The faculty of Washburn University has approved adoption of the Kansas Systemwide General Education (KSGE) framework for implementation in Fall 2024. Below is a link to the list of Washburn University general education courses by distribution area, as defined under the new framework.

General education courses by distribution area in new KSGE framework

KSGE policy requires the posting of approved exceptions to the framework. Washburn University's School of Nursing was granted such an exception, as can be seen in the link below.

Approval letter/information for the Bachelor of Science in Nursing general education exceptions

The information that follows pertains to the last general education program revisions of 2012.

After a lengthy and inclusive review of the existing general education program at Washburn University, the initial phase of the new general education program was approved by General Faculty in April 2012. Phase 1 of the general education refinement replaced the existing 9 skills with 5 student learning outcomes (SLOs) and each general education course is now required to identify one student learning outcome to emphasize and to assess. As the approved modifications are implemented, updates to the progress will be posted on this web site.

Implementation Updates

Approved Implementation Plan

Summer 2012

(PHASE 1) The Assessment Committee hosted a series of drop-in sessions for faculty who wanted to begin migrating their general education courses from the existing skills model to the proposed learning outcome model.  The deadline for revising all existing general education courses and submitting them for approval was January 31, 2013.

Fall 2012

(PHASE 1) The Assessment Committee continued to work with departments and individual faculty members to  craft appropriate assessment plans for their chosen SLO for each general education course.  The revised general education course proposals were submitted to the General Education Committee for review and approval.  Once approved, courses were included in the 2013-2014 University Catalog. 

(PHASE 2) During the fall semester, the  Critical and Creative Thinking Student Learning Outcome Assessment Discovery committee was formed and included thirteen faculty from around campus. The task of this group was to research and evaluate the various instruments (e.g., rubrics, standardized tests) that would best assess the critical and creative thinking abilities of our graduating (exiting) students. The committee completed its task and presented recommendations to the faculty at large in focus groups held during the first week of December.  Participants were asked to provide feedback regarding the assessment instruments they believed would best assess Washburn's definition of critical and creative thinking. The Critical Creative Thinking Discovery Committe developed the following  Recommendation reports.

After a thorough investigation by each of the subcommittees, the use of the AACU VALUE Rubric in both areas was recommended.

(PHASE 2) A General Faculty meeting was held on Thursday, November 29, and approved the following  changes to the core requirements effective Fall 2013:

(PHASE 2) The General Faculty also approved the modification of the make-up and charge of the General Education Committee effective immediately:

Spring 2013

Additional Discovery Committees were formulated to research and evaluate the various instruments (e.g., rubrics, standardized tests) that would best assess the quantitative/scientific reasoning and global/ethics/diversity abilities of our graduating (exiting) students. 

Once faculty reviewed the summary of choices, they completed a brief  survey.

Once faculty reviewed the summary of choices, they completed a brief  survey.

After a thorough review of the survey results by each of the subcommittees, the use of the Madison Assessment of Quantitative and Scientific Reasoning was recommended to assess the quantitative/scientific reasoning USLO; the Defining Issues Test 2, the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale, and the Global Perspective Inventory were recommended to assess the global citizenship/ethics/diversity USLO.

Fall 2013

Additional outcome assessment discovery committees were formed to research and evaluate the various instruments (e.g., rubrics, standardized tests) that would best assess the communication and information and technology literacy student learning outcomes of our graduating (exiting students). The following conclusions were reached:

  • Written aspect of the COM SLO: There were 2 recommended instruments: AAC&U rubric and the CLA+.  There was a strong preference was for AAC&U by the subcommittee.  In addition, the CLA was rejected for a previous SLO so it appeared unlikely the CLA would be preferred for written communication.
  • Oral aspect of the COM SLO: Similar result.  Two instruments were recommended - AAC&U rubric and The Competent Speaker Speech Evaluation Form. The AAC&U rubric was strongly preferred by the subcommittee.
  • Non-verbal aspect of the COM SLO: No stand alone assessment instruments were found.  Rather, non-verbal tends to be linked to (inseparable from) oral communication.  Thus there was nothing for the faculty to consider for the Non-Verbal COM SLO.
  • In terms of the Information Literacy aspect of the ILT SLO, there was only one recommended assessment instrument, Project SAILS.
  • In terms of the Technology aspect of the ILT SLO, no assessment instrument was discovered that matched our parameters, including the SLO definition.

Given the existence of clear preferences by the committees for the AAC&U rubrics for written and oral communication as well as SAILS for information literacy, it seemed prudent to adopt these instruments.  The details of the faculty committee reviews of the various instruments can be accessed at the following links:

Spring 2014

At the end of the Spring 2014 semester, a pilot of the Critical Thinking campus-wide assessment was completed.  Fourteen faculty members from several varied academic units joined nine of their colleagues from the English Department who facilitated a training session in using the AAC&U critical thinking VALUE rubric to assess artifacts submitted by students completing EN 300 - Advanced Composition that semester.  After receiving training and completing the assessment of student artifacts, the faculty assessors were asked to evaluate the training they received and offer suggestions for improvement.  These recommendations were incorporated into the actual campus-wide critical thinking assessment which was to occur at the end of the Spring 2015 semester.

