Thanks to a new grant, Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore Colleges will work together during the next three years to enhance their respective students' academic experiences.

The Teagle Foundation has awarded the three colleges a collaborative grant of $149,947 to support the efforts of three selected departments at each school in developing effective tools for assessing student learning. The Foundation aims to strengthen liberal arts education across the country by providing schools with intellectual and financial resources.

At Haverford, the departments of chemistry, history and psychology will participate in the grant project. They will each define their own assessment goals and the different skills they want their students to master, says Associate Provost and Professor of Psychology Wendy Sternberg. “Some departments may focus on writing, and others on quantitative skills,” she says. The three departments will share their results with each other, revealing which methods have been successful and which still need work. Colleagues from all three colleges will meet at least twice a semester for“workshop days,” which will include brainstorming sessions and tips from experts in the field.

“Ultimately, we hope that our participating departments will develop pilot programs for best practices in student learning assessment, and will communicate these practices to the rest of the campus,” says Sternberg.

Although the idea of student assessment calls to mind visions of standardized tests for many academics, notes Sternberg, a good assessment should be tailored to an individual department's needs.“It's about considering what students should learn,” she says,“and using the outcomes to think through the curricular structure.” -Brenna McBride