General Education Assessment Committee
December 1, 2014
Student Union Building, Room 322
Present: Krista Prock (at-large non-teaching faculty), Mary Eicholtz (at-large teaching faculty), William
Donner (SPRC), Gil Clary (Office of Assessment), Danielle Hendricks (Student Representative), Stephen
Hensler (COB), William Dempsey (Academic Dean).
Absent: Brent Penny (Admin. & Finance), Varsha Pandya (CLAS), Vacant (Gen Ed Committee), George
Sirrakos (COE), Valerie Trollinger (VPA), Kim Shively (at-large teaching faculty), Janice Gasker (atlarge teaching faculty).
Prock called the meeting to order at 2:00 pm.
Minutes: Motion was made to approve the November 17, 2014 Minutes by Eicholtz, seconded by
Hensler. Minutes were approved.
Spring Meeting Times: Prock asked the members to help designate a day and time for the committee’s
spring meetings. Discussion followed. Based on current faculty teaching schedules, it was agreed to
meet on the second Friday of the month at 3 o’clock and the 4th Tuesday of the month at 11 o’clock.
This is subject to change once the final spring teaching schedules are published. The first meeting of the
spring 2015 semester will be on Friday, February 13, 2015. The room location will be advised.
2011-2014 report: Prock reviewed the changes made to the report previously submitted to the
membership for review. Included in the changes were updates to the Year 1, 2 and 3 charts. The Year 3
report will be revised before final submission to agree with the facts and figures contained in this
report. Discussion followed regarding benchmarks and the language used in the discussion of
assessments and throughout the report. It was decided to use the word “expectations” instead of
“benchmarks,” except in the discussion of assessment results. It was thought “benchmarks” was
appropriate there as it had been used in previous reports. The second change would be the addition of
a short paragraph about possible changes to rubrics (reporting template) if only introductory courses
are assessed.
Curriculum Map – general education courses are usually introductory level courses as opposed to
capstone courses. Discussion followed. A sentence will be added about these being suggestions and
definitions for the thematic goals.
General Education Assessors’ Meeting: A meeting is scheduled for December 10th at 10 am in MSU 312
with the previous volunteer assessors, GEAC – current and past members, and the GEC. A short
summary of the compiled report will be sent to the invitees. Other meetings will be held in the spring.
GEAC/GEC: The joint meeting between the GEC and GEAC was successful. The Acting Provost thanked
everyone for their service. He talked about the competencies and their importance. Also discussed was
how the committees can work together, but not as one group. Discussion was held concerning what has
been accomplished during the existence of the committees in the last four years. There was a lot of
discussion about expectations. No future meeting has been set.
Conference in Kansas City: Prock and Patti Derr are presenting about the assessment work and
practices at Kutztown University in Kansas City at the AAC&U annual general education conference.
Spring 2015: Next semester our goals will be to define expectations and gear up for the next year’s
assessment of Goal 1.
GEAC Chair: Prock asked when we will need to elect a chair for the 2015/2016 academic year. Prock
had agreed to act as chair of GEAC for one year only. Discussion followed. The election should occur
before fall 2015 teaching classes are scheduled.
Eicholtz mentioned she participated in two panels at a communicators’ conference about assessment.
She collected some interesting materials from other institutions about the culture of assessment and
their practices and will share those materials and offer a brief report at a future date. Discussion
followed.
Meeting adjourned at 2:40 pm.
/km
12/5/2014