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AAC core report, Winter '14-15 (1/27/2015 version)

Over the past few years the HMC Assessment and Accreditation Committee (AAC) has helped collect data and organize some of the facets of our ongoing assessment of the college's core curriculum. Many other individuals and institutional groups have also assessed facets of the core - we thank all of them for their contributions. Criteria and process This committee followed the lead of prior AACs in using the Strategic Vision Curriculum Implementation Committee's (SVCIC) standards for assessing HMC's core curriculum. The first cohort to fully experience the current core curriculum started in the Fall of 2010; earlier groups experienced portions of it. To create the executive highlights and per-criterion summaries that follow, the committee first extended the faculty-interview process begun in 2013. We also gathered the data listed below and sought to digest all of these sources' information and consider how they map to the objectives set for the current core by the SVCIC. Data considered for this report The 2014-5 AAC used the following sources in composing this report:

● Institutional data on retention, diversity, and language study (thanks to the OIR) ● Core lab assessment report, 2012-2014 (thanks and acknowledgments to the CCD) ● Writ1 studies, Writing Center and Academic Excellence assessments, 2002-2014 (thanks to W.M-L.et al.) ● 1st and 3rd semester student surveys, 2011-2 through 2013-4 (thanks to the AAC) ● Core-assessment reports, 2012-2014 (thanks to the AAC) ● Faculty interviews, 2013-2014 (thanks to the AAC) ● Department-specific insights (thanks to the 2012 AAC and 2014's departmental representatives)

Executive summary This chart summarizes those standards and the AAC's overall sense of how well the current core meets their letter/spirit:

SVCIC objective Overall valence Comments

retention positive retention has increased, though not uniformly

diversity positive student diversity has increased along some axes

language mixed language study (and opportunity) did increase

flexibility mixed flexibility has increased; its perception less so

breathing space mixed solid support is available; student reports are mixed

interdisciplinarity mixed has increased cohort-wide; per student, less so

writing positive positively viewed by faculty; mixed by first-years

major success mixed some see increased success; others do not

The formal SVCIC wording for each objective and additional details on each of these criteria appear after the short synopsis of executive highlights.

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Executive highlights [Positives] The committee feels that the current core curriculum has accompanied a number of positive student and institutional outcomes: (1) increased retention and diversity of the HMC student body, (2) increased attention to writing and its importance, and (3) increased flexibility in students' curricular choices. [Retention and Diversity] An increasing retention rate, both for the full HMC cohort, for women at HMC, and for STEM-underrepresented groups, has accompanied the current core. Whether economic diversity has increased was not investigated for this report (it may be for the WASC report). [Writing] Strong positive and negative opinions comingle in the core curriculum's emphasis on writing. Although Writ1 elicits complaints from some students immediately after the course, the overwhelming sense from faculty -- and from many students further along at HMC -- is that (a) student writing has improved and that (b) the message that writing is important is effectively conveyed. Writ1 has also had many positive side effects: it has fostered deeply-valued interdepartmental and multidisciplinary collaborations among the teaching faculty, it has provided a shared vocabulary which subsequent courses have reinforced and extended, e.g., in HSA 10 (Critical Inquiry), Introduction to Engineering Design and Manufacturing (E4), and clinical/lab reporting. Writ1, along with writing more generally, is scaffolded by the Writing Center's wonderful peer-tutoring, community-building, and coursework support. On balance, the committee shares in many faculty members' delight with the core's current emphasis on writing. [Flexibility, Core Lab, and Core Electives] The diversity of classes taken by first-years has increased over the prior core curriculum -- though at the expense of some of the content coverage of that older core. The gaps left by this increased flexibility spurred the creation of many new classes, some of which, e.g., Autonomous Vehicles (E11), the Physics of Food, the Physics of Photography, and the Chemistry of Cooking (nicknames for some), are now deeply embedded in some students' HMC experience. These and other core electives and core labs have served as a welcome incubator for interdisciplinary curricular experiments and/or novel pedagogical approaches. Some faculty have noted that the loss of lab hours and, perhaps more importantly, the loss of uniform laboratory experience have reduced the students' facility and familiarity with some important lab techniques. That our feedback mechanisms have caught this, however, is a positive; whether the tradeoff is a worthwhile one remains an open question. [Negatives] The outcomes are not all positive, however. Some of topic realignments have resulted in downstream courses without needed background. Specifically, some late-core courses depend on mathematical background no longer uniformly present in their incoming cohorts. In addition, there is concern over the loss of certain laboratory skills relative to past classes. The former concern is currently being addressed by an ad-hoc faculty committee. The latter concern is a negative side effect of both fewer core requirements and a breadth/depth tradeoff in core laboratory experiences. We do not know of current activity to mitigate it. Many feel faculty-development and community-building efforts have helped provide a uniform Writ1 experience -- at least in the vocabulary, workload, and shared scope of Writ1's writing instruction. It is possible to imagine adapting those interactions for Core Lab instructors, with a similar goal in mind. The language-study data suggests that core electivity does not entail academic diversity. Though still well above the previous paradigm, the drop in language-study numbers from the current core's earliest years does suggest that today's students are choosing other ways in which to use the core's flexibility. [Scaffolding feedback loops] One positive takeaway from the above topic-sequencing concerns is that there are several feedback loops in place for catching these misalignments, understanding them, and resolving them. The

