Assessment Overview

At Albion College, the faculty own assessment. All review of assessment work is conducted by the Committee on Student Learning Outcomes (CSLO).

What is assessment and why does it matter?

Assessment is used to measure student learning, and more broadly, for the College to understand what students are learning because of their engagement in our educational programs.

Assessment allows an understanding of how successfully students are understanding and applying what they are learning and for the College to be able to identify gaps that need to be addressed.

Assessment is needed to improve the educational experience of students and improve student outcomes across the College. Engaging in ongoing assessment helps to improve our delivery of educational programs and services.

What is this initiative?

The College has been working to increase the quality of our assessment work in both curricular and co-curricular programs over the last several years. This is important work to do to understand the complete scope of what students are learning at Albion College.

As part of HLC reaffirmation efforts, the College has committed to implementing a more robust structure for co-curricular assessment.

The College is also engaged as a member of HLC’s assessment academy, a multi-year cohort-based initiative to support institutions in their assessment efforts. The College sent five representatives to the initial convening in June 2023 to begin this work.

Timeline:

Since the spring of 2022, the College has focused on academic departmental assessment, in addition to the ongoing work of general education assessment. In the fall of 2022, the College began work on co-curricular assessment. Co-curricular programs were asked to submit assessment reports in July 2023, which were then reviewed by the Assessment Governance Committee. Feedback was provided on those reports in Fall 2023 to help staff outline assessment plans for the upcoming year. All academic departments and co-curricular programs will submit yearly assessment reports and will receive feedback in a timely manner.

  • Academic Departmental assessment — Year end assessment reports are due June 15th every year.
  • General Education assessment — The general education curriculum is fully assessed every three semesters. The third full round is underway.
  • Co-curricular programs will continue to work on enhancing the quality of their assessment and submit reports to the Committee on Student Learning Outcomes (CSLO) by July 15th every year.

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