2021 Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award

Alverno College will be the 2021 recipient of the Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award.

Alverno College: Exemplary Assessment Pioneer

A full decade before the assessment of student learning outcomes emerged on the landscape of higher education, Alverno College, a liberal arts college for women in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was working to identify the learning outcomes its students should achieve.  In the early 1970s, building on surveys of alumnae and substantive conceptual work, faculty created a set of abilities, eventually eight of them, each with six specified levels of achievement.  This became (and continues to be) the touchstone of an Alverno education and the foundation for its ground-breaking work on assessment.  Over the next decade, a new Office of Research and Development began documenting student achievement of those outcomes, and an “Assessment Center” collected and tracked the evidence generated by each student as she moved through the carefully designed series of assessment activities (including repeated opportunities to self-assess) required for graduation. 

Perhaps most important was the impact of the abilities-based system on the everyday work of faculty and students in the classroom.  Curriculum, classroom activities, and opportunities for each student to demonstrate her growing proficiency all were shaped by and carefully aligned with the eight abilities.  In addition, individual faculty affiliated with an ability department as well as an academic discipline.  While many institutions were turning to external tests to measure aggregated student learning, Alverno was the first to use the term “assessment” to describe the process of demonstrating knowledge and ability for individual students. 

This pioneering approach, evolving over the years as the abilities were refined, and as the campus continued to study the impact of its work on students, soon propelled the college into a major leadership role.  Alverno educators spoke and wrote about their work extensively.  They also developed a summer institute for training leaders from other colleges and universities in the US and around the globe.

The assessment movement has evolved in many dimensions since those early days.  But it is no accident that some of the most promising developments in assessment today reflect the pioneering work and thinking of Alverno College educators, making assessment an integral aspect of the ongoing work of effective teaching and learning.

Trudy W. Banta, IUPUI
Peter Ewell, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS)
Pat Hutchings, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) 

2020 Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award

Pat Hutchings, Senior Scholar, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) and Senior Scholar, Bay View Alliance (BVA), was awarded the 2020 Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award.

• Visit NILOA’s YouTube page to view a series of congratulatory videos from friends and colleagues of Pat Hutchings.
  
• Listen to an episode of Leading Improvements in Higher Education Podcast featuring Pat Hutchings (Season 1, Episode 13)

2019 Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award

Barbara E. Walvoord, Professor Emerita, University of Notre Dame, was awarded the 2019 Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award by Trudy W. Banta and Stephen P. Hundley at the Monday, October 12, 2019, plenary session.

2018 Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award

George D. Kuh, NILOA and Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Higher Education, Indiana University, provided the address at the 2018 Assessment Institute in Indianapolis luncheon at which he was presented the Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award by Trudy W. Banta and Stephen P. Hundley.

2017 Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award

Peter T. Ewell, President Emeritus, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), provided the address at the 2017 Assessment Institute in Indianapolis luncheon at which he was presented the Trudy W. Banta Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award by Trudy W. Banta and Stephen P. Hundley.

2016 Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award

Trudy W. Banta, Vice Chancellor and Professor of Higher Education Emerita, provided the address at the 2016 Assessment Institute in Indianapolis luncheon at which she was presented the Lifetime Achievement in Assessment Award by Stephen P. Hundley.