A departmental mission statement should identify the program's distinguishing characteristics. Utica College's Foreign Language department's mission does precisely that. The mission statement highlights a unique feature of the department's curricula, namely that learning a language other than English prepares students for their professional lives, regardless of career choice, by developing intercultural competence and empathy.
This mission is realized in a capstone project that requires students to integrate their language learning with either a practical experience or a scholarly endeavor. Recent examples include projects in pedagogical approaches to teaching a language (education), risk management in Mexican agriculture (business/risk management), bullfighting in Spain today (history), and literary and cinematographic representations of El Camino de Santiago. These capstone projects provide a rich learning opportunity for students and are an ideal opportunity for faculty to assess not only how well students have achieved the program-level learning goals, but also how effectively the department is fulfilling its mission.
Assessment strategies in the Chemistry Department show how assessment should not be limited solely to students' performance in individual courses. The department measures student success by using multiple methods, including standardized examinations, course-embedded projects, student research, graduates' employment status, and placement in graduate or professional schools. While assessment findings have been used to inform changes in the curriculum, so, too, has the faculty used "best practices" to inform their work. A recent example documented in the department's 5-Year Program Review has to do with chemical safety. Faculty member Alyssa Thomas learned of resources for chemical safety through her work with the governance branch of the American Chemical Society. She worked with her colleagues in the department to develop a coherent process of safety instruction. This included articulating clear goals for each laboratory course and implementing methods to assess these goals at various stages of student development. The faculty noted "dramatic improvement" in students' awareness of safety measures in the chemistry lab.
