State Council of Higher Education of Virginia

The The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), as outlined in Senate Document No. 14-"The Measurement of Student Achievement and the Assurance of Quality in Virginia Higher Education"-has worked with Virginia's public colleges and universities to develop guidelines for assessing general education. In 1999, the Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education affirmed this state-wide approach to student assessment and further identified six areas of knowledge and skills that cross the bounds of academic discipline, degree major, and institutional mission to comprise basic competencies that should be
achieved by all students completing a degree program at a Commonwealth institution of higher education. These six areas of core competency include Written Communication, Oral Communication, Quantitative Reasoning, Scientific Reasoning, Critical Thinking, and Information Technology Literacy. Current information on Virginia Tech's approach to the assessment of these competencies can be found on SCHEV's web site:
http://research.schev.edu/corecompetencies/corecompetencies.asp?unitid=233921