Comprehensive Standards: Educational Programs 3.5.1 (general educational assessment)
The institution identifies competencies within the general education core and provides evidence that graduates have attained those college-level competencies.

Compliance
North Carolina State University is in compliance with this standard.

Explanation
NC State University's current undergraduate General Education Requirements (GERs) were formalized in 1992 and implemented campus-wide in 1994.  They have been designed to develop the student's intellectual faculties, critical insight, love of learning, and self-discipline, while expanding the student's knowledge base and promoting ethical participation in society.  The general education requirements feature coursework in the mathematical and natural sciences, the humanities and social sciences, foreign languages, communication and information technology, and physical education, as well as special foci on science, technology and society and writing and speaking.

Oversight and assessment of the GERs is the responsibility of the Council on Undergraduate Education (CUE), the university standing committee that advises on general education policy.  As in many other universities with "smorgasboard" requirements, general education assessment initially relied on results from campus-wide student surveys and on the more localized work of focused programs such as the Campus Writing and Speaking Program, assessment of critical thinking in a variety of Inquiry-Guided Learning projects, and program assessment processes in mathematically-oriented undergraduate programs.

Recognizing the need for assessment that allows faculty teaching GER courses to evaluate and improve those courses as GER courses-as well as to provide greater consistency across courses in the various GER subject categories-CUE has instituted course-based outcomes assessment.  This assessment involves collaboration between the CUE and the faculty teaching GER courses. 

For each GER subject category, CUE has generated general objectives that all courses in that category should meet.  Faculty who teach GER courses create course-specific learning outcomes designed to help students reach the appropriate objectives, and identify specific means of evaluating those outcomes.  Results of these assessments are reported to the program and the university.  This assessment process has been institutionalized in formal university procedures such as the Course Action Form submitted when a new course is proposed and in requirements for syllabi of all GER courses. 

The new process is being piloted in Spring and Fall 2003 with phased implementation beginning in Fall 2003 and full implementation beginning in Fall 2004.

The university also makes use of a variety of student surveys that include questions about students' GER experiences.  Second-term sophomores, graduating seniors, and baccalaureate alumni are surveyed regularly about their educational experience and its contributions to their knowledge, skills, and development.  Departments may request special survey inserts with the graduating-senior and baccalaureate-alumni surveys asking specific questions about the student's college and major program. 

Results from the campus-wide surveys are provided to colleges and academic departments to assist their assessment activities, and campus-wide and college-level results are on a publicly available website.  Many units use these results for program improvement as part of their own assessment processes.

All policies and processes described in this report are applied to on- and off-campus programs, thus both distance education students and their on-campus peers have the same GER.

References

• Campus-wide surveys of sophomores, seniors, and alumni (/UPA/index.htmsurvey/)

• Council on Undergraduate Education (CUE) 2002-03 assessment plan (http://www.ncsu.edu/undergrad_affairs/assessment/files/ger/assess_plan.htm)

• General Education Requirements (http://www.ncsu.edu/provost/academic_programs/ger/)

• Information about the CUE, the university standing committee that advises on general education policy (http://www.ncsu.edu/provost/governance/standing_committees/CUEd/)

• Information about NC State University's campus-wide surveys of sophomores, seniors, and alumni (/UPA/index.htmsurvey/)

• The summary of assessment in Undergraduate Education (http://www.acs.ncsu.edu/UPA/auth/compliance/ie/ugrad/summary.htm) accompanying Comprehensive Standards: Institutional Mission, Governance, and Effectiveness #16 provides a general context for assessment of general education.

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Last Modified: Wednesday, 02-Jul-03 11:52:05