The School for New Learning (SNL) was established in 1972 at DePaul University especially for adult students. SNL students are adults, age 24 or older, who want to accelerate their progress to a degree by using experience as well as classwork for academic credit, and who want to design their own programs with help from an advisory committee of experts. The undergraduate curriculum is competence-based (that is, focused on learning outcomes), student-centered, and interdisciplinary. SNL assesses students on 50 learning outcomes or competence statements, targeted to and organized into 5 domains, each of which is comparable to a discipline found in a traditional liberal arts program. An assessment study of this program was needed to describe the range of written reports assigned in content courses, identify teachers expectations for the written reports that they assign, and rate students' performance against teacher criteria. The goal of the study was to define problems and to propose reforms for improvement. Two theoretical frameworks undergirded the study: (1) a psychological model of intellectual development in college students; and (2) an instructional design for complex problem solving. Methods included analyses of teachers descriptions of assignments, categorization of assignments, ratings of student papers, and surveys of student perceptions of teachers' expectations and criteria. Results, which are various and copious, are logged on numerous data sheets. Surveys are appended. (TB)