart of the project, each school will take the lead in developing and implementing assessment efforts in one of four major areas: undergraduate research (Furman), study abroad (Austin, in consultation with the Associated Colleges of the South), ethics (Washington & Lee), and collaborative learning (Juniata). Through this collaboration, the colleges aim to go beyond what can be learned by NSSE and CLA alone; while such instruments are integral parts of any assessment, they cannot capture the diverse and creative programs that evolve at individual campuses. Nor do such instruments offer critiques as to the effectiveness of specific programs. Sharing strategies for program assessment along with results measurement among the participating institutions provides such an opportunity. |
Hampshire College, Allegheny College, Bard College, Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College, Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Hope College, and Vassar College
Improving Teaching and Learning in the Liberal Arts
Project Leader: Steve Weisler
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$300,000 over 36 months. The institutions propose a three-year collaboration to develop three assessment projects that have great significance for their institutions and for liberal arts colleges and educators nationally: (1) a comparative and longitudinal assessment of the development of student writing and other foundational skills; (2) the creation, guided by a committee of faculty and administrators from all the consortium member campuses, of a "common data set" that can be used to inform the improvement of teaching and learning on all campuses; and (3) a series of consultancies and meetings designed to integrate assessment efforts and practices at all levels of an institution (e.g., courses, departments, co-curricular, broader institutional goals, objectives, and outcomes). Through this consortium, the colleges intend to better identify the connections between engagement and learning, and to increase the use of assessment data by both faculty and administrators to improve academic programs and learning outcomes. |
Kalamazoo College, Colorado College, and Earlham College
A Catalyst for Cognizance and Change | Project website
Project Leader: Paul Sotherland
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$300,000 over 48 months. The collaborative will carry out a project combining quantitative and qualitative means of gathering data and stories that will provide the evidence for the assertions about student outcomes and help to improve and sustain an interrogative approach to shaping the curricula through which students become educated. The collaborative will collectively administer the Cooperative Institutional Research Project (CIRP) Survey, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), and the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) instrument, as well as hold student focus groups and annual summer data sharing conversations to assess the value added by these institutions to their students' intellectual and personal growth. Advantages of this particular collaborative lie in a combination of similar educational programs, distinctive approaches to carrying out those programs, and congenial relationships among members of the core working group. Each of the colleges has a strong independent streak: Colorado's adventurous spirit and unique learning opportunities of the Block Plan; Earlham's Quaker traditions, which guide the institution and uphold the pursuit of truth; and Kalamazoo's K-Plan, through which more than 80% of students study abroad and all students complete a senior individualized project. Students at all three institutions become educated in deep and broad liberal arts curricula, are encouraged to study abroad and engage with their local community and, through those experiences, develop a lifelong love of learning, intercultural understanding, and social responsibility. Their distinct academic calendars, unique histories and organizational sagas, and different types of students of similar abilities will allow for interesting and helpful inter-institutional comparisons that will help each of the institutions to apply best practices. Click here for an interview with principal investigator Paul Sotherland. |
First-Step Grants
Beloit College, Knox College, Lake Forest College, Monmouth College, and Ripon CollegeProject Leader: Marion Fass
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$25,000 over 12 months. The collaborative will develop strategies for faculty-driven assessment of liberal education that rest primarily on course assessment, seeking to preserve pedagogical autonomy as a building-block of an effective assessment program while taking into account the programmatic context in which courses are offered. In fall 2005, the collaborative will convene expert consultants and faculty and administrators from each institution for a workshop that will sharpen their project objectives, focus, and language, enabling them to develop a stronger assessment program. The project is guided by the following objectives:
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Bethel University, Asbury College, Gordon College, Greenville College, Houghton College, Mount Vernon Nazarene College, and Northwestern College
Project Leader: Richard Sherry
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$25,000 over 12 months. The collaborative will meet at Bethel for a three-day workshop in August 2005 to review member institutions' general education practices and approaches to assessment. Discussion will focus on shared project goals and possible targets for success, and the group will also approve activities and responsibilities for the upcoming year's work, which will be conducted through research pairings or partnerships within the collaborative. Possibilities for embedding assessment activities within normal campus activities—with the intention of increasing their cost-effectiveness and ensuring their sustainability—will also be considered. The collaborative will meet again for two days in January 2006 to discuss the results of the first semester's work. |
The College of Wooster, Denison University, Kenyon College, Oberlin College, and Ohio Wesleyan University
Project Leader: Iain Crawford
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$25,000 over 12 months. A year-long program entitled Introducing Value Added Assessment will have as key elements the hiring of an assessment expert to work as a consortial consultant and workshop coordinator, and the convening of two assessment workshops in 2005-2006. The first workshop will bring together faculty and administrators from the five institutions to:
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Moravian College, Drew University, Lafayette College, Muhlenberg College, Roanoke College, and Susquehanna University
Project Leader: Curt Keim
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$25,000 over 12 months. The collaborative will develop interactive assessment expertise (ie. a category of assessment methods that emphasizes face-to-face interactions between investigators and students) and delineate specific questions that participating institutions wish to answer through value added assessment. To this end, Moravian College will host a conference for member institutions on methodologies in value added assessment. Participants will read works on value added assessment and interactive assessment that will help the collaborative think about how their project might add to the methodologies and knowledge that already exist. The collaborative will also engage an assessment consultant who will help the campuses devise the methodologies and questions that will allow them to assess programs of intense student-faculty interaction. The expected result is a proposal for funds to implement the plans formulated over this year. |
Wofford College, Agnes Scott College, Converse College, and the University of North Carolina at Asheville
Project Leader: Ellen Goldey
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$25,000 over 12 months. The collaborative will explore and utilize methods for assessing institutional creativity, paying close attention to an institution's qualitative features that add value to a liberal education. While national rankings are based largely on quantitative information (SAT scores, selectivity, etc.), the collaborative argues that an institution's culture of creativity is just as important in maximizing desirable outcomes for students and faculty members. Characteristics of institutional creativity to evaluate are:
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