In Fall 2007, Mars Hill College established its present iteration of learning outcomes to be demonstrated by students upon graduation. These outcomes incorporate current views of assessment in liberal arts education and reflect the college’s mission to provide academic and co-curricular opportunities for students to grow intellectually, spiritually, and personally. This growth is fostered by the inherent interconnections among all the outcomes and is achieved through the specific outcomes formulated in general education, major, and co-curricular programs.
MHC institutional outcomes are consistent with those embraced by organizations such as the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Effective communication and critical thinking, for example, are included in the AAC&U’s “Liberal Education and America’s Promise” (http://www.aacu.org/advocacy/leap/index.cfm) as essential skills of college graduates and learned people. MHC’s outcomes, however, reflect our distinctive emphasis on putting the liberal arts into action through integration of general and subject area knowledge in preparation for lifelong learning and achievement. The institutional outcomes are the result of campus-wide collaborative efforts to establish a framework that the academic and co-curricular programs use to define program-level outcomes.Thus, in preparing for a meaningful life and meaningful work, graduates of Mars Hill College demonstrate:
- Knowledge
- Graduates apply knowledge acquired in their academic studies and co-curricular activities.
- Effective communication
- Graduates communicate effectively using a variety of methods and appropriate technologies.
- Informed, critical, and creative thinking
- Graduates identify and solve problems using appropriate methods of inquiry, analysis, critical thinking, and creativity.
- Aesthetic awareness
- Graduates comprehend the nature and value of aesthetic experience and expression.
- Personal growth and social responsibility
- Graduates cultivate intellectual discipline, physical and spiritual well-being, ethical engagement, and respect for others within diverse communities.
From Spring 2008 to Spring 2009, academic departments revised systems of outcomes assessment that are consistent with the college’s institutional outcomes. The following links to the academic departments include: program-level outcomes, curriculum maps, assessment plans, strategies for substantiating undergraduate research, and prompts for submitting annual assessment reports & improvement plans.