LOEX Quarterly Volume 35 Book Review: Assessing Academic Programs in Higher Education

Assessment is all the buzz in higher education. Califor-nia State University Stanislaus, where I am the library Instruction Coordinator, is typical of this assessment push—we have recently created committees and man-dated reports that assess how well each academic depart-ment meets identified learning goals. This data will in turn “complete the loop ” by influencing improvements to instruction. Asking each individual faculty member to quantify student success in his or her own classroom may be contentious; asking a whole department to agree on common goals can be a bigger challenge. However, pedagogical freedom in the classroom notwithstanding, aligning our individual courses ’ learning objectives with broader program goals undeniably contributes to every-one’s common goal of student success. Although technically not in an “instructional ” depart-ment, librarians at my library teach in many situations: workshops, research skills sessions (one-shot sessions), and credit courses. Because assessment is about measur-ing a program’s impact on students, it is a rich opportu-nity for me and my colleagues to rethink information lit-eracy instruction, as well as join faculty across the disci-plines in a conversation that knits us more closely to-gether. We needed a good general guide to help us through the process