Assessment Support for Liberal Arts Institutions

With generous support from the Teagle Foundation and the Lilly Endowment, Inc., the Center of Inquiry collaborates with faculty and staff at liberal arts institutions to build stronger assessment programs. Our goal is to help campuses develop and implement approaches to assessment that are consistent with their individual missions and distinct cultures.

Our Philosophy and Approach

Since each liberal arts institution is unique, there is no one cookie-cutter approach to assessment. Our approach is to work with institutions to identify their own needs and create individual solutions. In doing so, our goal is to leave a minimal "footprint"; we don't want to disrupt or shift campus life in such a way that too many resources are diverted to working on assessment. Instead, we want to help institutions have a high impact on student learning by using existing resources and information, or by working with easy-to-use, cost-effective tools.

Our Assessment Team and Activities:

In the fall of 2006, we expanded our existing assessment support by developing a team of assessment scholars—a group of faculty, deans, researchers, and administrators with diverse assessment experiences. Together, we provide a wide range of support:

• Helping a liberal arts institution develop and implement an assessment program that supports its goals and is consistent with its culture
• Facilitating conversations at liberal arts institutions about their unique vision, values, and mission
• Suggesting useful assessment instruments, approaches, and resources
• Supporting liberal arts institutions in using and integrating data they might already have—such as data from the National Survey of Student Engagement, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, or senior exit interviews
• Helping faculty and staff learn how to develop and work with different kinds of data
• Assisting a liberal arts institution undergoing accreditation
• Vetting grants
• Providing assessment ideas for strategic, curricular, and program planning and for department and program review
• Helping connect assessment at liberal arts institutions to faculty interests and values
• Facilitating discovery of the particular needs of an individual institution and helping to navigate a course of action

We can offer this support at a very reasonable cost through a variety of mechanisms. Depending on what is most helpful for your institution, we can provide speakers and site visit teams, host retreats and workshops on assessment, and discuss ideas in person or over the phone. For more information contact .