The ETS Proficiency Profile assessing Reading, Writing, Critical Thinking and Mathematics was administered to 230 Freshmen and 302 Seniors.

The first semester of general education course-embedded USLO ratings were submitted and are summarized:

Total of 103 courses, 289 sections, 6,687 student summary scores

  • CCT = 34 courses, 89 sections, 1,726 student sum scores
  • COM =  13 courses, 47 sections, 991 student sum scores
  • GED = 28 courses, 63 sections, 1,825 student sum scores
  • ILT = 2 courses, 5 sections, no data
  • QSR = 26 courses, 85 sections, 2,145 student sum scores

Fall 2014

The Torrance Test for Creative Thinking was administered to 55 students and additional testing was conducted during the Spring 2015 semester.  In addition, the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership was identified as a potential instrument for the assessment of global citizenship, ethics, and diversity instead of assessing with three different instruments and was administered during the Spring 2015 semester.

Spring 2015

Several assessment initiatives were accomplished during the Spring 2015 semester.  The Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership instrument was provided to a random sample of 4,000 Washburn students of which 1,156 completed the survey for a 28.9% response rate.  The Torrance Test for Creative Thinking was administered to an additional 110 seniors (total of 165 seniors participated).  At the end of the Spring 2015 semester, pilots of the Written Communication and Oral Communication campus-wide assessments were completed and the formal Critical Thinking campus-wide assessment occurred with eighteen reviewers rating a total of 157 artifacts.  In addition, the first group of general education courses were reviewed by the General Education Committee and the first course-embedded assessment results were included in those reviews.  

FY15 Course-Embedded USLO Assessment Results:

123 total courses, 421 sections, 9,327 student summary scores

  • CCT = 39 courses, 119 sections, 2,219 student sum scores
  • COM = 13 courses, 93 sections, 1,902 student sum scores
  • GED = 39 courses, 93 sections, 2,349 student sum scores
  • ILT = 4 courses, 14 sections, 199 student sum scores
  • QSR = 28 courses, 102 sections, 2,658 student sum scores

In order to provide in-depth analysis of the various assessment data the university had been accruing, an Academic Effective Analyst position was created and filled during the summer.   Reports summarizing much of the data we had amassed were created so that they could be shared with the campus during the upcoming academic year.

Fall 2015

The Madison Assessment of Quantitative and Scientific Reasoning was administered to 160 students.

Spring 2016

At the end of the Spring 2016 semester, the formal Written Communication and Oral Communication campus-wide assessments occurred with seventeen reviewers rating a total of 199 papers for written communication and fifteen reviewers rating a total of 74 video presentations for oral communication..

FY16 Course-Embedded USLO Assessment Results:

139 total courses, 513 sections, 13,965 student summary scores

  • CCT = 42 courses, 139 sections, 3,588 student sum scores
  • COM = 14 courses, 91 sections, 2,415 student sum scores
  • GED = 46 courses, 100 sections, 3,095 student sum scores
  • ILT = 7 courses, 66 sections, 1,489 student sum scores
  • QSR = 30 courses, 117 sections, 3,378 student sum scores

The annual Assessment Extravaganza, held on February 4, 2016, was devoted to the university student learning outcomes processes that had been developed since 2012 and initial USLO campus-wide and course-embedded results. These poster presentations were made available to faculty and staff for discussion and potential action.

Fall 2016

The ETS Proficiency Profile assessing Reading, Writing, Critical Thinking and Mathematics was administered to 245 Freshmen and 188 Seniors over the course of the fall and spring semesters.

Spring 2017

FY17 Course-Embedded USLO Assessment Results:

133 total courses, 810 sections, 15,906 student summary scores

  • CCT = 47 courses, 223 sections, 4,425 student sum scores
  • COM = 12 courses, 164 sections, 2,891 student sum scores
  • GED = 39 courses, 153 sections, 3,392 student sum scores
  • ILT = 6 courses, 105 sections, 1,727 student sum scores
  • QSR = 29 courses, 165 sections, 3,471 student sum scores

Fall 2017

The Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (SAILS), postponed from the Spring 2017 semester, was administered to exiting students. Preliminary results were reviewed internally. The SAILS will be administered in Spring 2020.

The second round of campus-wide assessment began with the offering of the   Torrance TM Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT).  

The Quantitative/Scientific Reasoning subcommittee was consulted to determine a potential replacement instrument for the Madison which does not appear to be meeting needs for assessment because there is no normative comparison group. A decision was made to switch to the newly created ETS HEIghtenTM Outcomes Assessment of Quantitative Literacy.

