Our mission at the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts is to explore, test, and promote liberal arts education. In doing so, we have had the opportunity to speak with a number of faculty members and administrators who often need advice not only in choosing a particular assessment tool, but also in figuring out what to do with the overwhelming amount of data they collect during the assessment process. Consequently, the Center of Inquiry has established the Liberal Arts Education Assessment Toolkit to help institutions approach assessment with their own liberal arts values in mind. Our philosophy is simple: assessment without reflection is a waste of time, resources, and money. Our goal, then, is to provide an ever-expanding site with an emphasis on reflection that will lead to an increased understanding of the instruments, practices, and methodological approaches that we believe contribute to liberal arts outcomes. We are mindful that the liberal arts experience, and the conditions that foster it, is unique among campuses, so we will offer various ways to examine liberal arts values and ends that are important to us all. The Liberal Arts Education Assessment Toolkit is in its infancy. We invite you to contact assessment@wabash.edu with any questions, comments, or recommendations that you have regarding its development.
Why assessing liberal arts education in important.
What's on your shelf: putting your institution's existing data to use.