Senior Assignment
The Senior Assignment (SRA) is the hallmark of a baccalaureate education at SIUE. The SRA serves as a demonstrable connection between the student's major area of study and the full breadth of general education skills and competencies. Each department or program has ownership over their Senior Assignments, thus the faculty have been given the autonomy to construct the SRA to assess the unique capabilities of their graduates and also to assess overall program effectiveness and the degree of interdisciplinary competence among graduates. While involved in the Senior Assignment, students are actively engaged in the development, rather than the consumption, of knowledge. The SRA optimizes assessment that recognizes the importance of open-ended, holistic, problem-based assessment that requires critical thinking. After all, "institutional assessment efforts should not be concerned about valuing what can be measured but, instead, about measuring that which is valued." (Banta, Lund, Black, & Oblander, 1996)
Within broad limits, the structure of each Senior Assignment is owned by the individual department, which announces the goals for its students, sets the standards and expectations, and then openly presents and assesses the resulting SRAs. The "broad limits" across all departments are these: (a) each student must demonstrate a grasp of general education as well as of the major discipline itself, (b) the assessment must be "high stakes" to assure motivation, with a grade or even graduation itself hanging in the balance, and (c) the departmental faculty as a whole must view and assess the results.
