Annual Assessments
Student Learning Outcomes
The primary purpose of student outcomes assessment at Saint Joseph’s University is to encourage continuous programmatic improvement by informing faculty, staff, and administrators about the extent to which curricular and co-curricular goals and objectives are being met. Outcomes assessment practices are in this way essential to the SJU mission of providing a rigorous, student-centered education rooted in the liberal arts that prepares students for personal excellence, professional success, and engaged citizenship. This mission calls for the realization of important academic and co-curricular student outcomes and the assessment process helps us to understand both our successes and challenges in this regard. For this reason,
- Assessment efforts should target all levels of student curricular and co-curricular experience and they should be administered by a broad and inclusive set of faculty, staff, and administrators.
- Assessment should be programmatic, aiming to identify the level of student attainment of essential skills and other outcomes by graduation.
- Assessment results should be widely disseminated and discussed by all relevant stakeholders and they should directly inform efforts to improve curriculum, pedagogy, and co-curricular mechanisms for achieving programmatic goals.
View Annual Assessment and Reporting Calendar
The SJU Ad Hoc Committee on Institutional Student Learning Outcomes (hereafter “Committee”) was established during the Fall 2015 semester and its charge acknowledged by the University Council at the November 2015 Council meeting.
The Committee delivered four items to the General Education Oversight Committee, the University Council, and the Provost’s Council: (1) a list of undergraduate- level learning outcomes; (2) a matrix demonstrating how undergraduate students will achieve those outcomes through SJU undergraduate programs; (3) a list of graduate-level learning outcomes; and, (4) a matrix demonstrating how graduate students will achieve those outcomes through SJU graduate programs.
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1. Communication (UG and GR)
UG: Students will communicate effectively through written and oral modes of expression across academic, professional, and social contexts using appropriate technology.
GR: Students will communicate effectively using appropriate technology.
2. Critical Thinking and Inquiry (UG and GR)
Students will think critically and construct reasoned arguments to support their positions using skills appropriate to the context, such as deductive reasoning, scientific inquiry, quantitative reasoning, aesthetic judgment, or critical examination of form, style, content and meaning.
3. Ethics, Social Justice, and Ignatian Values (UG and GR)
UG: Students will assess and respond to ethical and social justice issues informed by Ignatian values and other theoretical frameworks.
GR: Students will assess and respond to ethical and social justice issues informed by Ignatian values.
4. Diversity (UG)
Students will engage respectfully, in a local and global context, with diverse human beliefs, abilities, experiences, identities, or cultures.
5. Discipline or Program Specific Competencies (UG and GR)
Students will acquire the essential knowledge and skills to succeed and make well-reasoned judgments personally, professionally, and in their chosen area(s) of study.
6. Jesuit Intellectual Tradition (UG)
Students will examine forces that have shaped the world they have inherited through instruction in the Ignatian educational tradition which includes the study of the humanities, philosophy, theology, history, mathematics, and the natural and social sciences.
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1. Communication
Students will communicate effectively through written and oral modes of expression across academic, professional, and social contexts using appropriate technology.
2. Critical Thinking and Inquiry
Students will think critically and construct reasoned arguments to support their positions using skills appropriate to the context, such as deductive reasoning, scientific inquiry, quantitative reasoning, aesthetic judgment, or critical examination of form, style, content and meaning.
3. Ethics, Social Justice, and Ignatian Values
Students will assess and respond to ethical and social justice issues informed by Ignatian values and other theoretical frameworks.
4. Diversity (UG)
Students will engage respectfully, in a local and global context, with diverse human beliefs, abilities, experiences, identities, or cultures.
5. Discipline or Program Specific Competencies (UG and GR)
Students will acquire the essential knowledge and skills to succeed and make well-reasoned judgments personally, professionally, and in their chosen area(s) of study.
6. Jesuit Intellectual Tradition (UG)
Students will examine forces that have shaped the world they have inherited through instruction in the Ignatian educational tradition which includes the study of the humanities, philosophy, theology, history, mathematics, and the natural and social sciences.
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1. Communication
Students will communicate effectively using appropriate technology.
2. Critical Thinking and Inquiry
Students will think critically and construct reasoned arguments to support their positions using skills appropriate to the context, such as deductive reasoning, scientific inquiry, quantitative reasoning, aesthetic judgment, or critical examination of form, style, content and meaning.
3. Ethics, Social Justice, and Ignatian Values
Students will assess and respond to ethical and social justice issues informed by Ignatian values.
5. Discipline or Program Specific Competencies
Students will acquire the essential knowledge and skills to succeed and make well-reasoned judgments personally, professionally, and in their chosen area(s) of study.