Assessment Framework

HLC Quality Initiative Project

The University of Notre Dame is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission on what is known as the Open Pathway. The Open Pathway's improvement component, the Quality Initiative, affords institutions the opportunity to pursue improvement projects that meet their current needs and aspirations.

For its most recent HLC Quality Initiative project, Notre Dame chose to test and implement methodologies by which the University evaluates successes and opportunities related to the Core Curriculum. The assessment framework resulting from the Quality Initiative entails: 1) Course Instructor Feedback (CIF) data analysis methodologies; 2) supplemental questions that were added to the student Senior Survey prior to the transition from the prior Core Curriculum to the WoK Core, which will be a permanent part of the Survey and furnish a longitudinal data set; 3) surveys and interviews with the eleven chairs of the Core Curriculum Committee’s “Ways of Knowing” Subcommittees; and 4) the Core Curriculum Instructor Survey, which has established the foundation for future survey administration and analysis.

These protocols will be a key input in the next decennial Core Curriculum review, slated to kick off in academic year 2024-25.

2014-2017 Core Curriculum Review

The University of Notre Dame undertakes a thorough review of its core curriculum every 10 years.

The most recent review process began in August 2014, when University President John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and Provost Thomas G. Burish appointed a Decennial Core Curriculum Review Committee to review the current requirements and deliberate possible changes. The committee was co-chaired by John McGreevy, I.A. O'Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, and Michael Hildreth, professor of physics; it also included 11 other faculty members from across the University.