As the accountability movement has brought forth renewed interest in the quality of teaching and new demands for faculty evaluation, it could be expected that the relationship between the two would have created the foundation for a rigorous program of faculty evaluation. Instead, educators continued a fruitless search for qualities and behaviors that defined the perfect teacher. In the meantime, we have lost our perspective about the function of faculty and the real purpose of higher education, and similarly, about the purpose of faculty evaluation. Evaluation is not an end in itself; it is the means to improving instruction, to providing a better education for our students. It must be recognized that higher education is accountable first to the students for high quality instruction. There is a variety of sources of evaluative data, each source having certain limitations. In the UCLA School of Dentistry an ongoing, systematic, and comprehensive program of teaching and curricular evaluation has been established that uses the criterion-referenced system of instruction and measurement, supplemented informally by other, more traditional measures. An instructional development program for faculty is an integral part of the evaluation system, making available the kind of help that will enable them to maximize attainment of their contracted responsibility. Unless colleges and universities today make similarly serious commitments to improving instruction and evaluating teaching by providing substantial financial and personnel support, higher education may never recover its former importance and respect in society. (Author/MSE)