Our Journey Toward Faculty and Student Ownership of GE Assessment

1. Our Journey Toward Faculty and Student Ownership of GE Assessment WASC ARC 2014

2. Pepperdine University Demographics • Seaver College (Undergraduate) • 43 majors • 8 academic divisions • 128 units to graduate • 42% of students are out-of-state • General Education Program • 63-64 units • International Programs • 7 campuses • over 60% of students participate

3. Where the Journey Started • WASC visit September 2012 • AAC&U Institute on GE Assessment June 2013 Burlington, Vermont • Do not plan to revise the GE Curriculum • Do plan to develop an effective Assessment Plan

4. Where We Are • Consensus Building and Implementation of Assessment • Developing a faculty-driven assessment plan for our GE Curriculum • Envisioning an even more effective GE assessment program after learning assessment practices at other institutions • Project Goals • Assistance with the assessment of: • Core Competencies • GE Requirements which involve more than one discipline • Sequential, stand-alone GE Requirements • Four Semester Programs • GE and the International Programs • Junior Writing Portfolio • Profile • Seaver College • Located in Malibu, CA • Liberal Arts College • 3,000 + students • 43 Bachelor’s Degrees • 8 Master’s Degrees • 58% Residential Students • How We Can Help • Our Areas of Expertise • Team Building • Faculty Development Programs in Assessment We want to do a better job of what we’re doing! Brad Griffin Associate Professor Theatre Thomas Reilly Associate Professor Asian History Garrett Pendergraft Assistant Professor Philosophy Julianne Smith Associate Professor English Constance Fulmer Associate Dean Teaching and Assessment Candice Ortbals Associate Professor Political Science

5. GELI Team MembersVermont Team Constance Fulmer, Associate Dean of Teaching and Assessment Candice Ortbals, Associate Professor of Political ScienceGarrett Pendergraft, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Tom Reilly, Associate Professor of Asian History Julie Smith, Professor of English

6. Additional GELI Team Members Jenine Clements, Executive Assistant, International Programs Lincoln Hanks, Associate Professor of MusicLoan Kim, Associate Professor of Nutritional Science Melinda Raine, Associate University Librarian Valerie Skinner, Assessment Coordinator Student Members: Thomas Yee, Kelly Okerson, and Shelby McDaniel

7. Conferences Attended by GELI • Critical Thinking and Information Literacy Lila Carlsen Candice Ortbals Melinda Raine Constance Fulmer • Assessment 101 Garrett Pendergraft Julie Smith Connie Fulmer • Quantitative Reasoning Loan Kim Connie Fulmer

8. Conferences Attended by GELI • Meaning, Quality, and Integrity of the Degree Tom Reilly • Assessment Workshop Sponsored by Point Loma Lila Carlsen Julie Smith Connie Fulmer

9. General Education Program • 64 or 65 units required • half of 128 units required for graduation • developed by the faculty in 200-2002 • only minor changes since 2006

10. General Education Program • First-Year Seminar • English Composition • Junior Writing Portfolio • Writing-Intensive Requirement • Speech and Rhetoric • Research Methods/ Presentation Skills • Mathematics • Foreign Language • Christianity and Culture • Western Culture • American Experience • Non-Western Cultures • Fine Arts • Literature • Laboratory Science • Human Institutions and Behaviors

11. GE at Seaver College Before Vermont • Aligned with University mission: Pepperdine is a Christian university committed to the highest standards of academic excellence and Christian values, where students are strengthened for lives of purpose, service, and leadership.

12. GE at Seaver College Before Vermont • Aligned with Institutional Learning Outcomes. • Scaffolded throughout the students’ four years at Seaver—including upper division courses. • Addressed diversity in all courses; however, the American Experience courses were designated “diversity” courses.