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feedback comes through the Dean and Office of Academic Affairs (and their meetings with full departmental representation), the work and solicitations of the Core Division Director, as well as the AAC's core surveys and annual reports. Although the resolution of the mathematical-background alignment is ongoing, the attention that problem has received has been responsive and representative. [Overall] The current core curriculum is neither perfect nor irredeemable. The AAC anticipates the successful resolution of the adjustments underway, prompted by existing feedback loops. We do not rule out more substantive changes, though the crux of such changes would likely lie in choosing a different tradeoff point along the axis running from individual flexibility to shared experience. (Re)defining that facet of HMC's identity will likely engage us for years to come. Future of this report Although the committee has been deliberate in addressing the SVCIC's criteria, it has not tried to create a definitive view of the core, especially with respect to its future. That is a larger issue, though we hope this report can inform that future. This approach has led us to include some data, e.g., the qualitative assessment noted above, because we believe it highlights a worthwhile process, rather than defines a consensus (which it does not do). This report can only inform, not constrain, the evolution of HMC's core curriculum going forward. The AAC recognizes that core-assessment is necessarily ongoing -- and undertaken by many different parts of the HMC community. For our committee's short-term purposes, one target for this work per se is to support the core-curriculum component of Harvey Mudd's upcoming WASC interim review. Per-criterion summaries Success in major SVCIC charge: "students will be as able to achieve success in their majors as they were prior to the core reform" To investigate the extent to which students are successful in their majors after the current core, the AAC considered

● the faculty interviews done as part of the qualitative core assessment ● per-major departmental summaries of the core's pros and cons, provided by each AAC representative ● the 2012 AAC study of downstream core impacts

Certainly the outcomes here differ from department to department: the per-major summaries and qualitative-assessment interviews survey those individual differences. An appendix holds those documents. Broadly speaking, however, the committee feels

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1. Students are succeeding across most HMC majors at least as well as they did after taking the core of a decade ago. On the whole, faculty and near-graduation students feel the emphasis on writing has benefited -- or, at least, not harmed -- the work in their majors. Some in both groups feel those benefits have been quite strong.

2. Some skill- and topic-interdependencies have caused concerns; those concerns are not small, but they have

a smaller relative impact on students' performance in their major courses than on their work within the core curriculum itself. The feedback that has alerted core instructors to these misalignments has, in turn, led to ongoing efforts to resolve them.

3. The increased flexibility in the core has enabled some students to focus their energy and efforts in a

particular major more deeply or more quickly than in the past. Whether this flexibility/uniformity tradeoff is a problem worth mitigating -- or is even a problem -- remains open. It is worth noting, however, that within the current core the available flexibility and student choice do not necessarily ensure diversity of experience. For some students, the increased flexibility has permitted explorations and/or concentrations that were more difficult or impossible in the past.

Writing SVCIC charge: "Students will be more proficient writers" The AAC considered the broader questions of whether students felt supported in developing their writing and whether faculty considered the current core's emphasis on writing well-supported and worthwhile. The resources considered include

● the faculty interviews done as part of the qualitative core assessment ● per-major departmental summaries of the core's pros and cons, provided by each AAC representative ● the first-term and third-term student surveys of their core experiences ● the Writing Center's yearly assessment reports and writing assessments available to date

In addition, there are ongoing assessments that will further contribute to our understanding of writing in the core, e.g., the HSA department is creating a report on HSA10 that is still in progress. In terms of the broader interpretation of this charge, the committee feels the current core has been quite successful:

1. Among the faculty interviews, the strongest common theme was that the core writing experience has been very positive. The reasons include (i) faculty perception of improved student writing, (ii) a shared vocabulary for supporting writing across courses after Writ1, (iii) enjoyment of working with students in a close-knit and intense intellectual pursuit, and, above all, (iv) the delight in the cross-departmental collaboration that is Writ1's teaching model.

