Report on AAC&U Conference on Assessing General Education, Miami, FL, Feb 28-Mar 3,
2007
Kenn DeShane
Thanks to Dr. Gebert for providing funds that allowed us to attend this conference. With our
own institution’s general education assessment coming soon, it provided useful information to
prepare us for this enormous task. One criticism of the entire conference is that all participants
and sessions seemed to be emphasizing the faculty’s and university’s roles in student success.
While that is important, more needs to be made of students’ own responsibilities for their
education. Too much hand-holding will ill-prepare students for the real world.
I attended the pre-conference workshop, “Assessing General Education Programs,” hosted by
Mary Allen. Most of the session was a recap of Allen’s book, but she did highlight, in my mind,
the most important elements of this Gen Ed assessment process. First it must be led, managed,
and its success assessed by faculty. This assessment process must be meaningful, manageable,
and sustainable. There should be release time for members of the general education committee
in order to coordinate this enormous task as well as for the course coordinator of the assessment
program in each department. All students and all courses should not be assessed every year so
that faculty don’t get worn down from this extensive process. Faculty buy-in is a must for any
assessment program to be successful.
Next, I attended the keynote address, “General Education: Preparing All Students for Success in
a Global Society,” given by Johnnella Butler. General Education has an opportunity to help
students understand themselves better, as well as others. However, getting in the way is most
students’ opinions that gen ed is something just to “get through.” (Even some faculty advisors
take this attitude.) Gen ed should be seen as a lattice work: interdisciplinarity should be
emphasized, such as in the Raider Learning Communities. For example, science must be
examined to see how it affects humanity. Gen Ed must be related to the “real world” in order to
emphasize to students how it affects them because most students today tune out information that
they don’t perceive to affect them directly. Gen Ed must be engaging because students have an
entertainment concept of life. [I disagree that education should be entertaining because I think
that sets up false expectations in students’ minds for their future careers.] Finally, information
technology must assist us and our teaching rather than become our master.
I attended the plenary session, “Toward Greater Transparency and Accountability in Higher
Education: Strengthening the Quality of Student Learning.” This session highlighted the
recommendations of the Spellings Report on Higher Education and AAC&U’s call for higher
standards. First Carol Geary Schneider, AAC&U President, highlighted that we should not only
find out how many students graduate, but we must also find out how many are “well-prepared”
for “global” success. Students should take classes that expose them to other cultures, learn
foreign languages, and travel to other countries (a great plug for Gen Ed study abroad). Students
should be engaged in examining civic and global problems. University majors need to work with
the Gen Ed program to insure that students master many of the skills that Gen Ed courses help
students begin. Next, Richard Hersh emphasized that we must have proof that students are
learning. There needs to be more transparency in higher education: we must measure outcomes
and make the results public. George Kuhn emphasized that templates for measuring and
assessing must be user friendly. There need to be separate templates for part-time and full-time
students. Graduation rates also are misleading at times because not all students can graduate
even in 6 years, so those students (like many of ours) who sometimes must stretch (because of
career or familial obligations) a college education across 8 or even 10 years are still graduating
and are successful. We need to recognize that.
The next session I attended was “Proven Strategies for Engaging Faculty in General Education.”
This session stressed the importance of a faculty development program and Centers for Teaching
and Learning. [While we do have one, I think most faculty associate it strictly with aiding in the
use of technology in the classroom.] The presenters’ schools in this session hold faculty retreats
to encourage faculty to revamp Gen Ed courses. This suggestion is not really feasible for
MTSU. They pay faculty $250 as remuneration for attending these retreats. They also suggested
implementing a capstone course for each major—something I think our major programs should
consider. They also suggested hosting brown bag sessions to help faculty with buy-in of
assessment. We should endeavor to change the way we think of assessment: it’s an opportunity
rather than an obligation.
I also attended the “Strategies for Assessing Student Learning in General Education” session.
This session emphasized developing rubrics for assessing courses. Claudia Stanny emphasized
embedding assessment within courses and having every department develop a list of student
learning outcomes. She stressed the need to begin with one course per department and then
move to others. One criticism of her presentation was that there were far too many learning
outcomes in the rubrics she presented. It would be very difficult and time consuming to assess
so many.
The next session I attended was “Placing General Education at the Forefront of University Life.”
These presenters were from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, which is an urban university
with many commuters, much like MTSU. Unlike MTSU, however, UW-Parkside faculty were
able to revise and rethink their own Gen Ed program; that caveat greatly improved faculty buy-in
and ownership. These presenters stressed the need for collaboration among faculty. They
removed their freshman seminar program because they felt it wasn’t working, especially with
their large number of off-campus and part-time students. It was more of a burden than a benefit.
I also was present for the plenary session, “What You and Your Institution Can Do to Promote
Student Success.” This session emphasized the results of the DEEP project. The NSSE results of
undergraduate surveys find that students are only studying 13 hours a week, when it’s
recommended that they be studying 20-25. Many students “swirl” their college experience—
taking courses at more than one institution. They don’t discuss their college course material with
professors outside the classroom [I think it’s because they’re working too many hours]. Student
success is tied to their level of engagement in extra-curricular activities. Those institutions who
had higher than expected graduation and retention rates had 1) Living Mission (everyone knows
the mission and has complete buy-in); 2) Unshakeable focus on student learning (know who your
students are and how they learn); 3) Place conscious pedagogy (Bloom where you’re planted
idea). Those institutions that are rural or those that are urban placed emphasis on what they had
not what they didn’t have. Student success is everyone’s business. We should specify path to
student success. What matters most is not necessarily how much money an institution has but
where it’s spent. Make things required for students; otherwise, they won’t do it.
The next session I was a part of was “General Education Institute: Valuing General Education
and Assessment.” This session emphasized the necessity of faculty ownership (again) in the Gen
Ed assessment program. Faculty need to be engaged in various avenues, through brown bag
sessions, through retreats, and through other methods to become a part of the assessment process.
The session involved role playing in identifying important elements that need to be rethought and
revised. Chris Foreman, Gen Ed Director at Eastern Michigan, emphasized the need to provide
faculty release time to conduct the assessment process. Gen Ed assessment and reform ought to
be bottom up—faculty initiated, led and implemented. There ought to be an assessment
coordinator for each department.
I also attended “Adapting General Education Reform to Individual Campus Culture.” This
session emphasized the need to tailor Gen Ed assessment and reform to individual campus needs.
Campuses must be aware of national Gen Ed trends, establish a realistic timeline for reform and
assessment, communicate clearly in all steps of the process, respect the faculty governance
process, and engage all levels of a campus community: administration, faculty, staff, and
students. They emphasized that the committee assigned to coordinate the process cannot
communicate too often with the campus constituencies and ought to receive release time for this
task.
The last session was the final plenary called, “Taking Responsibility for Change on Campus:
What if We Just Stayed Here?” Change is difficult no matter how we do it. We must be
engaged, balanced and integrated in the Gen Ed curriculum. Gen Ed must think beyond
departmental boundaries—it’s a campus-wide concern. There must be accountability and if
colleges & universities don’t do something on their own then something will be done for them.
Some challenges ahead for MTSU are how to move faculty beyond the gripe stage and get them
involved and engaged with a program that is not their own. We need to find ways to facilitate
the process with colleges and departments and help them to see the opportunity in this project.
Since we are a student centered campus, students should be surveyed to find out what they think
about the Gen Ed program and what recommendations they would make. If faculty are hopeful
to change the Gen Ed program then they must understand that this is an opportunity to do so.