February 27, 2004 General Education Assessment Minutes

Room 306, Central Campus

Ric Shrubb, facilitator

Present:

Doug McKay

Ken Holliday

Kathy Daniels

Carol Callahan

Amy Wheeler

George Carver

Dave Nicholas

Jon Davidson

Terry Flum

Susan Peter

Ken Storer

Bill Henry

Denise Decker-Flum

Jeff Foster

Nancy Wolford

Absent:

Bob Headley

Cathy LaParl

Skip Werline

Brian Siemers

Don Storer

Bill Worpenberg

Faculty met in divisions, one hour per division:

Social Science, Fine Arts, HPER 10:00 am

Biology, Chemistry 11:00 am

Math 12:00 noon

English 2:30 pm

As a follow-up to our November 21 assessment meeting, faculty discussed and evaluated the ETS Academic Profile Exam (abbreviated version of the exam). Faculty recommend purchasing 200 copies of the exam for use as a pre- and post-test to measure value added in the general education program. The exam takes forty minutes to administer. Costs for the exam are $375 per year institutional fee, and $13.50 per test. The exam will be administered to incoming freshmen and again to students who have accumulated in excess of 75 credit hours. Scores will be assessed in the aggregate only because the student-specific version of the test takes three hours to administer, and it’s more costly. General Studies decided against administering the test at a mid-point, and also decided against adding any of our own questions to the ETS abbreviated version.

The committee made plans for the next meeting:

1. Ric Shrubb will pass along the recommendation to buy the exam.

2. Faculty will continue to discuss and consider what should be offered in a general studies capstone course.