2. Student feedback immediately after Writ1 is mixed. Common concerns with the experience are (i) the

differences in approach to writing instruction between high school and HMC, (ii) the relevance of the skills and shared vocabulary Writ1 provides, and (iii) a community-based negativity toward Writ1 that seems more emotion than reason. The AAC does not discount any of these concerns. We do note, however, that a less-vocal group of students does feel positive about Writ1 immediately after the class. In addition, some of those who do not immediately appreciate the course do reflect positively on their Writ1 experience later in their HMC careers.

3. The support for both faculty teaching Writ1 and students taking the course -- and, more generally, pursuing

writing projects across the HMC curriculum -- is outright inspiring.

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Strong positive and negative opinions commingle in the core curriculum's emphasis on writing. Although Writ1 elicits complaints from some students during or immediately after the course, the overwhelming sense from faculty -- and from many students further along at HMC -- is that student writing has improved and that the message that writing is important is now more strongly conveyed. In addition, Writ1 has also had several positive side effects: it has fostered deeply valued interdepartmental and interdisciplinary collaborations among the teaching faculty, it has provided a shared vocabulary which subsequent courses can reinforce and extend, e.g., HSA 10, E4, and clinical/lab reporting, and it is supported by the Writing Center's wonderful scaffolding, community-building, and coursework support. On balance, the committee shares in many faculty members' delight with the core's current emphasis on writing. Student feedback In the annual core surveys (full results in the appendix), the AAC has asked first- and third-term students, "To what extent do you feel your first semester (three semesters) encouraged your growth as a writer?" with the following aggregate results:

In fact, these means hide a bimodal sentiment toward Writ1 from students in the throes of the core. Some express concerns about Writ1's value, e.g.,

I really feel like my HSA elective helped some, but Writ 1 was much less useful. (fy)

Writ 1 was the most complained about class by the entire student body. There was so much negativity around it I found myself hating it as well, and I love writing. I understand that academic writing is important but I wish we had room for more creative writing. I did not feel myself grow as

a writer but rather I felt the opposite effect in the sense that I began to dread any sort of writing. (fy) Others relish the experience, some realizing so after the fact:

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I've never liked writing so I tried to avoid it as much as possible, but taking these writing courses

made me realize that writing isn't something to be feared, its actually a wonderful tool. (so)

I'm very pro-Writ 1 but I dislike that many people seem to be anti-Writ 1. From working in the Writing Center, I hate it when freshmen come in for consultations in the first week already dreading all the work they were going to have to do for the course. While I don't think deluding the freshmen into thinking Writ 1 is all magic and fun and sparkles is a good idea, I think that something should be done to promote the idea that Writ 1 is not another form of hell, but rather a class you can get a

lot out of if you come in with the right attitude. (so) The committee distilled these data into four overarching observations, paraphrased here from that appendix. That appendix also identifies six themes (and provides counts of the number of comments supporting each of those themes: an organized overview, not a formal coding). 1. Almost every student comment directly contradicted another comment: student experience with Writing and Writ1 is non-uniform (to say the least). 2. More people liked Writ1 than both faculty members and students perceive. It seems there is a vocal group of Writ1 critics who, at least partially, drown out the Writ1 supporters. 3. HSA 10 is very popular. 4. Other core courses might consider including writing in their curriculum, so that writing's importance is emphasized throughout the core. Many survey respondents seem to consider it a "non-tech" or "hum" skill. To help broaden the perspectives of students during Writ1, addressing #2 in particular, the AAC will collaborate with Wendy Menefee-Libey and the Writing Center by the end of Spring 2015 to draft a one-page summary of past-student reflections that Writ1 instructors might share with their students, if they so choose. Interdisciplinarity We admit that "interdisciplinarity" is polysyllabic, even puppy-threateningly so1. The SVCIC's take had one fewer syllable: "students will be more able to employ interdisciplinary thinking" To investigate the interdisciplinarity in the current core, the AAC considered

● the diversity in the courses, including labs, HMC first-year students now take relative to the diversity in the past core curriculum, including core labs, core electives, and other elective courses.

