Assessment Advisory Committee
Minutes from meeting November 18, 1999

Old Business

• Approved -- minutes from meeting on September 23, 1999

Concerns of the Philosophy Department

• R.I.G. Hughes discussed math competency requirements in General Education.
• PHIL110, 111 emphasize abstraction and symbolic logic; deductive logic uses mathematical reasoning.
• Hughes stated that the requirements are mismatched.... USC interprets SACS requirement as numeric and analytic reasoning.
• Phil Moore asked how well students will do on a Gen Ed test if they take PHIL.
• Don Stowe proposed that Hughes help re-write the objectives for mathematics; Moore added that Computer Science should be included in the process.
• Jerry Hackett suggested that looking at the PHIL texts may help in the discussion.

Instruments (Phil Moore)

• ETS is more a test of applied knowledge.
• College BASE, which is used by Clemson, is more a content-based test. It offers matrix sampling.
• There aren't many instruments to choose from.
• It would cost less than $1500 to run a pilot.
• UNIV 401 will allow us to administer assessment.
• Approved to let Phil pursue a pilot of ETS.

Oral Communication (Don Stowe)

• We need to develop a rubric for oral communication.
• Stowe distributed a sample used by Hospitality, Retail and Sport Administration.

Assessment Warehouse Demo (John Valentine and Tiffany Abells)

• The Assessment Warehouse was developed to make better use of student survey data.
• Phase One is complete:
  • currently have CIRP data back to 1995
  • all programs have been written
  • trends work
• Phase Two will begin in January:
  • add the remaining surveys
  • improve efficiency of the system at storing and retrieving data

Other Reports

• Mary Ellen O'Leary has support from the Math department on math assessment and she's already collecting problems for a test.

Members in attendance
Don Stowe
Deborah Cureton
Robert Cuttino
John Hackett
R.I.G. Hughes
Jay Latham
Steve Lynn
Harry Matthews
Reid Montgomery
Phil Moore
Marcia Welsh