Program Goals

Many academic and co-curricular departments or programs will articulate program-level goals for their units. Goals are higher level, aspirational statements about what the program intends to accomplish. Program goals reflect the long-range intended outcomes of the program and its curriculum or learning activities. Program outcomes, on the other hand, are the specific and measurable impacts of the program. Currently, SCU does not require that programs articulate their goals, but many units find it helpful to distinguish more general goals from their more specific educational outcomes.

Program Goals are derived from a program’s Mission Statement. Goals encompass what a department or program wants for its students; what kinds of knowledge, skills, or attributes they want students to develop, what kind of conditions they want to provide to students to facilitate that learning, and what kind of overall results the program wants to achieve. 

Program goals provide the basis for decisions about the nature, scope, and relative priorities of various activities in a program. In order for program assessment to be successful, the department or unit must reach consensus on the goals of the program and have an understanding of what the program is trying to accomplish, as well as how the goals are addressed in the curriculum or activities of the program.

Review your mission and consider what you aspire to accomplish in your program. Are you prioritizing seeking to prepare students for graduate school? preparing students to be successful in particular career areas? becoming critical and independent thinkers? developing and applying leadership abilities? improving students’ health and wellbeing? engaging students in civic development opportunities?  

Any goal must be consistent with the foci of your program (e.g., courses, curriculum, learning experiences). Typically programs limit the number of goals to between three and five; they are intended to represent the most important areas of knowledge, skills, and values expected of your graduates.

The general format for a goal statement is: “To (action verb) (object) (modifiers)”

• To cultivate a critical understanding of one's own and other cultures.
• To work and lead effectively in increasingly diverse and international teams and organizations, in changing economic, cultural, social, and legal environments.
• To recognize the broad relevance of computational thinking in everyday life, as well as its applicability within other domains.
• To develop proficiency in using the primary research methods of the discipline.
• Acquire the tools to continue professional development and life-long learning.

• Do your goals describe desired aspects of a successful program?
• Are your goals consistent with your mission?
• Do they capture what you aspire to achieve (your vision)?
• Are the goals aligned with your program's core values?

Based on material from Adam Andrews, A Program Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Designing Effective Assessment Plans (2019), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.