● the first-term and third-term student surveys of their core experiences ● the faculty interviews done as part of the qualitative core assessment ● per-major departmental summaries of the core's pros and cons, provided by each AAC representative

The committee also acknowledges that interdisciplinary has not been not carefully defined here. We embrace a diversity of meanings for "interdisciplinary thinking," including (a) students' breadth of coursework, (b) student work in core classes/labs that bridge a major discipline to topics outside that major, and (c) explicitly interdisciplinary efforts, which bring together the methodological tools of different disciplines in one course. We also asked students to reflect on the interdisciplinary thinking they undertook through the core, leaving to them the space to define the phrase for themselves. Although the student surveys began as the new core began, they

1 The committee thanks Professor Dyson for insight into the dangers wrought by sesquipedalianism in Writ1.

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provide at least a year-over-year glimpse at students' near-term feelings about "the extent to which the core encourages interdisciplinary thinking." The following table summarizes the aggregate results:

Representative student feedback pushes back against these numbers' sterility:

I came from a public high school in the bottom [tier]. This semester required more work, critical thinking, and exposed me to more disciplines than all of my high school experience combined did.

(fy)

I feel like interdisciplinary thinking is encouraged, but it is not always obvious how to do so. I feel professors could be more explicit about interdisciplinary thinking rather than giving hints and

asides. (fy)

The parallels between stems and physics during sophomore year were very helpful. (so)

I think most of core is very well designed. I repeatedly found myself using in one class a skill I had just learned the week before in another class. (so)

The AAC's key distillations from considering the core's support for interdisciplinary thinking have been these:

1. Considered cohort-wide, it is difficult to argue that the current core is not more interdisciplinary than previous core curricula. Students can - and do - choose courses from a far broader slate. Many of those new courses, in addition, are rooted in a single discipline, but actively reach outward from there, e.g., E11, AstroBiology, and many Core Labs.

2. In contrast to this cohort-wide increase, individual student comments show that the experience and exercise

of interdisciplinary thinking varies dramatically person to person.

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3. The experiment with Core Lab may also provide insight into Harvey Mudd's comfort level with interdisciplinary efforts. The early de-emphasis on Core Lab's interdisciplinary traits might signal that, on the whole, the institution enjoys balancing enthusiasm for our core disciplines with eyes peeled for outreach opportunities across or beyond disciplinary boundaries. One impressive multi-disciplinary, or at least cross-departmental, success of the faculty's experience of the core is Writ1. Some of the committee felt that this was an unanticipated benefit of that emphasis.

Breathing Space Another of the SVCIC objectives for the current core was that "Students will be able to create breathing space within their first two years to accommodate academic, social, or emotional needs" To investigate this SVCIC objective the AAC considered

● the first-term and third-term student surveys of their core experiences ● the faculty interviews done as part of the qualitative core assessment ● the annual reports from the Writing Center and Academic Excellence programs

A few points emerged from our reflections on the topic of breathing space:

1. Not all students feel that they can create the breathing space they want during the semesters in which the core curriculum dominates their academic efforts. The carefully-considered policies and guidelines for overloading, rising retention rates, and changes in ITR/probation/warning numbers suggest that, in aggregate, HMC's core cohort is succeeding in creating the breathing space they need, at least to continue academically. The following table summarizes the aggregate results:

along with excerpts from students' reflections on breathing space:

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Sometimes there was a lot of work, and a lot going on. But especially with the pass/fail frosh mantra, I never felt like I couldn't just stop doing whatever I was doing and take a break. I probably didn't do it as much as I should have, but I never felt like I didn't

have the option. (fy)

There are always days where it's hard, and it definitely got harder to create that space especially first semester sophomore year, but I don't think it was ever to the extent

that I was hurt by this lack of space. (so)

I didn't have much breathing space/wiggle room in my schedule, but I liked the camaraderie that came from that. (so)

2. That said, some students do feel comfortable creating the breathing space they want, but want less than

some outside observers might recommend. In such cases, the lack of breathing space is self-inflicted. Others find it more challenging to balance their enthusiasm for academic and extracurricular efforts with a pace sustainable over long time spans.

3. Perhaps most importantly, there is substantial support for students who do overreach and there are several

feedback loops in place in order to catch such instances. The AAC commends (and is humbled by) the efforts of the individuals and offices of the Academic Excellence program, the Dean for Academic Affairs and the Core Curriculum Director for their efforts supporting first- and second-year students with their academic pursuits -- and keeping perspective on those pursuits. Those academic resources complement the Student Health and Wellness and Dean of Students offices, including the dorms' peer-counseling network, which provide broader and deeper channels through which potential problems are detected and addressed.

