Next week's class schedule: Sophomore test Wednesday; no class Friday

Monday's and Wednesday's classes will be at the usual time and place, but sophomores in HUM 221 will take a required standardized test at 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 1. (Sophomores in COMM 209 will get out of the last test in time to come to class.) But all of my classes Friday, April 3, are canceled since I will be taking part in a panel discussion on Illinois music in Decatur that day.

The following is excerpted from a faculty newsletter called Nuts & Bolts that I write and edit. It explains the need for Wednesday's standardized testing, which is required as a condition of our accreditation plan:

Let's all try to forget we're doing our standardized testing for General Education assessment on April Fool's Day! But let's also remember how important it is to have a good showing -- the more of our Gen Ed sophomores who take the ACT Inc. Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) test, the better the data we'll get. And the better the data, the better the decisions we'll make as we consolidate our curriculums and continue to work for continuous improvement at BenU-Springfield.

I can't say it any better than David Holland, chair of our Gen Ed assessment subcommittee, put it in a memo that went out to all faculty.

"Please remind sophomore students in your classes that they are required to take these CAAP tests," Dave said, "either during the morning or afternoon testing sessions. ... It is imperative that you not only remind sophomores of these tests but also encourage them to attend as these tests are an important part of our assessment package at the college."

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Math and writing skills modules of the CAAP test will be administered in classrooms on the second floor of Dawson Hall from 10 a.m. till noon and from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 1. Sophomores need to be excused from classes that meet during these times so they can take the CAAP tests. Evening students who take the tests at 4 should be in class before 7. If you have questions, please feel free to contact Dave at ext. 242 or me at ext. 519 (email pellertsen at sci.edu).

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As Dave said, the Gen Ed tests are a vital part of our assessment-and-accountablity piece at Benedictine at Springfield. We chose an ACT Inc. testing product because the firm also designs the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE) taken by 11th-graders in Illinois, and we can purchase "linkage" data comparing our students' scores on the CAAP to their PSAE scores. That gives us a measure of "value added," so we can compare what our students knew before they came to us with what they learned in their first two years of Gen Ed courses. It is a very important piece of the evidence we submit for accreditation and accountability to outside stakeholders.

So it couldn't be more important, and I'm not foolin'.