How is the project significant to the greater Dartmouth community?
- This project is the first comprehensive, longitudinal, integrated, research-based assessment focusing on learning outcomes as products of fraternal affiliation.
- In general, the process for assessing the learning outcomes associated with involvement in a CFS organization will inevitably have strong parallels to measuring student learning in other co-curricular experiences on campus. Therefore, the ORL/CEdO CFS project will serve as a type of pilot program for measuring learning that occurs across the various out-of-classroom experiences at Dartmouth College.
- This project addresses a core issue for all areas of student life—the question being, what learning is produced as a result of a certain co-curricular experience? The CFS organizations are an ideal place to begin answering this question because the College has definitively stated its expectations for them; CFS organizations must provide an experience that is of high quality and fulfills the six principles previously stated. Other co-curricular experiences (senior and undergraduate societies, COSO groups, affinity programs, etc.) have not had such a uniform declaration as of yet.
- A secondary and convenient outcome of the timing of this assessment project is that the information gathered will be helpful in fulfilling the Board of Trustees request for the Dean of the College to provide a follow-up report describing the overall impact of the SLI directives articulated in the Board's April, 2000 letter. (Directives included emphasis on standards of excellence for CFS organizations.)
- A potential outcome of this endeavor is the production of a proprietary assessment tool for use on other campuses and by national and international fraternity and sorority headquarters.
Next: Is this project of interest to others in student affairs administration or fraternity/sorority affairs?
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