The university recently received a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation, established by Stanton and Elizabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’s retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc. The funding will support a multi-year project, called UConn Advancing Structural Consistency through Educational Networks and Design (UASCEND). This university-wide, multi-campus project will expand support for faculty and academic programs to develop student-centric learning objectives; align assessment measures to objectives; design of common rubrics; and/or design of integrative, longitudinal, and capstone assessment measures.

Project purpose

The university is working to advance a culture of assessment in which assessment activities are viewed as a means for continuous self-improvement through recognition of our strengths and opportunities to advance student success. As part of this work, the university is in the fourth year of its academic program assessment initiative, while also implementing the Common Curriculum with its assessment activities. During this work, the most common requests from faculty and academic programs have been assistance to develop learning objectives and assessments aligned to them; create an integrative or capstone assessment; and create rubrics. The UASCEND project aims to increase bandwidth to assist faculty and academic programs with these activities.

Project description 

Through the UASCEND project, UConn will implement a modular professional development curriculum to expand knowledge and skills in assessing student learning outcomes while also expanding faculty opportunities for scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning. The curriculum is being designed for:

• Individual faculty seeking to define course-based objectives and assessments aligned to discipline-specific program learning objectives or general education (Common Curriculum) learning objectives for single section undergraduate courses;
• Groups of faculty who teach sections of the same course, particularly multi-campus courses, seeking to develop a single set of core objectives and at least one standardized course-based assessment;
• Academic programs seeking to develop longitudinal, project-based assessments, capstones, or authentic assessments to augment the integration of knowledge and demonstration of transferrable skills; and
• Academic programs seeking to design a standardized grading rubric aligned to program learning objectives.
• As a multiple campus institution, the professional development curriculum will be structured to provide opportunities to engage at the main campus and the regional campuses. To facilitate this, the professional development curriculum will consist of online mixed synchronous and asynchronous modules. Module lengths will vary, ranging from 1 week to 3 weeks, with the entire program offered sequentially across a semester. Through these modules, participants will engage with their peers in module activities, create deliverables, and consult with peer assessment leaders, Common Curriculum faculty leaders, and the Office of Academic Program Assessment. To further promote peer-to-peer engagement, the modules will be designed and delivered by UConn faculty and the grant leadership.

Planned modules and lengths:

Upcoming pilots

During the fall 2025 semester, we will be offering a pilot for individual faculty who wish to develop course learning objectives and assessment measures aligned to their academic program’s objectives or to the Common Curriculum’s objectives and for faculty teaching a multi-section course who wish to define a core set of learning objectives for the course and to develop a common assessment measure. Faculty participants will be provided with a mini-grant award upon completion of the professional development curriculum.

During the spring 2026 semester, along with continuing to enroll faculty, we will be offering a pilot for academic programs that wish to develop a rubric and/or create an integrative assessment.  An academic program will be provided with a mini-grant award upon completion of the professional development curriculum.

The following semester, a pilot for graduate students will be offered.

Later this semester we will begin accepting applications from faculty interested in participating in the fall 2025 pilot. In the meantime, if committees, departments, academic programs, or faculty are interested in learning more or having the Office of Academic Program Assessment present to your group, please reach out to the office at assessment@uconn.edu