Assessment
Caine College of the Arts Mission Statement
Department Assessment Sites:
SNAAP Overview and Powerpoint
In 2011-12, the Caine College of the Arts participated in the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) in order to obtain baseline data on the lives and careers of USU’s arts graduates. Since this survey is sent to all arts alumni (not just recent graduates), the college repeated the survey in 2015-16, and will continue to repeat every few years thereafter, in order to track changes in student experiences and alumni perceptions.
Following the first administration of the survey, the college made several changes in response to information gained through the report, including:
- An increased emphasis on academic advising and a plan to expand the work of the advising center to encompass career advising and internship placement assistance, including hiring a second full-time advisor for the college.
- An increased emphasis on business practices and entrepreneurship skills, beginning with asking our visiting artists to address how they got started in their careers as we grapple with how to incorporate this important aspect into curricula.
- An increased emphasis on time to completion of degrees by offering more courses in the major that also fulfill General Education requirements. In 2014, each department replaced at least 3 credits of General Education courses. (3 cr. in Art and Design, 6 cr. in Music, and 9 cr. in Theatre Arts). The college will continue to pursue such ideas with the faculty.
- Concurrently, the college is working to increase scholarship support so that students can remain full-time for their undergraduate career, and we are making progress. At the founding of the college in 2010, approximately 28% of our students received some form of scholarship support. In 2014, this had risen to about 70%.
View a powerpoint of SNAAP Report Highlights for the Caine College of the Arts Year 2012
View a powerpoint of SNAAP Report Highlights for the Caine College of the Arts Year 2015
For an overview of the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project itself, please click here: http://snaap.indiana.edu/about/overview.cfm
Specialized Accreditation
While Regional Accreditation is of critical importance to the institution, it is also a wide-angle view of the institution as a whole. In the arts, specialized accreditation also plays a major role in helping institutions chart their course for the future and functions as an indicator that the institution is meeting its obligations to students who aspire to succeed as artists and citizens.
At the formation of the college in 2010, USU was a member institution of the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM), an accreditation we retain. Two professional programs are also accredited. The Music Therapy program is accredited by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA); and the Interior Design program, by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA).
In 2014, the Department of Art and Design became a member institution of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), and accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST) is a goal toward which the Department of Theatre Arts is working with an anticipated application date of 2018.
When Theatre Arts is accredited, Utah State University will join a very small number of institutions in which all arts programs are accredited by the appropriate association.
Further information, including handbooks containing accreditation standards, is available at the following links:
Art and Design: http://nasad.arts-accredit.org/
Music: http://nasm.arts-accredit.org/
Theatre Arts: http://nast.arts-accredit.org/
Graduate Program Review
In 2012, the Office of Research and Graduate Studies worked with departments to make changes in graduate programs in response to a study conducted by a university-wide task force. In 2015, the deans of the eight academic colleges were each charged to review the department plans from 2012 and prepare a report assessing the progress to date.
View the 2015 Graduate Program Review for the Caine College of the Arts