Committee on Undergraduate Education Meeting Minutes 

Called to order by Kathleen Kennedy.

I.            Approval of the minutes

Jeffrey Grimm moved that the minutes be approved.  Tracy Thorndike-Christ seconded.  Motion passed.

II.            Continuing discussion of rubrics
Matt Miller asked how specificity and norming in the rubrics would occur. How will we know faculty in History assess the outcomes the same way faculty in English do?  Steve VanderStaay suggested that specificity in the rubrics and anchor papers can provide this.

The committee then discussed whether a rubric for the outcomes should be created for the CLA and then applied to courses, or created for courses and then applied to the CLA.  The committee determined that it did not have sufficient information about the CLA to answer that question.  VanderStaay will present on the CLA at the next meeting.   

Thorndike-Christ added that we need to have evidence the rubrics can be reliably used across disciplines. This is not norming, she pointed out, but consistency.  Kennedy summarized that we do not need simply to make rubrics, we need a strategy for how to use them.  The committee then discussed when to sample student work with the rubric: at the course level, after two years, or at the senior year.

VanderStaay pointed out that Western has a four year model: we assume students’ general education skills and knowledge improve for four years. In fact, some students wait until the senior year to complete their GURS. Therefore, it is ok to sample at the senior year.

However, Thorndike-Christ asked how we will know what they are learning in the first two years if we only sample in the fourth. What if they are acquiring most of their GUR competencies in the majors? Don’t we need to have some kind of assessment of what is gained in the first two years? Miller agreed: How do we tease apart the value added by the GUR courses and the major courses?

Kennedy said that she feels we must do the sampling at the course level because the workload is more manageable that way. Getting a lot of faculty volunteers to sample one or two outcomes in a course is easier than finding a handful of faculty to assess 100 senior projects.

III.            Calendar

Kennedy asked for a clarification of exactly what we need to accomplish this year.  Committee concluded that it needs:

1)       A strategy for using the CLA in GUR assessment.

2)       A plan for assessing the GUR competencies with student performance.

3)       A plan for improving the GURs based on existing satisfaction data.

Kennedy added that one way to think about this work is to consider first what we need for the accreditation report and then what we want to do that will really improve the GURS.   Carmen Werder wondered whether it would work to sample writing at different levels, say in English 101 and then in the WP courses and then in senior capstones. That way we would be able to see the progression.   Kennedy, summarizing, said it sounds like we need to complete 1 & 2 first.

Miller volunteered to be part of a group to align—or at least to see where there is alignment and where there isn’t alignment between our competencies and the AAC&U rubrics.

Thorndike-Christ pointed out that we will need to see what the products are that might be evaluated.  Elsi Vassdal-Ellis said that she would get more info from her colleagues about possible products. She added that because we have a menu system our program is necessarily more complicated than systems where there is a core set of GUR courses, or a GUR capstone course.

CUE Meeting Calendar Topics

At the November 12, 2009 meeting we can discuss the use of the CLA in GUR assessment and give the rest of the meeting to the course approval process. All GUR courses must be approved by January 28, 2010 so we will begin getting them. We will likely be working with course approval heavily on December 10, 2009 as well.

In February we will need to begin to get the outcome assessment plan and improvement plan defined. Then in April, May and June we can hash out how, ideally, we want to assess and improve the GUR program.   
Kennedy asked that Wendy Knight put this calendar on Blackboard.

Meeting was adjourned.
Minutes submitted by Steven VanderStaay.

SV/wk