Student learning is integral to Lafayette College’s mission and its assessment is essential to ensure that we are achieving our institutional goals.
The assessment of student learning must be ongoing, systematic, well-designed, and communicated for it to be useful. While it is certainly the case that the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, and other professional accrediting organizations such as ABET, require the assessment of student learning, its most important purpose is to ensure that we are true to our mission and goals.
Assessment is the foundation of an institution’s ongoing processes of improvement. It is best described as a cycle of developing goals, designing strategies to achieve them, evaluating achievement, and using the results to improve teaching, learning, programs, and services.
At Lafayette, a Provost-appointed committee of faculty oversees the assessment of the common course of study and individual departments and programs oversee the assessment of majors.
This section provides overviews and analyses of the College’s processes.