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##  Proclaiming and Sustaining Excellence: Assessment as a Faculty Role.            ERIC Digest.                                                                 

We are now over 10 years into the most recent wave of interest in               assessment in higher education. In many states, publicly supported              institutions of higher education have developed assessment programs             in response to mandates from coordinating boards. All the regional              accrediting associations articulate expectations for assessment, and            attention to assessment has moved beyond publicly supported                     institutions into the private sector. National surveys of leaders in            higher education suggest that assessment has been institutionalized             quite broadly in American higher education. 
These same surveys,               however, suggest that campus leaders remain unconvinced about the               real benefits of externally mandated assessment and fear misuse of              its results. Moreover, although campuses nationwide (with a few                 notable exceptions) have responded to expectations for the                      development of assessment programs, faculty have not yet in any                 substantial numbers recognized and embraced local assessment                    efforts. 
"Proclaiming and Sustaining Excellence: Assessment as a              Faculty Role" explores the various sources of faculty's resistance              to assessment and suggests ways to approach assessment that are more            congenial to the traditional faculty role. In addressing                        administrators and faculty, the authors identify major conceptual,              methodological, and policy advances over the past decade that may               facilitate the faculty's greater engagement with assessment.                    Administrators are provided with useful frameworks for understanding            the faculty's resistance and suggestions for approaches to                      assessment that respond to these sources of resistance. Faculty are             provided with ways of thinking about assessment that comport more               naturally with their traditional understandings of the faculty role             in the academy. WHAT ADVANCES IN ASSESSMENT MAKE IT                           MORE

CONGENIAL TO FACULTY?Eight major shifts have occurred in            the broad frameworks that have informed assessment practice: (1)                focusing on the development of talent rather than simply displaying             resources; (2) moving away from assuring minimal competency; (3)                broadening the focus beyond linear, goal-centered approaches; (4)               highlighting epistemological differences among the disciplines; (5)             redirecting the focus to students and their learning processes; (6)             making direct ties to teaching practice; (7) thinking of improvement            as a continuing agenda; and (8) attending to the politics underlying            judgments of effectiveness. Each of these broad theoretical shifts              has shaped developing assessment practice to make it more congenial             to faculty interests and dispositions. 
Five broad changes in                  practice or assessment methods are also discussed: (1) fitting                  measures to a local context; (2) seeking convergence of multiple                measures; (3) involving new disciplinary perspectives; (4) valuing              authenticity; and (5) distinguishing between measurement and                    judgment. 
Changing policies governing assessment include (1)                  changing notions of accountability; (2) the move to performance                 indicators; (3) barriers to the institutionalization of                         assessment; (4) false starts that incur hostility from the faculty;             and (5) significant inroads on campuses toward the acceptance of                assessment. HOW HAVE DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONS APPROACHED                        ASSESSMENT?Practices at several institutions have been cited                repeatedly in the literature on assessment over the past two                    decades. Specific institutional contexts and cultures have enabled              or fostered the development of very different approaches to                     assessment at each institution. Six different institutional                     approaches are described: (1) assessment as part of an institution's            fabric; (2) assessment as related to accountability; (3) assessment             as an administrative service; (4) assessment as scholarship; (5)                assessment as an opportunity for teaching; and (6) assessment as an             add-on responsibility. Campuses where assessment falls into one of              these categories are discussed in terms of the role faculty play in             assessment. HOW CAN ASSESSMENT BE VIEWED AS A FACULTY ROLE?Six            conditions are necessary if faculty are to view assessment as an                integral part of their role: 
1.Assessment must be embedded in a               fiscal and policy context that supports innovation under                        administrative leadership providing vision and                                  support. 
2.Assessment must be grounded in significant questions               that faculty find interesting. 
3.Assessment must rely on evidence             and forms of judgment that disciplinary specialists find                        credible. 
4.Assessment must be rooted in a language and metaphors             appropriate to the context. 
5.Assessment must be identified as a              stimulus to reflective practice. 
6.Assessment must accommodate the            nature of faculty life in the academy. 
"Proclaiming and Sustaining            Excellence" concludes by offering a set of principles for developing            effective assessment programs that will engage faculty in meaningful            assessment. REFERENCESAmerican Association of University                  Professors, Committee C. July/August 1991. "Mandated Assessment of              Educational Outcomes: A Report of Committee C on College and                    University Teaching, Research, and Publication." Academe 4:                     49-56. 
Banta, T.W., and Associates, eds. 1993. Making a                       Difference: Outcomes of a Decade of Assessment in Higher Education.             San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 
Ewell, P.T. 1997. "Assessment and                 Accountability in a Second Decade: New Looks or Same Old Stories?"              Plenary address at the AAHE Assessment Forum, June, Miami Beach,                Florida. 
Musil, C.M., ed. 1992. Students at the Center: Feminist              Assessment. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges. ED              353 883. 126 pp. 
Nettles, M.T., ed. 1990. The Effects of                      Assessment on Minority Student Participation. New Directions for                Institutional Research No. 65. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 
Stark,             J.S., and A. Thomas. 1994. Assessment and Program Evaluation. ASHE              Reader Series. Needham Heights, Mass.: Simon & Schuster Custom                  Publishing. 
This ERIC digest is based on a full-length report in              the ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report series Volume 26, Number                  3, "Proclaiming and Sustaining Excellence: Assessment as a Faculty              Role" by Karen Maitland Schilling and Karl L. Schilling. This report            was prepared by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education in                   cooperation with the Association for the Study of Higher Education              and published by the Graduate School of Education and Human                     Development at the George Washington University. 
This publication             was partially prepared with funding from the Office of Educational              Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under                   contract no. RR-93-002008. The opinions expressed here do not                   necessarily reflect the positions or policies of OERI or the                    department.                                                                  **Title:** Proclaiming and Sustaining Excellence: Assessment as a Faculty Role.            ERIC Digest.                                                                 **Note:** For the full report, see HE 031 295.                                         **Document Type:** Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis Products (IAPs) (071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text (073); **Available From:** ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education, One Dupont Circle, N.W.,                Suite 630, Washington, DC 20036-1183; phone: 800-773-3742, fax:                 202-452-1844 (free).                                                         **Descriptors:** Accountability,  College Faculty, Educational Assessment, Faculty               College Relationship, Faculty Evaluation, Higher Education, Models,             Program Evaluation,  Resistance to Change, Teacher Attitudes,                   Teacher Role                                                                 **Identifiers:**  ERIC Digests                                                                
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