University academic departments are starting the process of drafting learning goals for all majors and minors by spring 2011 as the University prepares to submit an interim report to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges on its progress in meeting the group's accreditation guidelines. The Provost's Advisory Committee on Assessment of Student Learning has been holding workshops and meeting with individual departments to encourage them to formulate learning goals on the major, minor and syllabus levels in accordance with the NEASC's standards. The standards state that an institution must "[develop] the systematic means to understand how and what students are learning and to use the evidence obtained to improve the academic program."

After visiting campus and examining a study the University conducted itself in 2007, NEASC concluded in its report that Brandeis "does not have a systematic, broad-based and integrated approach to assessment of student learning."

Earlier this year, after consultation with various community members, the Provost's Advisory Committee formulated University-wide learning goals with an emphasis on core skills, knowledge and social justice. Among the core skills are communication skills, quantitative skills and critical thinking. Examples of knowledge are demonstrating the ability to engage in research and scholarship as well as demonstrating intellectual flexibility and creativity. Examples of social justice are participating as informed citizens in a global society, demonstrating an understanding of diverse societies and engaging in a life of service.

At a Nov. 5 faculty meeting, Provost Marty Krauss said Anthropology; Computer Science; Russian Studies; German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature; Near Eastern and Judaic Studies; and Romance Studies are engaged in pilot programs to draft learning goals. Krauss said that these are volunteer departments who are going through the process first to help determine what approaches to formulating the goals for majors and minors are most effective. Krauss said in an interview that she felt departments would find the process of formulating learning goals helpful as they begin to get involved in it. "It often provokes interesting conversations with their colleagues because they may not agree on the departmental goals, and it acts as a catalyst for clarifying what it is different majors are trying to do," she said.

The Anthropology department met with the committee last week to present a draft of its learning goals. The Anthropology document states that students majoring in the subject "will come away with a strong understanding of: the diversity of human cultures and the interdependence of people around the world; the inequality in relations of power within and among the world's societies and nations in the past and present; [and] what it means to be a human being: who we are, how we came to be that way, and where we may go in the future," and will meet the knowledge learning goal as a result.

Following a description of the core skills Anthropology teaches, the document states with regard to social justice, "The anthropology curriculum provides graduates with the knowledge and perspectives needed to participate as informed citizens in a global society. Anthropology emphasizes tolerance and respect for other cultures' ways of living." In a section titled "Upon Graduating," the document states that Anthropology majors, in addition to being prepared to study anthropology on the graduate level, can "use the knowledge and perspectives gained from the sustained study of humanity to pursue professional training and a range of careers in any field dealing with people-including healthcare, government, business, law, journalism, education, and human rights work-in local and international settings."

"We thought that they did a great job," Krauss said. She said that a discussion was held with regard to how the presentation of learning goals should be structured-in particular, how to allow for variability depending on the department while at the same providing an overall context for the learning goals.

"In our department we've found it quite rewarding, enjoyable and fruitful to think about the learning goals for our department," Prof. Sarah Lamb, chair of the Anthropology department, said. "The students seem to be kind of excited about it, because it's a way for us to articulate clearly in a document what actually we do aim for students to get out of the Anthropology major."

She said that the department had the freedom to expand on the Universitywide learning goals in drafting its own. "We were inspired by some of the Brandeis learning goals, but we didn't feel constrained by them," Lamb added. The department looked at the objectives for each concentration already formulated in the Bulletin and looked at anthropology learning goals at other institutions, she said.

Lamb suggested that learning goals will inform students about what they can gain from a major and could also be useful for parents. "I think some of the majors are less obviously career-oriented, . so if a student can point their parents to the Anthropology page and the parents can read, 'Oh, it's useful in these ways,' I think it helps if you're not a premed or prelaw or prebusiness major.