Snow College General Education Committee
September 24, 2012
In attendance: LaFaun Barnhurst, Richard Squire, Mel Jacobsen,
Rick White (ex officio), Vice President Smith (ex officio), Jeff
Carney (chair)
Richard moved, with Mel Jacobsen seconding, that the minutes of 9.17 be approved.
The motion carried unanimously.
Jeff summarized the work Melanie has completed on her report of last year's writing
assessment. It was noted that the report so far lacks a section describing a plan
for improvements based on the results of the assessment. Jeff was certain that Melanie intended
to add that soon, and indicated that he would remind Melanie to do so. Although appropriate
data has been entered into Trac-Dat, we are still awaiting detailed reports from Math
and Communications.
It was suggested that the writing of assessment reports would be facilitated by a
template that outlines the committee's minimal expectations. The following list of
items represents a partial discussion of such a template. It should be noted that
the list is incomplete and tentative.
1. A narrative describing the assessment process;
2. Whenever possible, a copy of the assessment instrument itself: e.g., an exam, an
essay prompt with grading rubric, instructions for giving a performance.
3. One or more samples of the kind of student work that proved to be helpful to the
assessment process. Note that inferior work might be as helpful as average or superior
work. It is expected that every assessment will be unique.
The GE Committee has been invited to meet with a member of the accreditation team
next week. Rick White and Gary Smith offered a few comments on the kind of discussion
me might expect.
1. When appropriate, we should connect our vision of the GE Program to Core Theme
1: A Tradition of Excellence.
2. We should be prepared to explain the Assessment Schedule. We should be able to
discuss the overall GE Program as well as its more visible parts. Why does it exist
(apart from Regents' mandate)? Why do we have a "cafeteria style" worksheet of courses
to choose from? How does a course qualify to be on the worksheet? What criteria might
cause a course to be dropped from the worksheet? What mechanism would instigate a
drop? Jeff noted that one possible response to a Type 3 question would address the
committee's decision to require all GE courses to instruct students in discipline-specific
reading strategies. This decision was a result of our CAAP assessment in 2010-2011, which
determined that Snow College students' reading scores are remarkably average compared
to students nationwide. Since one of our core themes is excellence, average is not
acceptable. Another response might discuss the creation of the GE Committee itself.
Prior to 2010-2011, it was observed that the Curriculum Committee had not thought
of GE as a program per se, and that outcomes had not been systematically assessed.
Hence, an ad hoc committee was formed in 2010-2011 to study the matter and begin some
sort of assessment process. After a successful year, it was decided to create a standing
committee. A follow-up to that response might note that an AAS committee has now been
formed that will operate in a manner analogous the GE Committee. It is expected that
next week's meeting will continue this discussion.
