Academic Assessment

Student success is at the heart of all assessment activities at Fort Lewis College. Our academic and co-curricular programs have the potential to transform students' lives, The Assessment Coordinator works with all academic and student engagement departments and programs to improve students' experiences both in and out of the classroom. We use a variety of assessment methods to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to support our students' pursuits of their goals in higher education and beyond.

Assessment at Fort Lewis College strives to provide an environment supportive of faculty, staff, and administrators in the development and utilization of assessment techniques. Additionally, we provide ongoing support for accreditation and accountability, and state and federal compliance requirements.

We support student success through the following
assessment-related activities:

• Host assessment-related events and workshops for faculty, staff, and administrators
• Facilitate Liberal Arts Core course assessment in collaboration with faculty members
• Assist faculty in determining what best practices can be measured for assessment
• Provide feedback on designing learning outcomes that are measurable, significant, and focused on student learning
• Share effective assessment practices, examples, and guides (see "Resources" in the Assessment at FLC tab)

Assessment at Fort Lewis College

Fort Lewis College has been accredited by the Higher Learning Commission since 1958. Since 1965, federal financial aid (e.g., Pell grants) is provided only to students attending accredited institutions. The Higher Education Act of 1998 placed a great deal of emphasis on outcomes assessment as a pre-condition of Title IV funding (e.g. federal student financial aid). In 2003, the Higher Learning Commission adopted a newly revised position statement on the assessment of student learning to reaffirm and strengthen its position that it is an essential component of every organization's effort to evaluate overall organizational effectiveness. According to HLC, "effective assessment is best understood as a strategy for understanding, confirming, and improving student learning."

Faculty and staff can access Assessment Plans, Reports of Student Learning from Academic Assessment, Student Affairs Assessment, and General Education Assessment in TaskStream.  Fort Lewis College's TaskStream is the repository of documents essential to the fulfillment of Fort Lewis College's Mission and Core Values. This website, maintained by Assessment personnel, is a good faith effort to accurately present the assessment plans of Fort Lewis College in a way that is useful for the faculty and staff. 

Skills for the Future