Core has new focus
By Crystal Forester
Staff Reporter

The Faculty Senate must find ways through the new core curriculum, outside of grades, to evaluate students experiences at TCU, said Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Services William Koehler.

“Goals are being met by grades, but we’re not understanding what students are taking from the classroom,” Koehler said.

Before the new core curriculum can be implemented, assessment plans to gauge learning experiences must be determined by the Faculty Senate, said Faculty Senate Chair Nadia Lahutsky.

“The trend in higher education right now is assessments of student learning,” Lahutsky said.

Assessment allows the university to monitor skills, knowledge, ethics and values that students should be acquiring at the university, Director of Assessment Melissa Canady said.

“A systematic process of assessment informs and supports instruction, it also allows faculty to better communicate information on student progress to a variety of interested parties including parents, administrators, accreditors and most importantly, the students themselves,” Canady said.

Koehler said finding out what transfer students experienced at other universities and how to mesh them into the new core curriculum is another problem that the Faculty Senate faces.

Surveys with the students throughout the semester, one at the beginning, the middle and the end, are a possible way to assess what students are learning, Koehler said.

Although student evaluations at the end of the semester are important to the faculty they do not show the students’ outcome of the class, Koehler said.

“It’s a stumbling block trying to determine and set expectations for assessment,” Koehler said. “How do you measure someone’s experience?”Other universities assess students with a test, but TCU does not want to look at assessment that way, said Lahutsky, a religion professor.

“One way that the university could assess students’ learning experience would be to look at assignments or write papers to be reviewed,” Lahutsky said. “It’s a type of ‘embedded assessment’.”

Canady said ideas for assessment plans will be worked out throughout the academic year and will allow faculty to adjust to teaching and judge students progress.

“Anytime you, as a student, take a test, write a paper, complete an internship, fill out a survey, you are not just fulfilling a requirement to get a grade, you are contributing to a body of assessment knowledge that allows the university to serve you better,” Canady said.

The goal of the Faculty Senate is to be very deliberate, to be careful and to consult as many faculty members as possible, therefore the new core curriculum will not be implemented until summer 2005 with the incoming freshmen for the year, Lahutsky said.

“We are taking care of time, not to be slow, but to get it right,” Lahutsky said. “One person could tell everyone what the new curriculum is, but that would not make everyone at the university happy.”

Specialists were consulted for each area of the new curriculum to inform the Faculty Senate of requirements each area needed to consider to help complete the curriculum, Lahutsky said.

“During the summer a committee of about six to 10 people met daily for several hours to fine tune some of the requirements of the new curriculum,” Lahutsky said.

Koehler said closure of the core curriculum is major goal for the university within the next year.

“It has been around long enough to have aged like a good whiskey,” Koehler said.