In an age of increased focus on improving the student learning experience and engaging in quality improvement processes within academic programs, higher education institutions need to clearly articulate expectations and criteria for the assessment of students' learning to support academic programs in achieving their goals. Given the need for a standardized and transparent process along with an evaluation tool to provide programmatic feedback, the institutional assessment rubric, ASSESS-IT, rubric was developed. This article describes the evidence-based consensus process used to develop and refine ASSESS-IT. ASSESS-IT development process occurred over three phases of revision over a two-year period. The process of rigorous rubric development helped to track the assessment for student learning at the institution, and also led to increased stakeholder engagement, educational development of professionals, and increased meaningful alignment of assessment activities to learning outcomes. The authors provide ASSESS-IT development process and template as an institutional model in which to build and revise other institutional models.