The Victory of Assessment? WHAT’S HAPPENING IN YOUR DEPARTMENT?

According to a common narrative, the institu-tionalization of assessments of student learn-ing started in the early 1980s with “increasingly vocal public dissatisfaction with the quality of higher education ” and with increased calls for in-stitutional accountability. (Weiss et al. 2002:p.64). These authors argue that public dissatisfaction re-sulted in a higher priority given to the systematic assessment of student learning by the six regional accrediting agencies for colleges and universities. In addition, state legislatures mandated public institutions of higher learning to systematically assess their programs, with some states creat-ing specific performance standards. Finally, the U.S. Department of Education reinforced these demands by requiring the regional accreditin