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In November 2005, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) invited its institutional members to submit applications for the newly established CHEA Award for Institutional Progress in Student Learning Outcomes. The award acknowledges outstanding institutional progress in developing and applying evidence of student learning outcomes as part of the ongoing evaluation and improvement of college and university programs.
In establishing this award, the CHEA board of directors recognized the importance of attention to student achievement, especially given the current intense focus on accountability. Predating the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education, with its challenges to both higher education and accreditation, the award demonstrates that the academic and accreditation communities understand the public’s interest in evidence of both institutional and student performance, as well as the growing significance of postsecondary education to social and economic success in our society. The award was an early affirmation of the importance of public accountability not just to Secretary Margaret Spellings but to members of Congress, which has focused on student achievement as a vital issue in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, underway since 2003.
The board also wanted to affirm the vital and valuable partnership between institutions and accrediting organizations in addressing student outcomes. The award underscores the crucial importance of locating leadership for student achievement within colleges and universities—in contrast to recent federal efforts to vest this responsibility in government. Finally, the board wanted to send a clear and powerful signal to students and society that student achievement is at the heart of the long-standing commitment to the quality of our programs, institutions, and accrediting organizations.
Since the award is given to campuses with exemplary practices in addressing student learning outcomes, we hope that the description of them that follows will be useful to other institutions as they develop and use evidence of student achievement to judge their own performance and improve their programs.
Award Criteria and Process
Applications for the CHEA award can be institution-wide or focused on a specific program or major. The applications are judged on four criteria that, we believe, are essential features of exemplary programs:
• Articulating and providing evidence of outcomes;
• Providing evidence of success with regard to outcomes;
• Informing the public about outcomes; and
• Using outcomes for institutional improvement.
In reviewing the entries, we emphasize the use of direct evidence of student achievement to judge performance and improve programs, while acknowledging that institutional resources and processes play a significant role as well. The evidence provided must be relevant to what is being claimed about student achievement; potentially verifiable through replication or third-party inspection; and representative or typical of performance by either the major, the program, or the institution. It may result from an examination of all student work or representative samples, and it generally includes faculty-designed comprehensive or capstone examinations and assignments, performance on external or licensure examinations, or portfolios of student work over time. Self-study reports and student-satisfaction surveys are not accepted as direct evidence of learning.
Judith Eaton is president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, an organization of approximately 3,000 degree-granting colleges and universities that provides national coordination of institutional and programmatic accreditation.
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