Implementing and Assessing the ACE 10 Outcome: Exploring Learning and Career Preparation within the Undergraduate Major (Quality Initiative Proposal--University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s quality initiative proposes to implement and assess UNL’s General Education capstone course requirement (ACE 10). Assessment of ACE 10 outcomes is designed to be a broad marker of the quality of learning within our undergraduate majors. While examining students’ learning within their major, we also propose to engage faculty in systematic conversations about the role that curriculum, advising and mentoring within each major can play in assisting students to choose and prepare for meaningful careers after college. Deeply examining what students are learning within ACE 10 courses and simultaneously exploring their opportunities for career development within each major will enable UNL to gain a holistic picture of how our undergraduate degree programs are preparing students for career success. Initiated in 2009, UNL’s Achievement-Centered Education Program (ACE) is a 30-hour general education program that consists of ten student learning outcomes. The first nine learning outcomes focus on development of intellectual and practical skills including written and oral communication skills; building knowledge of diverse peoples and cultures through use of scientific, historical, social science, and arts theories and methods; and exercising individual and social responsibilities through the study of ethical principles and reasoning, application of civic knowledge, and engagement with global issues. The tenth learning outcome, ACE 10, culminates in the integration of these abilities and capacities via “a creative or scholarly product that requires broad knowledge, appropriate technical proficiency, information collection, synthesis, interpretation, presentation, and reflection.” Similar to the Lumina Degree Qualifications Profile, ACE 10 courses ask students to demonstrate the integration of ideas, methods, practice and theory through summative projects, assignments, and research