Consolidation of Activities

Oneonta must continue to meet assessment requirements established by SUNY System Administration, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSA)2  and other accrediting bodies such as NCATE.. In order to prevent redundancy and duplication of effort, the College follows a process for academic assessment that attempts to streamline and integrate these various requirements and at the same time provides departments and programs with the information they need to bring about improvements in teaching, learning, and curricular programs.

Fundamental Features of Academic Assessment

Meaningful academic assessment requires faculty to:

• Identify and develop meaningful and appropriate goals for their academic programs;
• Offer experiences and opportunities that meet the learning goals for their academic programs;
• Use multiple, valid means of measuring goal and mission-related outcomes;
• Analyze the results of the programmatic assessment, and if necessary, make adjustments to the  academic program; and
• Prepare a report of the findings of the programmatic review.

Integrating Assessment Activities

During 2004-05, the College consolidated assessment efforts and reports into a single process designed to meet the expectations of both SUNY and MSA. In particular, the following modifications were made:

1. The Departmental Annual Report format was revised to reflect better the fact that faculty regularly monitor student learning and compare the results with the program’s and College’s goals;
2. The Major and Minor Curricular Change processes were amended to document more clearly that curricular changes are based, at least in part, on the results of the assessment of student learning and programmatic review;
3. The New Course Proposal and Course Change Proposal processes were updated to document more clearly that new courses and changes to existing course are due to the program’s analysis of the assessment of student learning and programmatic review.
4. The SUNY Oneonta Alumni Survey, administered by Student Development, was reviewed to determine if it should be modified in order to obtain additional information useful for programmatic review.

² Middle States Commission on Higher Education: Characteristics of Excellence in High Education – Eligibility Requirements and Standards for Accreditation, 2002.