Matters pertaining to assessment and accreditation at Whitman College fall under the responsibilities of the Assistant Dean of the Faculty, Michelle Janning (janninmy@whitman.edu). The College’s Assessment Committee, chaired by the Assistant Dean, consists of one faculty member from each of the three academic divisions (John Cotts, Division I; Scott Elliott, Divison II; Marion Götz, Division III), as well as the Director of Institutional Research (Neal Christopherson), the Director of Academic Resources (Juli Dunn), and the Associate Dean of the Faculty (Lisa Perfetti), ex officio.
Departments and programs, as well as administrative and staff offices, undergo regular assessment in order to document and maintain the high quality of the academic program at Whitman College, and to seek ways to improve it where necessary. The Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty requires regular assessment reports from administrative and academic departments and programs. Department and program reports include articulation of major-specific and student-centered learning goals, direct and indirect measures of student learning, and action items to address desired improvement in student learning that the departments or programs may find to be important. These may relate to the Senior Assessment in the Major, or they may relate to other portions of the course sequence within majors. In addition, academic departments, programs, and administrative offices that report to the Provost and Dean of Faculty office participate in a cycle of external reviews in order to get objective assessments of the quality of undergraduate education, as well as to seek best practices that may help the College improve.
Whitman College has received a collaborative Teagle Planning Grant with the University of Puget Sound in order to improve assessment efforts related to non-classroom activities, focusing particularly on the Senior Assessment in the Major. Information about this grant and its activities for 2011 can be found on the Teagle Grant information page. Information about the Teagle Foundation can be found here.
Student participation in assessment at the College is important and multi-faceted. It is successful student learning that most clearly demonstrates that the academic mission of the College is being fulfilled. The College documents direct and indirect measures of student learning and related experiences, including, but not limited to: department and program-level assessment of major-specific learning goals, graduation and retention rates, and co-curricular involvement rates, as well as surveys that ask students to reflect on their overall collegiate learning experience (e.g., the National Survey of Student Engagement, the HEDS Senior Survey, the CIRP College Senior Survey, and the Research Practices Survey). The College’s Assessment Committee also works on locally-developed instruments that assess student learning within the classroom, and outside the classroom.
Department and program assessment materials can be found on the Provost and Dean of the Faculty CLEo site; information about student surveys can be found on the Office of Institutional Research website.
Faculty and Staff members who need assistance with survey construction or other assessment materials may contact the Assistant Dean of the Faculty (janninmy@whitman.edu) or the Director of Institutional Research (christnj@whitman.edu) for consultation.
Information about the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities' new accreditation standards and procedures can be found on the Commission's web site. The new Standards can be found here on their website.
Whitman College’s Assessment Committee meets regularly to work on documents and tasks associated with accreditation that is required by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. The Year One Report was submitted to the NWCCU in September 2011. In this document, the College identifies its mission and core themes as an institution. To this end, the Assessment Committee has gathered ideas for the core themes from College documents (e.g., Strategic Plan, the Mission Statement, the College’s Trustee Statement on Diversity), as well as met with various campus constituencies to receive feedback during the Year One Report drafting process in 2010-2011. Past accreditation reports, as well as information about the new accreditation cycle, are linked below. The bottom link is the final draft of the Year One Self Evaluation Report.
Questions about Whitman’s accreditation process in the NWCCU may be addressed to the College’s Accreditation Liaison Officer, Michelle Janning (janninmy@whitman.edu).
Accreditation Links and Documents:
