Vision
UCORE Assessment is intended to help faculty, departments, and university leadership determine to what extent undergraduates are achieving the learning outcomes of the UCORE general education program (and the associated WSU Undergraduate Learning Goals).
The UCORE curriculum is overseen by the UCORE Director and UCORE Committee, supported by the Office of the Provost, and by the faculty through the Faculty Senate. Faculty participate on UCORE’s Subcommittee for Assessment and also assess student learning in key programs and courses. UCORE Assessment is a collaborative process that includes faculty, students, staff, administrators, and others. The Office of Assessment for Curricular Effectiveness (ACE) assists with UCORE assessment, by supporting and managing specific assessment-related initiatives, analyzing and reporting results, and maintaining assessment archives.
Framework for UCORE Assessment
UCORE Assessment is guided by the National Institute of Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) Transparency Framework. The framework helps make evidence of student accomplishment readily accessible and potentially useful and meaningful to various audiences. UCORE’s website for assessment is designed to highlight key components for transparency and use as the general education curriculum evolves over time.
Vision for UCORE (General Education)
WSU’s general education program, known as UCORE, helps undergraduate students acquire broad knowledge and transferable skills to complement their major programs of study. Through this broad exposure to multiple disciplines, students will develop intellectual and civic competencies, practical skills and the ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-world settings.
While the greater part of students’ courses of study is devoted to their major fields, the UCORE curriculum offers a wide variety of elective choices and provides many individual pathways through the curriculum, including introductory, advanced, and integrative forms of learning.
UCORE Curriculum
The UCORE Curriculum is bookended by a required first-year course [ROOT] and a senior capstone experience [CAPS], complemented by foundational courses and inquiry-based learning in the disciplines. The program’s structure includes coursework in contemporary issues, social sciences, humanities, creative or professional arts, quantitative reasoning, natural sciences, diversity, and equity and justice, as well as communication, computation, and human relations.
UCORE is the centerpiece of the undergraduate curriculum supporting the advancement of the WSU Undergraduate Learning Goals. Each UCORE course designator includes a set of student learning outcomes, aligned with the WSU Undergraduate Learning Goals, that articulate what students are expected to achieve as they complete a course in that designator.
Note: Announced in May 2022, revised designator learning outcomes were approved by the UCORE Committee to help clarify what students, regardless of major, should be able to know and do upon the successful completion of a course in that designator. Additionally, effective Fall 2023, UCORE added the [EQJS] designator to the “Ways of Knowing” component of the curriculum, with the requirement that students complete courses in at least six of the seven Ways of Knowing designators.