Dear

 General  Education  Committee,  

 
Below  are  portions  of  the  Higher  Learning  Commission’s  response  that  relates  to  the  General  
Education  portion  of  the  report  that  we  submitted  in  January.  Earlier  concerns  included  the  
structure  of  the  program.  The  reply  to  our  report  did  not  mention  structure,  so  they  appear  to  be  
pleased  with  our  changes  to  the  program  and  to  the  campus  buy-­‐in  of  the  LEAP  related  learning  
outcome  structure.    
 
As  the  response  indicates,  the  commission  was  hoping  to  see  more  data  indicating  a  program  
level  review  and  they  wanted  to  see  how  the  review  would  impact  student  learning.    They  
appear  to  approve  of  the  process  for  assessing  courses,  but  want  to  see  direct  evidence  that  it  is  
making  a  difference  in  student  learning.  At  the  time  we  submitted  the  report,  we  had  an  
indication  that  departments  were  making  changes,  but  we  did  not  have  data  about  the  impact  of  
the  changes.    
 
I  would  like  to  thank  both  the  GEC  and  GEAC  for  helping  to  get  us  to  this  point,  but  we  are  not  
done.  We  are  now  asked  to  report  on  “the  specific  use  of  assessment  data  to  improve  student  
learning  or  academic  programs”.  I  would  be  willing  to  work  with  the  Gen  Ed  committee  as  you  
discuss  the  GEAC  charge  for  the  year  so  that  we  can  plan  to  both  acquire  and  to  analyze  the  data  
needed  to  prepare  a  response.    The  response  is  due  on  9/1/2011.  
 
Bob  Hoar