(Accepted in principle by faculty May 30, 1995)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Institutional Profile. Wittenberg University, founded in 1842, is a selective, undergraduate liberal arts institution of some 2100 students and 150 faculty. It is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ,and is governed by a self- perpetuating Board of Directors. The residential campus is set in 70 rolling acres in the City of Springfield in west-central Ohio.

In recent years Wittenberg gained increased national recognition for its strong academic programs by being included in several prominent guides to competitive colleges, and being granted a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. Wittenberg emphasizes the liberal arts, but offers professional majors in education, management, music and fine arts within the liberal arts context. While requiring students to pursue the highest levels of academic and intellectual achievement, Wittenberg also seeks to develop wholeness of person--academically, socially, spiritually, physically and aesthetically--and encourages curricular and co-curricular programs and experiences toward that end. Every student participates in a 30 hour, self-designed community service project in Springfield. Study abroad, independent study and internships also are emphasized.

The student body is more diverse than that of most liberal arts colleges. Over 50 percent are from outside Ohio, including international students representing more than 40 countries. Some 15 percent of Wittenberg's students are from minority racial and cultural backgrounds. Many religious faiths also are represented. The effect is a multicultural campus environment.

Wittenberg seeks to graduate in four years at least 65 percent of its first year students and to place successfully at least 95 percent of its graduates in graduate or professional schools or in entry-level positions related to their preparation and interest.

The Assessment Plan and Wittenberg's Mission. Wittenberg's goals for student learning flow from its Mission Statement directing the University "to provide a learning environment and a teaching faculty of superior quality committee to liberal arts education and designed to impart knowledge, inspire inquiry, and encourage independent thought so that Wittenberg men and women will live responsibly, think critically, judge rationally, communicate effectively, appreciate the aesthetic, and develop a commitment and enthusiasm for learning that will last throughout their lives."

This August, we move to a semester calendar from the three term academic year we adopted in the mid-1960s. We have used calendar change as an opportunity to introduce a new learning goal based curriculum. The connection between the mission statement and our new general education program is evident in the program's 1) foundational goals in writing, mathematics, foreign language, speaking, research and computing; in 2) its arts and sciences goals of: integrated learning; the diversity of human experience; the natural world; social institutions, processes and behavior; fine, performing and literary arts; religious and philosophical inquiry; western historical perspectives and non-western cultures; and 3) in its co-curricular goals for physical activity and community service. Departmental mission statements and learning goals for majors also explicitly demonstrate their link to the University mission statement.

Concern for assessment has been an integral part of curriculum change from the outset. Our assessment plan has been developed to enable us to know how well Wittenberg students are meeting the institutional expectations for their academic achievement articulated in these learning goals. The plan calls for measures designed to assess systematically each general education and department learning goal.

Faculty Participation in the Development of the Plan. Wittenberg faculty recognize assessment as an ongoing process and regard this plan as an important step toward imbedding assessment without our academic culture. Faculty members have been involved in the development of this program as participants in planning departmental and interdisciplinary programs learning goals and assessment activities and as designers of general education courses. They also served on Educational Policy Committee general education course review panels and attended learning goals assessment forums convened by the ad hoc committee on assessment. Lastly, faculty have been involved in their corporate governance capacity approving the creation of a permanent committee on assessment, and approving in principle this plan

The Plan and Institutional Improvement. We expect that greater attention to classroom assessment will enable instructors to provide more precise feedback to students regarding their progress toward particular learning goals. End point assessment will enable graduates and faculty to have a clearer sense of their accomplishments and areas where they need to continue to seek improvement. The wide variety of information to be collected and shared through regular reports will facilitate the development of common understandings regarding the accomplishments and needs of our students and academic programs. This, in turn, will provide a firmer foundation for institutional planning. Perhaps most of all the plan promises to be a vehicle for institutional improvement because of the high level of faculty motivation to learn the impact of the heavy investment they have made in creating and implementing the new general education program and revised major curricula. Faculty in cooperation with academic administrators are committed to making these programs successful. Although we believe that our programs are fundamentally sound, the assessment plan will generate the type of feedback enabling both fine-tuning and more substantial revisions to support enhanced student academic achievement.

The Plan's Timeline. Our goal is to have the plan fully operational with the graduation of Class of 1999, the first to complete under new general education program and semester requirements. We believe that this is both realistic and appropriate given the substantial curriculum changes introduced in August, 1995. We already have accomplished the important tasks of formulating and adopting learning goals for general education and for most departments and programs. We also have specified curricular opportunities for students to meet the learning goals. We are now very much engaged in the process of devising and acquiring assessment instruments. We will begin to administer these instruments, collect and analyze data during 1995-1996. Improvements to the educational program flowing from the analyses could begin to appear in 1996-97. However, we recognize that much remains to be done before all parts of the plan are in place.

Administration of the Plan. In January, 1994 the Board of Directors approved President's Kinnison's recommendation to allocate approximately $225,000 over the next three years to support the course development and faculty development necessary to realize the potential of the new general education program. In addition to course development activities which include making specific provision for the assessment of course learning goals, these funds are being used to cover the costs of on-campus workshops in assessment and support faculty attendance at assessment conferences elsewhere. The goal of this support is to help faculty identify, adapt and develop the most promising approaches to assessment of student learning.

The faculty Committee on Assessment, working especially with departments and inter-departmental programs and the Director of General Education, supported by the Provost and her staff, will lead the implementation of the plan. The Committee on Assessment has recommended: 1) that the five-year budget planning process incorporate annual allocations for assessment activities, as specified in the assessment plan, and for continuing faculty development in assessment; and 2) that the University appoint a qualified person to be responsible for institutional research as a significant portion of the position assignment and that the appointment be accompanied by allocations of appropriate equipment and reasonable office budget. It is understood that much of this person's energy would be devoted to assisting in the collection of data and conducting analyses in support of assessment.

INTRODUCTION

Assessment and Institutional Change. Our assessment plan develops in an environment of change. In September 1995, we move to a semester calendar from the three term academic year we adopted in the mid-1960s. We have used calendar change as an opportunity to introduce a new learning goal based curriculum. All departments and interdisciplinary programs reviewed and revised their majors and minors with reference to mission statements and learning goals, and the faculty has instituted a general education program that is organized around learning goals, replacing a long-standing cafeteria plan which called for students simply to select courses from departmental groupings. Departments explicitly will share with the general education program responsibility for assisting students to meet foundational learning goals.

Concern for assessment has been an integral part of these changes. The Institutional Requirements Committee, which developed the new general education program, recognized this in its report to the Faculty stating: "The plan [for general education] states explicitly our general education learning goals and the ways these goals are realized through requirements, which in turn clarify our purposes and make assessment possible." The Faculty's Committee on Educational Policies asked departments to be attentive to assessment and the need to develop and use methods enabling them to determine the degree to which students in their program were meeting the goals posited for them as well as meeting the general education goals for which departments share responsibility. The Committee also asked faculty members submitting proposed general education courses to indicate how, for each course, they planned to assess student learning of the particular general education learning goals addressed in the course. The Plan described here, then, is an outgrowth of initiatives which have been underway since the Institutional Requirements Committee convened in 1992.