The Center for Academic Support and Achievement will hand out surveys to faculty members after completing the first set of Electronic Writing Portfolios from students from November 2002.

Karla Sanders, director of the center, and Rebecca Throneburg, chair of the Committee for the Assessment of Student Learning, spoke at Tuesday’s Faculty Senate meeting to discuss changes and results of portfolio submissions.

“This is the year of EWP,” Sanders said.

The process, explained by Sanders, goes as follows:

A student must submit their first EWP entry from English 1001 or 1002.

The second must come from a 2000 or 3000 level writing intensive course and third from a 3000 or 4000 level.

The final submission must be from a student’s senior seminar.

All four submissions make up the students portfolio, which is then assessed by a group of readers, Sanders said.

The readers consist of 22 faculty members from all departments who then score the portfolio as a whole, she said.

The scores show faculty a students writing ability and what areas they are struggling in, Sanders said.

The center has seven objectives for the EWP, which are posted on their link on Eastern’s website.

The senate expressed concerns with how the objectives are measured.

The objectives are great, but somewhere the way in which the results are measured is lost, said senate chair Assege HaileMariam.

Sanders said the results are qualitative not quantitative.

The center, the committee and Writing Across Curriculum form a relationship that works with the assessment and education of writing, Sanders said.

One of the committee’s jobs has been to revise the University Assessment plan, Throneburg said.

In doing so, the center has developed a faculty survey to be distributed in November, she said.

This will inform the center and the committee of the effectiveness of the EWP for faculty, Throneburg said.

The committee will discuss the complaints and comments about EWP rubrics at their next meeting in two weeks, she said.

Sanders also added EWP was never designed to assess writing in certain fields but to assess across the curriculum.

Another concern of the senate was the types of papers students submit to EWP.

Lynn Curry, history professor and senate member, discussed how many students struggle last minute to turn in an entry and aren’t concerned with the quality of the paper.

Bud Fischer, biological sciences professor and senate member, then suggested that CASA make the portfolios available to a student’s future employers, so that students put their best work forward.

Bonnie Irwin, dean of the honor’s college, also briefly spoke to senate members about a new program available through the honor’s college called NSE (National Student Exchange.

This program will provide students who meet all requirements and apply the opportunity to study at 190 universities in the United States and U.S. territories.

Applications will be available starting December 1, said Irwin, coordinator of NSE.

More information will be provided once Irwin meets with the chairs of each department on campus.

The next Faculty Senate meeting will be Tuesday October 17 at 2 p.m. in Booth Library Room 4440.