The Assessment Committee, from its inception, has assured the campus community that the North Central Association (NCA) would not, and should not, be used as the club to bring faculty and departments to the assessment table.

Rather, our concern for the academic, social, spiritual, and physical development of our students should be motivation for us to do this work. Nonetheless, the NCA will be coming back in the academic year 2003-04 to look over our shoulders to review "how we're doing."

It's good therefore, to keep track of what NCA is up to in this regard. Dr. Cecilia Lopez, Associate Director, NCA, gave an analysis and progress report in a speech to the annual meeting of the NCA (March, 1998) on what NCA will be looking for when they come to visit. Lopez identified three levels of assessment activity in colleges and universities across the NCA accreditation region.

The marching orders from NCA to consultant-evaluators visiting schools during the 1998-99 academic year are to expect institutions to be at

Level Two with strong movement toward Level Three.

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NCA - Three Levels of Implementation

Level One: Beginning Implementation

• Assessment plans are available for a number of academic departments or academic programs, but not all
• Program goals and explicit objectives for learning have been developed for a number of academic departments, but not all
• Direct measures of student learning have been identified, and data above the level of the classroom have been collected for a number of academic departments or academic programs, but not all

Level Two: Some Implementation

• Senior Administration actively supports the assessment program and recognizes and rewards faculty's efforts to implement it

• Results from measuring general education, the major, and graduate programs are being collected and interpreted from some but not all academic units or programs wInformation about assessment is being disseminated to various constituencies
• Evidence of specific strategies faculty are using to improve student learning is being gathered an documented
• Evidence of specific strategies departments are using to assist faculty in improving student learning is being gathered and documented
• Decisions about changing or refining methodology or measures are being made
• Clear feedback loops are being developed to ensure that the results of assessment are used to improve student learning and teaching

Level Three: On-going Implementation

• The culture of the institution is now focused on student learning and how that learning can be improved
• Proposed changes based on the analysis and faculty discussion of the assessment results are linked to departmental and/or institutional planning and budgeting processes
• The results of assessing student learning are linked to academic program review
• Changes in pedagogy, curriculum, and/or academic support services made as a result of assessment are documented
• The efficacy of the changes are evaluated and documented
• The assessment plan is annually reviewed and updated
• The entire assessment program and process is regularly evaluated and refined
  (Excerpted from Cecilia L. Lopez's "The Commission's Assessment Initiative: A Progress Report" The full text of Lopez' speech can be found under the assessment rubric on the Registrar's website.)