Academic Choice Part of the initial motivation for the current core was to increase students' academic choice in their early semesters at HMC. The SVCIC sought both that "Students will be more satisfied with their ability to choose courses that satisfy their interests" and that "Students will be more satisfied with their ability to shape their own academic programs." A difficult facet of these SVCIC objectives is satisfaction. Student surveys did not begin until the new core was underway, but the results of those student-satisfaction questions do not suggest that the core cohorts, on the whole, are especially satisfied with scheduling-flexibility, though many take it in stride:

You don't really get to pick classes cause of core. So it's not really flexible. (fy)

There are a lot of required classes. I understand why they're there, but still. I've placed out of classes both semesters, and I still felt like I didn't have the flexibility to take all the classes I wanted. I don't

like how the first year of classes have such limited space for humanities classes, since that balance is so important! But at the same time, I like that you're forcing us to take a certain amount of bio and math and comp sci and chem because that science breadth is really valuable too, and I don't think I

would have achieved it were it not required. (fy)

It seemed like half the classes I wanted to take were all scheduled for the same time. Once again, more coordination between departments would be nice. (so)

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I don't like options very much and so having my schedule practically laid out for the first few semesters was nice. It was like a task I didn't have to deal with. (so)

Below are the Likert scores, both for the semester immediately past and the one upcoming. The following table summarizes these aggregate results:

Setting aside the more satisfied facet of these directives, the committee sees as reasonable the implicit goal of enabling students to take more courses of their own choosing. On this point, the committee feels that

1. The core is undeniably succeeding in providing more flexibility than older curricula, even if only in the structural fact that there are more choices to be had now than many years ago.

2. That said, it is possible that students' perceptions of their ability to choose have not increased -- or have

even decreased. This might relate to the institutional framing of the endeavor: by making flexibility more explicitly a goal, it is possible that some students' expectations are raised beyond the extent that the available electivity can satisfy.

3. Perhaps even more fundamental is our institution's ineluctable identity question: where to strike the balance

between shared experience, at least in part defined through the core curriculum, and individuals' identity-expression through mapping out their own course assemblages. One scheduling pattern seems to be that, for some students, electivity does not necessarily entail diversity of experience.

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Language Study The SVCIC articulated an objective for additional language study among first-year students: “The number of students participating in language study during their first year will increase.” It is possible to interpret these data as positive, negative, or mixed. After a spike that immediately followed the transition from the old core, the numbers of first-year students who chose to take a language fell off, but remained well above the past decade's levels.

Note that these data preceded the first-year students' choice of spring courses; the "both semesters" entry for 2014 may increase in future data runs. Here are the raw data that produced the above chart:

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The committee is not certain what caused the spike after the current core's implementation, nor the drop-off in numbers afterwards. It may be that some students are using their electivity to explore major-sequence courses earlier in their HMC experience: the tradeoff was not highlighted among the SVCIC's objectives. The core-curriculum survey does not, at least at the moment, have a foreign-language question (though this could be changed). One thing we did examine, although it was also not explicitly part of the SVCIC's charge, was the set of languages first-year students did choose in the most recent full academic year:

Language-study flexibility and cohort expectations are an important channel through which Harvey Mudd defines itself. Whether recent-years' language data constitute success, failure, both, or neither, the assessment committee members look forward to continuing to track these data and grappling with them as part of HMC's identity. Diversity One of the fundamental objectives of the current core was supporting diversity. As the SVCIC put it, "We will attract, enroll, retain, and graduate a greater percentage of students who contribute to the diversity of the college, as measured by gender, ethnicity, and economic background" Other than the bit of analysis reported in the 2012 AAC survey (see appendix), this report does not address the economic-background facet of this objective. That was a topic addressed during the Saddle Rock retreat and may continue to receive attention in future years. We examined the enrollment data across two identity axes. The following charts show enrollments by gender:

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Recognizing that the core curriculum's details per se may not directly factor into these results, the committee does feel these data offer evidence that the cohorts are approaching balance by gender. The data by which students identify themselves according to racial / ethnic categorizations allow eight options. Among those eight, enrollment within these four categories -- Native American, Black/African-American, Hispanic, and Mixed/Multiracial -- have been grouped, as have their complement. Those four groups are not proportionally represented among postsecondary STEM fields: we use STEM-underrepresented, or STEM-u, as an aggregate designation. The other four categories -- Asian, Foreign, Unknown, and White -- constitute the other students in the summaries below. As a committee we acknowledge that some of the students who self-categorize as Unknown and/or Foreign might be more consistently designated as STEM-u; by the same token, the Mixed/Multiracial category may include students more consistently designated as the "other" cohort. It is worth noting that students can and do change this identity descriptor within the HMC database. The enrollment of STEM-u students has increased during the latter portion of the existing core's deployment, as the SVCIC had hoped. Whether the core curriculum itself influenced this is not obvious.

