Engaging Departments with Advancing and Assessing Essential Outcomes

With the support of the Teagle Foundation, and as part of its ongoing work in Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP), during 2008 AAC&U was engaged in a year-long planning process to develop a summer institute for campus faculty and department chairs.  The purpose of the Engaging Departments Institute is to support the development of leadership within and across departments for strengthening and assessing students’ liberal learning.

Project Goal and Outcomes

The overarching goal of the planning grant was to develop a summer institute design and content that reflects the needs of campus faculty and departmental chairs as they develop the leadership capabilities for strengthening student learning through the disciplines.

The outcomes of the planning project:

• Faculty members, departmental leaders, and administrators in several key regions of the country were engaged in identifying locally useful priorities for faculty development and educational leadership within and across departments;
• Development of a body of knowledge about the current and ongoing needs of departments in responding to new pressures for student learning accountability;
• A curriculum design for an on-going departmental summer institute that both reflects the types of resources and support faculty need for strengthening and assessing student learning within the discipline, and also focuses on needs related to assessing student learning outcomes across disciplines that meet accreditation expectations.

Project Activities

1. AAC&U sponsored and coordinated four regional soundings of faculty and administrators on the needs of faculty and departments for strengthening student learning and sustaining effective assessment for learning. The soundings were held in April and May 2008, in:
   • Virginia, at the University of Richmond
   • Massachusetts, at Tufts University
   • Wisconsin, at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, hosted by the University of Wisconsin System Administration
   • Oregon, at the University of Oregon, hosted by the Oregon University System
2. Following the regional soundings, AAC&U convened a “design charrette” comprised of invited representatives from the soundings, accreditation organizations, and disciplinary societies to design a curriculum for a summer institute to support departmental work on student learning and assessment.
3. Drawing on the work of the soundings and the charrette, AAC&U formalized the design charrette product into a summer institute for departments, piloted in summer of 2009.