NOTE: As part of the 2001-2002 Honors PROGRAM ASSESSMENT, Honors 450, Senior Capstone, was assessed during the past academic year. The purpose of this assessment was to determine whether the course, designed by Dr. Bunkers and offered during the past three fall semesters, was meeting the needs of Honors Program members in planning and implementing their Honors senior projects. The assessment report is provided online below

------------------------------------------------------------------

This report and enclosures were submitted to Office of Academic Affairs on 1 May 2002 by 
Suzanne Bunkers.

MINNESOTA STATE UNIVERSITY

2001-2002 Assessment of Student Learning Report
Department: n/a Program: Honors Program Degree Award: n/a

Please submit two copies of a two to three page summary of your assessment activities
during 2001-2002 to your Dean by 1 May 2002. One copy will be forwarded to
Academic Affairs for institutional records. Please use the following format for your
summary.

1. What outcomes were assessed this year and why?
2. How were they assessed?
a. What methods were used?
b. Who was assessed?
c. When was it assessed?
3. What was learned?
4. What will the department do as a result of that information?

NOTE: Because the Honors Program is not housed within a college, the Honors Program has no faculty unit representative on the Assessment Resource Team. The Honors Program respectfully requests that a MSU faculty representative be provided to advise the Honors Program on assessment issues during the 2002-2003 and future academic years.

1. Student Outcome: The student will submit a well-written, carefully organized proposal 
for his or her Honors senior project at the conclusion of the course. (See attached pages 
for details.) 

2. Assessment was ongoing during weekly seminar meetings, during which students 
discussed potential project options, generated and critiqued one another's project 
proposals, and received verbal and written feedback and guidance from the instructor, 
Suzanne Bunkers. The students who enrolled in Honors 450, Senior Capstone, were the 
individuals whose work was assessed. Please refer to attached materials (e.g., senior 
project informational packet, senior project proposals, self-assessment, course 
evaluation) for details.

3. Students learned reflective listening skills, senior project proposal writing skills, 
group discussion skills, peer evaluation and critiquing skills--all aspects of critical 
thinking that enabled students to achieve the outcome outlined above. Please refer to 
students' self-assessments and course evaluations (attached) to learn more about how 
successfully students themselves believed they had met the outcome state above.

4. The information gathered will be made available to MSU Honors Program members as well as to MSU faculty members who might wish to supervise future Honors senior projects.  Because Honors 450, Senior Capstone, is a recently developed course, created by Dr. Bunkers in response to students' requests for such a course, additional assessment of the course will continue each time it is offered during fall semester of the academic year. 
Professor Bunkers will teach the course again during fall semester 2002.