IDENTIFIERS *ASHE Annual Meeting

This paper considers the viability and applicability of student learning outcomes used as a measure of professorial productivity. While student learning outcomes need to be assessed in order to evaluate faculty productivity, examination of student learning as a concept reveals the difficulty of finding consensus on how to define it. The issue is further complicated by the challenge of how to best educate a diverse student body, as well as by factors that affect the campus environment, such as alcohol abuse, violence, racism, and sexism. Another variable affecting learning outcomes is students ' willingness to take responsibility for their own learning. And while faculty involvement in research and writing stimulates classroom intellectual climate, students learn as a result of all types of faculty activity--advising, new teaching technologies, or faculty involvement in campus concerns, and it is difficult to evaluate faculty on the basis of all these components. The paper concludes that appropriate assessment method