Colleges and Universities should have lofty goals. The faculty who work at these places should feel that they are not only "preparing students to make a living but are preparing them to make a life."
This is what the University of Utah Liberal Education program says it is trying to do. This means teaching creative thinking, reasoning, aesthetic understanding and other skills that are not always that easy to measure. That is the problem. The goals are good, but we aren't always sure in higher education if we are coming anywhere close to meeting these goals.Snow College has set its goals high and is trying to take the second step and measure its progress in meeting the lofty objectives. The mission sounds specific enough: to educate students, to inspire them to love learning and to lead them to serve others. The challenge is to gather information that will allow us to report to the public that supports us. The public is entitled to know if higher education is meeting its goals. Are colleges and universities doing what they say they are doing?
This seems to be a challenge in most institutions of higher education, public and private. Brigham Young University boldly asserts on the front page of its catalog that its "mission is to assist individuals in their quest for perfection." Success with this goal is probably no more or less difficult to measure than the goal of the College of Eastern Utah, which is stated in the college catalog in terms of degrees and programs. "The curricula includes associate degrees programs, vocational-technical programs, developmental programs, adult and community education programs and courses which are transferable towards four year degrees."
In passing it should be noted that it isn't always easy to discover the mission of a college or university in the institution's own catalog. There is no mission statement in the catalog of Utah State University until page 31 where the goals of the Liberal Arts and Science Program are listed. These goals emphasize interdisciplinary learning and encourage students to develop:
1. Abilities for critical thinking and communication.
2. An understanding of numerical data.
3. An understanding of the methods and systems of natural science.
4. Historical consciousness.
5. An understanding of social science.
6. An awareness of ethics.
7. A recognition of multicultural contexts.
8. An appreciation and experience of fine arts.
Again, the goals are lofty and the public should expect that Utah State University works to see that these goals are met. Parenthetically, one could wonder why students are expected only to be aware of ethics and not behave ethically.
The mission statement of the University of Utah also requires a bit of searching, if the catalog is where you are looking. The statement is in the Liberal Education section that starts on page 54 and is again laudable. "Learning to learn is the ultimate goal of students' time at the University."
Even though locating a mission statement may be a challenge, the more important challenge for a college or university to asses the progress it is making in achieving the mission. It is probably best to consider it a truth in advertising issue. Is the college doing what it advertises?
Colleges and universities in Utah are now working to measure the achievement of goals. This has encouraged Snow College, along with the other schools, to add new questions to the standard questionnaire that is given at the end of each course as an evaluation. These new questions were first added last year and are in addition to the usual questions about lectures, texts, assignments and tests. The questions that Snow College asks each student are an example of what all of higher education is doing to evaluate educational progress.
About how many times did you actively raise a question or make a comment in class this quarter? How many times during the quarter did you stay after class or see your instructor in his or her office to discuss a topic related to this course? I averaged the following number of hours per week on out-of-class study and assignments for this course. About how many times did you get together with other students to study or prepare for this course? About how many pages of writing (essays or term papers) did you do to complete assignments for this course? About how many times did you cut or not attend class during the quarter? About how many hours per week did you spend learning or reading on your own in topics not assigned in classes? How many hours of volunteer service did you give to others this quarter? Perhaps as Snow College and the other colleges in the state ask questions like these, we will begin to evaluate our progress towards goals besides the ones that professors establish for each class.