What is this checklist for?
It provides a quick check of a cultivation claim already published or about to be published: the level at which it takes institutional credit, the level the evidence in hand can support, and where the gap lies between them. The output of this checklist is a judgement about whether the claim merits a full audit, not an externally defensible audit conclusion. An audit conclusion requires the full protocol.
What does it assume?
The checklist assumes that the institution has already established an evidence provenance map: a searchable index covering departmental policies and resources, traces of execution, first-person student materials, differences in reach, failure cases and the governance practices developed through previous audits. On first use, this index will not yet exist and many entries will be ND. That is itself a finding: the claim cannot currently be checked, and the institution should build the index first.
What does it not include? Roles and responsibilities, audit costs, the collection and stratified sampling of student evidence, data-protection requirements, rules for prioritising evidential gaps and the derivation of the final summary are all set out in the full protocol. This checklist does not exempt Dimension III.
| Level | What wording it can support | Evidence required |
|---|---|---|
| Association | The individual studied, researched or worked at the institution, or had another relationship to it that can be stated clearly. | Verifiable records of identity or relationship. |
| Bounded contribution | The evidence can identify one or more specific mechanisms and can credibly show that they formed part of the student's developmental path. | Specific mechanisms and evidence of their execution. |
| System capacity | The relevant conditions form a consistent system, supported through resource allocation and cross-departmental execution. | Intersecting evidence of resources, execution, reach, investigation of negative cases and institutional learning. |
First record the level at which the claim itself takes credit. Judge the wording, not the writer's intention: whether the subject is an individual experience or an institutional attribute; and whether the wording uses terms such as 'reflects', 'outcome' or 'quality' to project an individual result into a general attribute. If either condition is met, record the higher level.
Dimension I: Attribution discipline — Do alumni communications, strategy, fundraising, resource negotiation and governance decision-making consistently observe the same attribution boundary?
I-1 Does the institution distinguish its cultivation contribution from selectivity at entry, students' prior advantages, student agency and the contributions of other institutions and external supervisors?
I-2 Before publishing the claim, did the institution document a comparison between the level of credit taken and the evidence in hand, and calibrate its degree of certainty accordingly?
I-3 Does the institution state what the evidence cannot demonstrate, and do its communications and governance practices observe that boundary?
Dimension II: Institutional congruence — Are there gaps between system design, resource allocation and execution, and where are the weaknesses?
II-1 Is the claim supported by identifiable budgets, personnel, time and authority?
II-2 Do staff incentives, promotion and workload arrangements support the cultivation practices the institution praises?
II-3 Can students actually access the mechanism? What are its capacity, eligibility rules, application process and waiting times?
II-4 What traces does day-to-day execution leave, including usage, approvals, refusals, caseloads, waiting times and reasons for denial?
II-5 Does the institution investigate failed interventions, unmet demand, complaints, disparities and negative cases?
Dimension III: Developmental recoverability — While safeguarding academic standards, does the institution examine the safety net?