LHSOM & University Assessment

The University of Idaho retired its old Academic Program Review and rolled out a new three-year assessment cycle grounded in evidence and continuous improvement. The Year-1 deliverables, per program: a learning-outcome alignment map, a meaningful assessment question, and a practical plan for the evidence to answer it.

“Per program” is where it became a deluge. LHSOM’s representative had to produce that — plus a Program Health Reflection and a NASM standard worksheet — for the school’s full degree array: the BA and BS in Applied Music, the BM concentrations (Performance, Composition, Music Business, Music Education), and the MA and MM. That representative was me.

• Expertise present: deep, lived knowledge of the music curriculum and the NASM accreditation standards — what musicians actually have to demonstrate, and how (juries, recitals, upper-division standing, proficiency exams).
• The gap: the formal architecture of assessment— the ULO → PLO → CLO → measure chain, direct vs. indirect evidence, sampling and timing, the whole assessment-office vocabulary. Never trained in any of it.

The move that made it survivable: I designed a single, defensible alignment-map architecture and propagated it across all eight degree programs, adapting each to its curriculum. Every map runs the same five-column chain:

University Learning Outcome → Program Learning Outcome (NASM-aligned) → Course Learning Outcome (representative core courses) → Course Assessment Evidence & Measures → the NASM standard it satisfies.

Each measure is fully specified — assessment type, the direct student-work artifact, the evaluator and rubric, the timing and sampling point. On top of the maps I built the Program Health Reflections (reading Lightcast labor-market data, NASM outcomes, and Slate/enrollment evidence) and the NASM standard worksheets for self-study prep. One engine, thirteen documents, eight degrees.

This isn’t a memo — it’s a working system covering the whole school: alignment maps, health reflections, and standard worksheets, all in one consistent framework.

lhsom-assessment — maps + reflections + worksheets, 8 degree programs

A different AI job than Music Since 1900 — there it generated; here it sifted.I authored the columns myself, from the real evidence chain (university outcomes → school-of-music outcomes → course outcomes → the evidence in our own syllabi and handbooks → the NASM mapping), with the assessment typesdefined under the director’s guidance. Then I turned AI loose on the documentation — the full NASM guidelines, our Faculty & Staff Handbook, every university assessment parameter— to pinpoint which points of evidence satisfy each accreditation standard and categorize them into my framework. By hand, that’s weeks of cross-referencing.

Then I audited every mapping— because a tool pawing through accreditation language can’t tell a real alignment from one that merely soundsplausible. And it wasn’t a one-time save: again and again, AI filed a point of evidence under a standard where it looked like it belonged, and I had to move it — not because the machine was careless, but because I know what these courses actually assess from the inside, and it only knew the documents from the outside. The audit wasn’t a formality — it’s the whole reason the maps can be trusted. I set the framework; the machine did the sifting; my expertise checked the fit.