Program Review and Assessment Committee Minutes

October 25, 2001

Members Present: C. Coron (Chair), Bob Gelbach, A. Kumar, H. Podnar, R. Page, W. Shyam

Guest: Mike Shea

Mike Shea (English Department) addressed PRAC on the assessment of the SCore program that was presented to the UCF in Fall 2000. He presented a historical overview of SCore and pointed out the SCore was part of a pilot that is now up for renewal. The assessment is a key part of the renewal process. However, at the Fall 2000 meeting, UCF responded to the SCore assessment with reservations and the opinion of the ad hoc committee appointed to review that assessment was that it fell short of the UCF guidelines. Committee members apprised Mike that PRAC did no conduct assessment; merely supported the process as a curricular body. There was nothing that PRAC could do to make the older assessment better other than to enforce the guidelines created by the UCF.

After a lengthy discussion on resource limitations, logistical problems, and lack of support for doing a more comprehensive evaluation, PRAC had the following recommendations for Mike Shea:

Given that the assessment process generated a wealth of data, and that there was a general support for the kind of liberal arts education that the SCore program promised the student

Given that Mike was facing logistical problems with carrying out a more comprehensive study, analysis and summarizing of the survey data

PRAC would approach the steering committee to request assistance for completing the SCore assessment. If such support were not forthcoming, UCF would have to consider for purposes of renewal, the existing assessment that Mike Shea presented in Fall 2000.

The remainder of the meeting was taken up by discussion on the on-going project of creating a survey instrument to assess the assessment process itself.

Meeting adjourned at 1:10 p.m.

Recorder: Aashish Kumar