13. GE at Seaver College Before Vermont • Focused on the Core Competencies: Writing: Freshman Composition or other First-Year Writing Courses, Junior Writing Portfolio, and a designated Writing Intensive Course in each major Oral: Communication 180 and a course in each major which focuses on Presentation Skills

14. GE at Seaver College Before Vermont • Focused on the Core Competencies: Quantitative Reasoning: a Mathematics class and a Laboratory Science Information Literacy: First-Year Seminar, First-Year Writing class; First-Year Seminar and a course in each major with an emphasis on Research Methods Critical Thinking:throughout the courses— where our emphasis in assessment is beginning

15. GE After Vermont The faculty in each area of GE were asked to: • rethink their Learning Outcomes; • think about the primary focus of each course; • place the course appropriately on the Venn diagram.

17. Learning Outcomes forKnowledge, Skills, and Perspectives • The student who completes each course that emphasizes knowledge will be able to demonstrate an introductory understanding of a body of knowledge in a specific discipline and of the ways of thinking about that knowledge. This may provide a foundation for future study and/or a framework for relating that body of knowledge to an overall understanding of theoretical and real life issues. • The student who completes each course that emphasizes skills will be able to demonstrate an increased level of competency in evaluating WASC’s core competencies critical thinking, written communication, oral communication, information literacy, quantitative reasoning, and other skills such as moral/ethical responsibility, acquiring language skills, or appreciating artistic, musical, or theatrical performance. • The student who completes each course that emphasizes perspectives will be able to demonstrate habits of mind characterized by open-mindedness and empathy toward local and global communities through a transformed awareness of self and others.

18. The Initial Placements • Knowledge, Skills, and Perspectives First-year Seminar (primarily skills) Religion 101 and 102 (primarily knowledge) Religion 301 (primarily skills) Literature courses (primarily knowledge) Western Heritage

19. The Initial Placements Knowledge Fine Arts (also skills)Laboratory Sciences (also skills) History (also skills and perspectives) Sociology Psychology

20. The Initial Placements Skills Economics (quantitative reasoning) Composition (writing) Speech (oral communication) Mathematics (quantitative reasoning) Foreign Languages (writing and oral) French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek

21. The Initial Placements Perspectives Non-Western Cultures Political Science

22. Emphasis on Critical Thinking • Each area of GE will complete an assessment of Critical Thinking by May 15, 2014. • Each major will complete an assessment of Critical Thinking by May 15, 2014.

23. Assessment of Critical Thinking To encourage the assessment of Critical Thinking, the GELI team offered two workshops: For those assessing GE on November 20, 2014, attended by 28 faculty members For those assessing the majors on January 29, 2014, attended by 31 faculty members

24. Assessment of Critical Thinking • State the definition of Critical Thinking which applies to your GE area or use this definition: Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive analysis and evaluation of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events for or against a claim or point of view. • Collect data from an appropriate assignments and assess it using an adaptation of the AAC&U VALUE Rubric for Critical Thinking. • Describe the process you used to establish inter-rater reliability. 4. Be sure to include students in the assessment process and three or more faculty members.

25. What next? • Develop an assessment plan for each area—knowledge, skills, and perspectives. • Assess each of the five Core Competencies

26. What next? • Consider a way of assessing the role that co-curricular activities play in enriching the GE curriculum. • Consider a way of assessing the role that high impact activities have in enriching the GE curriculum.

27. What next? • Make sure the assessment of summer courses is consistent with the assessment of traditional semester-long classes

28. What next? • Make sure the assessment of GE courses taught in our International Programs is consistent with the assessment of GE courses taught on campus Buenos Aires, Argentina Florence, Italy Heidelberg, Germany Lausanne, Switzerland London, England Shanghai, China Washington D.C.

29. What next? • Continue to embed Information Literacy into the first-year experience, research intensive classes, and capstone courses. • Create additional online Information Literacy modules. • Assess information literacy via pre- and post-tests, quizzes, bibliographies, and resources used in papers submitted to the Junior Writing Portfolio.

30. Questions?