Spring 2018

FY18 Course-Embedded USLO Assessment Results: 

By the five USLOs, for the 2017-2018 AY, the number of subjects, courses, sections, and overall student USLO ratings (with 0 = Not Evaluated removed) were:

  • CCT = 16 subjects, 54 courses, 170 sections, 4,551 overall student USLO ratings
  • COM = 4 subjects, 13 courses, 104 sections, 3,054 overall student USLO ratings
  • GED = 15 subjects, 37 courses, 96 sections, 3,201 overall student USLO ratings
  • ILT = 5 subjects, 6 courses, 82 sections, 1,721 overall student USLO ratings
  • QSR = 9 subjects, 31 courses, 130 sections, 3,689 overall student USLO ratings

The Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL) was administered to all students to assess global citizenship/ethics/diversity (GED) USLO. The MSL Sensemaking Group convened in Summer 2019 to further examine the results.

The AAC&U Critical Thinking VALUE rubric was used by groups of faculty to assess Critical Thinking artifacts. 20 reviewers rated a total of 187 Critical Thinking artifacts. The overall average ratings were scored at Milestone 3 (47.6%), 32.6% were Milestone 2, 17.6% were Capstone, 1.6% were Benchmark, and 0.5% were Not Present.

The administration of these two instruments (MSL and AAC&U VALUE Rubric - Critical Thinking) also began the second round of campus-wide assessment in 2017-2018.

Fall 2018

The ETS HEIghten TM Quantitative Literacy Assessment assesses college students' abilities to comprehend, detect, and solve mathematics problems in authentic contexts across a variety of mathematical content areas. The results will determine if seniors are attaining the quantitative literacy emphasized through general education and major courses. Seniors completed the assessment during the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters. 

Spring 2019

FY19 Course-Embedded USLO Assessment Results:

By the five USLOs, for the 2018-2019 AY, the number of subjects, courses, sections, and overall student USLO ratings (with 0 = Not Evaluated and missing ratings removed) were:

  • CCT = 17 subjects, 49 courses, 145 sections, 3,848 overall student USLO ratings
  • COM = 4 subjects, 13 courses, 96 sections, 2,604 overall student USLO ratings
  • GED = 18 subjects, 43 courses, 102 sections, 2,895 overall student USLO ratings
  • ILT = 5 subjects, 6 courses, 78 sections, 1,516 overall student USLO ratings
  • QSR = 9 subjects, 31 courses, 108 sections, 3,858 overall student USLO ratings

At the end of the Spring 2019 semester, Written Communication and Oral Communication campus-wide assessments were completed with 20 reviewers rating a total of 200 artifacts for Written Communication and 24 reviewers rating a total of 199 oral presentations for Oral Communication. For Oral Communication, most of the overall average ratings were scored at Proficient (72.4%), less than a quarter were Basic (22.6%), Advanced was 5.0%, 0.0% were Beginning, and Unobserved was 0.0%.

Fall 2019

The ETS Proficiency Profile assessing Reading, Writing, Critical Thinking and Mathematics was administered during the 2019-2020 academic year to EN 101 students and Seniors. 

Spring 2020

AY 2020 Course-Embedded USLO Assessment Results:

By the five USLOs, the number of subjects, courses, sections, and overall student USLO ratings (with 0 = Not Evaluated and missing ratings removed) were:

  • CCT = 14 subjects, 48 courses, 135 sections, 3,508 overall student USLO ratings
  • COM = 4 subjects, 13 courses, 89 sections, 2,748 overall student USLO ratings
  • GED = 16 subjects, 33 courses, 90 sections, 2,862 overall student USLO ratings
  • ILT = 5 subjects, 6 courses, 77 sections, 1,565 overall student USLO ratings
  • QSR = 9 subjects, 29 courses, 89 sections, 2,860 overall student USLO ratings

Spring 2021

AY 2021 Course-Embedded USLO Assessment Results:

By the five USLOs, the number of subjects, courses, sections, and overall student USLO ratings (with 0 = Not Evaluated and missing ratings removed) were:

  • CCT = 15 subjects, 51 courses, 155 sections, 3,683 overall student USLO ratings
  • COM = 4 subjects, 13 courses, 86 sections, 2,611 overall student USLO ratings
  • GED = 18 subjects, 37 courses, 83 sections, 2,360 overall student USLO ratings
  • ILT = 5 subjects, 7 courses, 48 sections, 1,298 overall student USLO ratings
  • QSR = 9 subjects, 31 courses, 108 sections, 2,988 overall student USLO ratings

Background Information

General Education Review - First ad hoc committee (Established Fall 2009)

Summer Working Group - SLO Assessment (Established Summer 2010)

General Education Review - Second ad hoc committee (Established Summer 2011)

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