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Again, the committee feels that the SVCIC's charge for increased enrollment has been met. The question of retention is distinct from enrollment. The next section summarizes recent retention data. Retention In addition, the SVCIC sought to increase retention among all HMC students: "We will retain and graduate a greater percentage of the students that we enroll." In tandem with the previous charge, this section presents both full-cohort retention data and data on subcohort retention. Below are the per-semester retention rates, along with the four-year and six-year graduation rates for the past decade's cohorts. The following table summarizes these aggregate results:

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The committee feels that, for graduation-rate trends, the evidence suggests a slight upward trend. However, the retention-rate data are heartening, particularly in the third-semester and fourth-semester columns, above, which reflect the conclusion of most students' core-curriculum emphasis. The following charts show the retention rates broken out for women and for STEM-u students:

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In both of these datasets, the retention rate has increased in recent years -- especially so through the semesters in which the core curriculum occupies much of students' academic efforts. The most worrying datum in the above charts is the 60% retention rate in the 7th-semester column of the 2011 cohort among STEM-u students. A closer analysis shows that this represents a (not necessarily permanent) loss of three students after their seventh semester. It is worth noting (1) that this is, first and foremost, a situation the college is striving to resolve in the best interests of those individuals, (2) that this datum depends on a relatively small number of students, and (3) that these particular situations continue to evolve to this day. Broadening this point, the committee does want to emphasize that it is our - and the college's - priority to serve not these numbers per se, but the individuals they incompletely summarize. We are delighted that the college has seen increased enrollment and retention rates among the cohorts of women, STEM-u students, and all HMC students. In the context of higher education overall, we recognize that these retention and graduation rates are enviable. That said, there are not as high as some models, e.g., using SAT scores and other such variables, would predict.

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Whatever the validity of such models, we as a college want to see every student we enroll succeed. We feel the above data does suggest that the current core curriculum has not hurt the college's efforts to increase diversity among its cohorts. Conclusion A great deal of work remains. The assessment of the core will continue through efforts across many channels, formal and informal. Our core curriculum will always be a work in progress, as will our assessment of it (and, perhaps, even this report). As we seek to improve individual student experiences, we as a community also look forward to improving and highlighting the positive and distinctive shared experiences made possible by the HMC core curriculum. As we noted above, the current core curriculum is neither perfect nor irredeemable. The AAC does anticipate the successful resolution of those core-adjustments currently underway, prompted by existing feedback loops. Certainly, more substantive changes are possible, though again the crux of such changes would lie in choosing a different tradeoff point between individual flexibility to shared experience. (Re)defining that facet of HMC's identity will likely engage us for years to come. Onward! Acknowledgments The assessment committee expresses its heartfelt thanks to all of the contributors to this report: Wendy Menefee-Libey, Bill Daub, Laura Palucki-Blake, Eric Ditwiler, Lisa Sullivan, Jeff Groves, previous-terms' AAC committees, and all of the faculty and students who contributed their thoughtful feedback on the HMC core curriculum. We look forward to continuing both assessment and broader reflection on the HMC core, as well as feeding back this report's insights into efforts to improve the student learning and experience of the core curriculum. Respectfully submitted, The fall 2014 assessment and accreditation committee

Anna Ahn Bill Daub Eric Ditwiler Zach Dodds Erika Dyson David Money Harris Laura Palucki-Blake Vatche Sahakian Francis Su

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Appendices As appendices, we include some of the secondary sources the committee read and considered in this snapshot of the core – particularly those not readily available elsewhere. Some of the primary data, e.g., raw student-survey responses, are not included. Those data are available from the OIR, which would ensure they are appropriately confidential, if needed.

● 1st and 3rd semester student survey summaries, 2011-2 through 2013-4 (thanks to the F'14 AAC) ● Faculty interviews, 2013-2014 (thanks to the 2014 AAC, OKed by the faculty members) ● Department-specific insights (thanks to 2014's departmental representatives to the AAC) ● Core-assessment reports, 2012-2014 (thanks to the AAC, various years)