In this article, Richard L Dunsworth, president of University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas, having spent 25 years in the roles of oversight as consultant evaluator, team chair, advisory team member, peer evaluator, and member of the board of trustees for the largest institutional accreditor in the United States faces the same struggle…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Asking the Right Questions: Reflective Preparation for a Program Review (Corinne Renguette, Charles Feldhaus, and Elizabeth Wager; (2) The Neuroscience of Learning and Development: What Does That Mean for Assessment and Evaluation? (Marilee Bresciani Ludvik); (3)…

Griffith, Day, Scott, and Smallwood (1996) state, "Planning cannot survive without a budget, [and] neither planning nor budgeting can survive with integrity without assessment." If the integrity of planning and budgeting processes is affected by assessment, then this author argues that there are effective ways in which assessment can be…

Frederick Community College's assessment of student learning within student affairs has evolved as a result of the confluence of three transformative initiatives: (1) the institution's decision to shape itself into a learning college; (2) the revision of accreditation standards, placing increased emphasis on institutional assessment and assessment…

Why is the implementation of learning outcomes assessment in higher education proceeding so grudgingly? When assessment results are obtained, why are they so rarely integrated into the strategic planning process? These questions remain prominent in spite of over a decade of intensive effort on the part of educational accrediting agencies to…

Outcomes assessment often becomes a focus of attention as a response to accreditation requirements. But if the emphasis is short-term, it can produce crisis-mode frustrations that will be repeated each time accreditation rolls around. Increasingly, accreditation agencies are asking for evidence that program-level assessment is ongoing. This…

Graduate education is an increasingly diverse segment of higher education. The master's degree is replacing the baccalaureate as the new standard for adult learners, and professional doctorates all signal an expanding domain. Graduate programs are not exempt from requirements for assessment of outcomes, yet standards and best practices for…

During the past two decades, colleges and universities have used best practices from corporate management such as total quality management, strategic planning, management by objectives, benchmarking, data warehousing, and performance indicators. Many institutions of higher learning now have adopted comprehensive and multifaceted approaches to…

The role of accreditation in the United States is facing increased scrutiny, due in part to the impending renewal of the Higher Education Act and to the report of the U.S. Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. The report claims that a "transformation of accreditation" toward an exclusively…

In the current climate of emphasis on outcomes assessment, colleges and universities are working diligently to create assessment processes for student learning outcomes, competence in general education, student satisfaction with services, and electronic tracking media to document evidence of competence in graduates. Benchmarking has become a…

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accredits more than half of the colleges of education in the United States. Several of its standards require teacher preparation programs to emphasize diversity in their curricula and to demonstrate that they are developing a professional environment wherein acceptance of varying…

Higher education is influenced significantly by regional and disciplinary accrediting organizations. Regional accrediting organizations accredit entire institutions, while disciplinary accreditors approve programs within those institutions. All accrediting organizations require institutions and programs to examine their educational effectiveness…

Academic research, statewide reports, and regional report cards describing K-12 student achievement on standardized tests have become commonplace throughout the US. Incorporating outcomes assessment in higher education is proceeding more slowly. Faculty and staff at colleges and universities have not embraced the assessment movement, and many…

Several years ago, the University of Indianapolis embarked on its self-study for North Central Association accreditation with the issue of quality assessment linked to outcomes. As such, its Department of Communication was forced to demonstrate outcomes-oriented evaluation of student learning. After an extensive audit of the department's…

William Paterson University (WPUNJ) is a midsize, public, comprehensive university in northern New Jersey, seventeen miles from New York City. The university offers thirty undergraduate and nineteen graduate degree programs in five colleges, has 350 full-time faculty members, and enrolls approximately 11,000 students. While faculty and staff at…