The City University of New York has adopted the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) Program as a standardized assessment of learning outcomes at CUNY’s undergraduate institutions and has selected Brooklyn College, City College, Bronx Community College, and LaGuardia Community College to implement a spring 2012 pilot in advance of university-wide adoption in 2012–13. The CLA is a cohort-based platform that will be used as a tool in assessing students’ skills in critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving and written communications over the course of their academic career. The spring 2012 pilot at Brooklyn College will engage a relatively small group of freshmen and seniors randomly selected by the CUNY Office of Institutional Research and invited to participate in the testing effort. The Brooklyn College CLA pilot is scheduled to be administered from mid-March through mid-April by the college’s Testing Office and will engage students in a single session of no more than two hours duration. Invited participants will be offered a range of incentives such as gift certificates, SERVA acknowledgment and presidential recognition of college service in addition to an individualized score report detailing the student’s performance on the CLA that can be used to guide personal development. Funding for the pilot incentives is being provided by CUNY.
