Architecture Program Report Tulane University New Orleans ...

ASSESSMENT BY AND OF STUDENTS
Student assessment of the program comes through written evaluations of
each course, informal conversations, and student membership on major
committees. There are also organized student initiatives, Architects' Week
and a nascent student chapter of the AIA, which engender discussions and
sponsor lectures, all fostering self-assessment.
Formal student advising is a critical component of the self-assessment
process. Students are required to meet with their faculty advisor each
semester, at which time their progress and future directions are discussed.
During these meetings, students are also encouraged to speak to the
general qualitative issues of the program and to assess the successes and
difficulties they may have experienced over the course of their respective
educational careers.
In addition to faculty student advising, students are monitored by the
University Advising Center, which student’s ‘structural’ progress, advising
them of course requirements, credits needed for promotion and graduation,
and transfer credits.
While the usual mechanisms for student progress evaluation, grading, are
significant, there are additional opportunities for students to assess their
development in greater detail. Studios are particularly relevant to this
aspect of the self-assessment process. At the end of each studio,
professors give students written evaluations of their work. These
evaluations are available for student review and remain in their file.
Student progress is also assessed in the second-year portfolio review. At
the end of second-year students are asked to submit a folio of their first and
second- year work for faculty review. This allows both the student and
faculty alike to acknowledge the successes, adequacies and inadequacies
of the core components of the curriculum. It also provides the faculty a
material venue for assessment of not only the structure, but also the
content of the curriculum up to this point.
Finally, thesis year is a chance for the faculty to assess—both formally and
informally—the successes, adequacies and inadequacies of the curriculum.
It is also a time for the faculty to gauge the prevailing pedagogical positions
and to establish a ‘measure’ by which the student’s professional potential
may be addressed. According to student performance in the prior years,
they are assigned a studio, or in the event of a high performance quotient,
they are allowed to take an Independent Thesis Project. This ‘measuring’ of
student performance at a critical juncture is seen as both an assessment of
the aims of the architecture curriculum as well as a personal assessment of
each student’s relative success in completing the first four years of their
curriculum.
In the year-end recapitulation "walk-through" and faculty meeting, thesis
work is a primary topic for consideration; the entire faculty is enjoined to
discuss and evaluate the work, both as a class and in terms of individuals.