Notes from Kay Hegler
Notes from Kay Hegler
AAC& U General Education and Assessment Conference
March 3 – 5, 2011 Chicago, The Westin, 909 North Michigan
Thursday, 3 March, 7:00 PM Keynote Address Reframing General Education
Panelists: Ramón Gutiérrez, Gail Mellow, Carol Geary Schneider.
General Education is the signature program of a campus. LEAP – essential learning outcomes from Liberal Education and America’s Progress
Big Issues in Assessment
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Percent of students at community colleges when general education is integrated with technical programs
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Identification of the purpose of a college education. What should higher education cost?
What do we eliminated from college if we move to a three year bachelor degree program? In what ways does general education duplicate high school? How can we support students of color and diverse students who fail to learn in general education?
How do institutions support faculty morale?
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How do we change the efficiency of degree completion? In what ways should we consider a national credit bank for individual student credit production eventually leading to a degree in 3, 4, or 6 years?
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How do we reframe general education for quality in redesign?
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How does the academy create a vertical integration of general education from cornerstone to capstone with clarity of learning outcomes?
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In what ways can an electronic portfolio document a degree qualification profile?
For one institution, the eportfolio created a sacred space for individual reflection.
Assessment is embedded in the work of faculty.
High impact practices include learning communities, service learning, first-year experiences, first-year courses, capstone courses, and assessment.
Reference to Our Underachieving Colleges published in 2006.
Recommendation for intentional pairing of courses for interdisciplinary learning (nursing and philosophy).
We need to push faculty to engage in P-12 schools, and to teach the students we really get in college.♥ www.AAC&U/LEAP/TheEconomicCaseforEducation .

Notes from Kay Hegler
Friday March 4, 8:00 – 9:00
Concurrent Session 2 Fulbright Scholars’ Perspectives on Developing General Education –
A Report of the Fulbright Hong Kong General Education Initiative
Panelists: Joseph Chaney, Janel Curry, Hedley Freake, David Pong
These four faculty were in the first cohort of the three. They described the events of their year in
Hong Kong with the transition from three years to four years for bachelor degree with additional interdisciplinary work in general education. Each of the eight public Hong Kong institutions has developed common syllabi for general education courses. Faculty are paid $20,000 for course development. Courses are not owned by faculty and are reviewed for committee approval each three years. The government provides strong support. Faculty focus on outcomes based learning.
Each course has student review; faculty are motivated to get positive reviews. All faculty are required to post Power Point slide sets for each class meeting. Faculty presenting workshops must also post slide sets. Students may skip class and memorize from slide sets to pass a class.
9:15 – 10:15 Plenary Session
Investing in Quality , Speaker Ann S. Ferren
Go to AAU& C for slide set from this presentation. ♥
Aligning institutional resources, intentionality about beginning, middle and end of the college experience, Use of portfolios with mapping and linkages to other courses.
Course Design
Curricular Redesign
Using Evidence to Evaluate Cost Benefits and Alternatives
Linking Curricular and CoCurricular
10:45 – Noon Concurrent Session 16 Fostering Faculty Ownership of General Education
Assessment Jo Beld and David Booth, St. Olaf
Assessment = Inquiry in Support of Student Learning
Four year cycle for Assessment♥
First year – General Education
Second year – Academic Major Programs

Notes from Kay Hegler
Third year – Other Academic Programs (At Doane these might be Liberal Arts Seminar,
Interterm, First Year Advisor, DLC and DSS, what else?)
Fourth year – Year of reflection on all data
Assessment activity is noted in PTR work
Work to develop a climate of understanding purpose of assessment on campus
See copy of Instructor’s General Education Course Assessment Report – draft 3 March 2011. ♥
12:15 – 2:00 Luncheon Address E-Portfolios and the Problem of Learning in the “Post-
Course” Era by Randall Bass
Value of embedding high impact practices into our courses♥
Designing linkages between curricular and cocurricular experiences for student learning
2:15 – 3:30 Meeting the Needs of High-Risk Students through General Education Reform:
The Decanal Role (decanal is adjective form of dean) Elizabeth Child, Dean, Angela
Lanier, Reading Specialist from Trinity Washington University
Trinity treats all students as though they are at-risk. Trinity uses the AcuPlacer as an assessment for entering skill level. All students take one course with their advisor during the first year. This results in good connections and on-time registration for the next term. First-year student orientation is a two-day, largely academic experience. Students who do not qualify for collegelevel general education courses take the course with a S for Supplemental in its title.
♥Supplemental courses meet one extra time period per week and earn one additional academic credit. Students who plan to withdraw may have an R entered on the transcript, meaning the student was registered, but did not earn a grade. The R grade does not impact GPA. Students retake the course.
Concurrent Session 36 4:00 – 5:15 Assessing Institutional Assessment: Where Is Your
Campus?
Catherine Wehlburg, Blaise Ferrandino, Edward McNertney, Texas Christian University
This session reviewed three articles about assessment.
The mobius strip was used to visualize transformation from assessment as an add-on responsibility to assessment as an integrated function of teaching.

Notes from Kay Hegler