Academic Assessment Council

The purpose of assessment is to improve student learning. The assessment process should include the collection, the analysis, and the distribution of data at the student level, the program level, and the university level. Likewise, the work of assessment should be shared equitably, both within and between levels (faculty, programs, colleges, and university). Ideally, assessment will generate useful information about student learning while adding only minimally to faculty and administrative workloads. One primary method of achieving that goal is to coordinate existing assessment efforts and make future efforts more predictable, by identifying which activities occur in a given year. The main mission of the AAC is to carry out those coordinating and planning activities.

Campus assessment efforts should seek to centralize data collection and coordination, while decentralizing substantive decisions about how assessment is done and what criteria are used. Program faculty should have the maximum feasible control over deciding how and where to assess student learning. Creative approaches should be encouraged.

Regardless of the methods program faculty use to assess student learning, all programs have an obligation to annually report to the AAC their methodology and findings, to reflect on what the findings reveal about student learning, to identify areas of possible improvement, to develop plans about implementing improvements, and to later assess whether curriculum changes have actually improved student learning.

Please see the Academic Senate Resolution on "Coordinated Campus Assessment Efforts (AS-735-11) for more information. 

Membership

The AAC membership was recently revised and approved by the Senate via its Academic Senate Resolution: AS-909-21: "Resolution on New Academic Assessment Council Membership".

Academic Assessment Council Members:

• All representatives will be voting members.
• The committee shall select its own chair, which shall be two (2) years long.
• Term limits shall be for three (3) years and are renewable.

Click here for 2023-2024 AAC Membership (PDF).

SPRING 2024 MEETINGS

• 4/15:  1:10-2:30 p.m. (Chase Hall, CTLT Classroom - 115-104)
• 4/29: 1:10-2:30 p.m. (Chase Hall, CTLT Classroom - 115-104)
• 5/13: 1:10-2:30 p.m. (Chase Hall, CTLT Classroom - 115-104)
• 6/7:  11:10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (Ethnic Studies Conference Room - 38-114)

If you have something you would like included in the agenda or in a future meeting, or if you have questions about the AAC, please reach out to Jolene Girten. 

Last updated: 4/19/2024