The American Historical Association has begun a nationwide, faculty-led project to articulate the disciplinary core of historical study and to define what a student should understand and be able to do at the completion of a history degree program. This AHA project brings together accomplished history faculty from more than sixty institutions across the country. These faculty participants are working together to develop common language that communicates to a broad audience the significance and value of a history degree. The initial version of the discipline core, competencies, and student learning outcomes is available here.

In the autumn of 2011, Lumina Foundation awarded the AHA a three-year grant for the history “Tuning” project.  Tuning is a collaborative process which convenes experts in a discipline to spell out the distinctive skills, methods, and substantive range of that field. Participants then work to harmonize or ‘tune’ the core goals of their discipline and the curricula that support those goals on each participating campus.

Tuning offers us a powerful, faculty-centered way to harmonize the usually fragmented conversation about assessment and to make the conversation useful in teaching and explaining the value of historical study. The project does not aim to standardize curricula in history, but seeks to frame common goals—and reference points for measuring progress toward those goals—for post-secondary history education. The project begins with discussion about foundational student competencies, builds toward the goals of the history major, and sharpens to a focus on particular fields, with historians front and center at all stages. Tuning provides a method for faculty to develop goals, methodologies, and assessment tools appropriate to each department and to each institution’s unique mission.

The AHA Tuning project will help students, faculty, departments, and institutions by scaling those competencies and outcomes to each degree level (A.A., B.A., and M.A.). Assisted by experienced historians and tuning experts, participating faculty and other project personnel will collaborate in workshops and on-line forums to craft a common framework that establishes appropriate and fair expectations for students of history.