might prove a productive way to integrate alumni into the program if, for example, a project takes place in a city or area where an alumni group is active.

It is clear that goodwill and positive press will be generated by KSU students working within the Frankfort community or elsewhere to help solve problems. Aside from the skills students will gain, they will be able to network and thus make professional contacts that will benefit their career goals beyond their time at the University. It may be the case that the project will be the subject of their research later when they undertake their senior capstone projects.

Upon entry to the University, every student will be required to establish an e-portfolio using Blackboard, the University's primary courseware program that is used for every course offered. This e-portfolio will house artifacts that will both serve as baseline assessment tools and as a means to assess the intellectual progress of the students. The primary means of assessing the effectiveness of the core classes and individual Humanics classes being offered will be the VALUE rubrics published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Use of these rubrics as part of the e-portfolio will begin with the classes in English, Math and Speech that all students take as requirements for the Liberal Studies Core, usually in their first semester as freshmen. As part of these required classes, instructors will assess students using the VALUE rubrics in Written Communication and Reading (English), Quantitative Literacy (Math), and Oral Communication (Speech) and include these assessments in the e-portfolio. These assessments can be used as "baselines" and the same rubrics used again in courses further along in the Liberal Studies Core as well as in the major classes, where they can be used to gauge student progress in acquiring those skills. For example, the VALUE rubrics in Reading and Written Communication can be completed first in Freshman Composition, again at the completion of the Humanics Capstone project, and once more at the completion of the project or paper for the capstone class in the student's chosen major. At the completion of each class in the Humanics sequence, the instructor will be required to rate each student using two or more of the appropriate VALUE rubrics (see below) and to place that completed rubric in the student's e-portfolio. Since most students will take HUM 301 at the end of their time in University College and before taking most of their major classes, the assessment of the Humanics sequence will also allow us to gauge the effectiveness of the General Education Core as a whole. The e-portfolio assessments and artifacts will come initially from KSU 101/102 and ENG 101/102, with a passing grade in ENG 101 being a prerequisite for HUM 101. Student skills would be assessed again at the completion of the students' capstone projects. Aside from the artifacts from HUM 101/201 and VALUE rubrics, the courses and artifacts in the e-portfolio could include the common assessment essay in the students' ENG 101: Freshman Composition I (to assess reading and written communication); the research paper in ENG 102, the students' second year writing course (to assess information literacy); and the final speech in SPE 103, the students' speech communication course (to assess oral communication).

Assessing individual courses is a normal part of the University's "culture of assessment." Providing objectives and assessment tools is designed to help guide future instructors of these courses toward ensuring that all sections of the classes have the same outcomes and are using the same assessment tools.

For the usual class-level assessment, instructors for these classes will use the appropriate VALUE rubrics, published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, for micro-level assessment of the courses that support the QEP. The instructor will be required to rate each student on the scale of 1-4 using the VALUE rubric descriptors and to add these completed rubrics to each student's e-portfolio (see below). Instructors can also use other appropriate VALUE rubrics and will also use upload to the student's e-portfolio other assessment tools to derive the student's course grade (e.g. examinations and class writing projects). The instructor may