The following outcome statements guide our institutional assessment efforts. Our assessment targets are assessed on a cyclical basis, as outlined by the Assessment Cycle Diagram. The results of past assessment projects can be found on the Institutional Research & Reports page.
Institutional Student Learning Outcomes
– engage their communities and demonstrate a sense of agency to create change in ethical and informed ways.
– explain diverse positions and collaborate effectively across social, cultural, and geographic differences in local and global contexts.
– critically engage their own beliefs and articulate their gifts and goals for meaningful life and work in a pluralistic context.
– identify the broad foundations for sustainable living and apply them in demonstrable ways.
– use appropriate methods to gather and analyze evidence, identify underlying assumptions, and evaluate competing claims.
– construct coherent, polished and persuasive arguments, narratives and explications in written, oral, and other formats.
– employ the fundamental principles of quantitative literacy to arrive at thoughtful judgments.
– articulate and solve problems in creative, analytical, and integrative ways.
These mission-driven learning outcomes are achieved and assessed by the cumulative efforts of undergraduate and graduate departments and programs, the General Education program, co-curricular divisions, and administrative institutional data experts.
General Education Learning Outcomes
The Augsburg Core Curriculum is a set of foundational coursework that is required of all Augsburg University Undergraduate Students. Although students may take a variety of different courses to satisfy these requirements, four primary learning outcome domains reflect their acquisition of the essential components of the general education coursework. Each is evaluated in General Education Coursework using the learning objectives indicated below.
| Requirement | Learning Objectives |
| Arts | Students engage in the creative, imaginative, and technical processes to produce, interpret, or perform a work of art.
Students identify the breadth and diversity of work in the Arts across time, space, and culture. Students analyze the Arts as expressions of the human condition and reflections of values and cultures. |
| Humanities | Students explore the relationships between human cultures and their behaviors, ideas, and/or values in order to understand what it is to be human.
Students analyze the products of human thought and culture. Students demonstrate their ability to use the methods of inquiry and critical thinking specific to the Humanities. |
| Languages & Oral Communication | Students develop an understanding of the fundamentals of effective public and/or conversational communication through sustained and intentional instruction.
Students practice effective message creation and implementation during multiple presentation situations. Students effectively apply appropriate audience analysis techniques to presentational situations. Students demonstrate effective verbal and/or nonverbal delivery techniques during presentations. Students develop strategies for managing communication apprehension. Students critically evaluate their own and others’ public and/or conversational communication. |
| Mathematical Sciences | Students deepen their basic knowledge and comprehension of core ideas from mathematics, computer science, statistics, or data science at the undergraduate level, and develop the ability to make connections between core ideas.
Students extend their mathematical, quantitative, analytic, or computational problem-solving strategies and practice applying strategies across varied contexts. Students refine their ability to translate a variety of contexts into mathematical, statistical, or computational models and evaluate the reasonableness of solutions and answers. Students generalize and abstract strategies and explain mathematical, statistical, or computational solutions and reasoning. Students reflect on the value of and their ability to perform mathematics, computer science, statistics and/or data science. |
| Natural Sciences with Lab | Students learn the vocabulary of science and the dynamic nature of scientific ideas.
Students perform experiments to collect, analyze, and/or interpret experimental evidence. Students describe how particular observations explain various aspects of the natural world. Students develop an understanding of the methods scientists use to explore natural phenomena. Students discuss the relationships between science and other human activities. |
| Social & Behavioral Sciences | Students articulate the interrelationships between individuals, ideas, institutions, structures, events, and/or social/behavioral processes.
Students articulate the central concepts, theories, and/or models used to explain human behavior. Students apply the concepts, theories and/or models they have learned to understand specific social/behavioral issues or events. Students demonstrate a basic understanding of the methodologies employed for collecting and analyzing social/behavioral data. |
| Religion & the Search for Meaning | Students explain the beliefs, commitments, or practices of diverse religious traditions as they are approached within the academic study of religion.
Students describe why religion matters and how it functions for individuals, for communities, and in the public sphere. Students engage meaningfully across differences in religious, spiritual, and philosophical worldviews. Students explore the concept of vocation as informed by the Lutheran Christian tradition and by other religious and spiritual traditions in relation to one’s own life. Students use critical tools to analyze texts, narratives, objects, and media related to the study of religion. |
| Writing | Students develop a practice of deep reading.
Students demonstrate an awareness of audience, purpose, and context for their written work. Students use specific, concrete language instead of abstractions and generalizations. Students use structure, organization, and mechanics effectively. Students demonstrate effective use of field-appropriate sources and documentation. Students revise and edit their writing, individually and in collaboration with others. |
| Equity, Power & Social Justice | Students explain inequities or avenues of oppression by applying structural or systemic ways of thinking (issues may include, but are not limited to, intersections of race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, citizenship status, and disability).
Students reflect critically on how issues of inequity, power, and/or social justice shape their own individual experiences and/or the experiences of others. Students apply systemic ways of thinking to understand issues of equity, power, and/or social justice and identify potential responses. |
| Local & Global Perspectives | Students demonstrate the ability to think critically, systemically and/or ethically in the context of local and global relationships.
Students articulate the dynamic nature of cultures and/or languages. Students intentionally engage with local and global issues, challenges and/or strategies through the use of case studies and/or experiential learning. |
| Sustainability & Wellness | Students articulate sustainability and/or wellness concepts (e.g., physical, mental, financial, spiritual, environmental).
Students apply systemic ways of thinking to issues of sustainability and/or wellness. Students critically engage with sustainability and/or wellness at the individual, community, and/or societal level. |
| Augsburg Scholars | Students will be introduced to the skills fundamental to college success.
Students participate in experiences that begin to integrate them into the Augsburg Community. Students explore paths into majors, careers, and/or meaningful work. |
| Augsburg Experience | Students describe the goals, mission, and/or needs of the people, organizations, communities, and/or activities of the Augsburg Experience
Students identify, evaluate, or design solutions based on knowledge, skills, and/or values from multiple disciplines Students reflect on how their coursework applies to the Augsburg Experience and their vocation and/or career goals |
Co-Curricular Learning Outcomes
The nine co-curricular learning outcomes and associated rubrics are as follows:
- Civic Engagement: Engage their communities and demonstrate a sense of agency to create positive, informed, and meaningful change.
- Global Learning: Explain one’s and others’ global impacts and perspectives, as well as collaborate effectively across social, cultural, and geographic differences in local and global contexts.
- Faith & Values: Engage critically with their own beliefs and articulate their gifts and goals for a meaningful life and work in a pluralistic context.
- Health & Wellness: Identify the broad foundations for healthy, sustainable living and apply them in demonstrable ways.
- Practical & Academic Competence: Gain skills necessary to successfully complete tasks and navigate systems relevant to academics, career, family, finances, and/or other settings.
- Intercultural Competence: Understand their own and other cultural norms and be able to communicate and to empathize effectively with individuals who do not share similar cultural backgrounds from themselves.
- Social Justice: Recognize their own identities, privileges, and biases; name and navigate systems of power and oppression; and demonstrate their agency towards creating a more socially just world.
- Interpersonal & Intrapersonal Development: Be able to work and to collaborate effectively with others, as well as develop self-awareness of personal attributes and factors that allow them to live productive lives.
- Leadership Exploration & Development: Provide facilitation, contribute, engage with conflict, and solve problems within a group setting that constructively enhance that group’s goals and initiatives.