Assessment winners recognized at CCU

Five academic departments at Coastal Carolina University were recognized for doing an outstanding job on assessment of student learning during the 2013-2014 year.

At the spring general faculty meeting, Provost Ralph Byington gave special recognition to the following departments: Computer Science and Information Systems, Management, Philosophy, Special Education and the M.A.T. in Social Studies.

Each year during the fall, every academic program (i.e., every major) completes an assessment report for its programs to post them on the universitywide TEAL online platform (http://www.coastal.edu/tealonline). These reports reflect what the department has done to assess the effectiveness of its programs, specifically their impact on student learning. After such reports are posted and approved within each college, a university committee reads through and rates every report. Then this committee selects a small number "to recommend to the provost for special recognition as some of the most successful and outstanding reports."

More than 55 academic assessment reports were submitted from the 2013-2014 academic year, but only five were given awards at the Jan. 9 meeting.

“Although many good reports made it into the final, smaller pool for review, these five were eventually determined to be outstanding,” says John Beard, associate provost for assessment and accreditation. Each winning department received a plaque commemorating its work and a monetary award for use by the department.