Part IV. a: General Education: Plan for Implementing Assessment

Wittenberg's General Education Program comprises sixteen learning goals divided into three categories: 1. Foundations, 2. Arts and Sciences, and 3. Co-Curricular Activities. The academic catalog and the IRC report (Appendix 1) list these goals. When presenting a course for approval for the general education program, an instructor must demonstrate that the course is designed to satisfy these definitions that the human diversity requirement (see below) is addressed, and that student achievement of the learning goal will be assessed.

Foundations. Figure 2 lists each foundational general education learning goal, the assessment strategies under development for that goal, the faculty bodies and departments undertaking the work, and the deadline for implementing assessment of the goal. (Please see Appendix 3 for a narrative description of our general education assessment plan.) The General Education Advisory Committee and the Assessment Committee will review all assessment strategies before they are implemented.

Arts and Sciences and Co-Curricular Activities. The goals falling under the category "Arts and Sciences" are distributed among the several courses regularly offered in the college. Since the General Education Program's structure is provided by the General Education Learning Goals, not by disciplinary divisions, faculty-wide responsibility for general education program offerings is encouraged and the influence of individual departments diminished. Courses from several disciplines may meet a goal. Thus one can expect to find, for example, that a course from the Religion department might meet the goal described for "Western Historical Perspectives". The focus rests solely upon whether the course fosters students' progress toward a goal. No single department controls a goal: the faculty as a whole has taken responsibility for and ownership of the entire general education program. This is perhaps already evident when one considers the foundations goals met through the major, but the willingness of departments to recognize that undergraduate learning is a trans- and interdisciplinary enterprise is its most dramatic expression. The goals defined as "Integrated Learning" inform the entire structure of the General Education Program.

One goal, however, is common to all courses approved for general education: "Diversity of Human Experience". When instructors present courses for approval for the general education program, they must demonstrate how the course defines and helps students grapple with the diversity of human experience.

Figure 3 lists the arts and sciences and co-curricular general education learning goals, the assessment strategies under development for the goals, the faculty bodies and departments undertaking the work, and the deadline for implementing assessment of the goals. The General Education Advisory Committee and the Assessment Committee will review all assessment strategies before they are implemented.

Figure 4 and Figure 5, respectively, offer a summary statement regarding general education assessment strategies and a timeline for selected general education assessment activities.