Approaching Assessment: the Road Ahead

A National Symposium

Spring 2004

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

The Higher Education Act: Possible Implications for Accountability and the Assessment of Student Achievement

Sharon Weinberg, NYU vice provost for faculty affairs, sets the stage for the symposium with these remarks about the HEA.

Keynote Conversation

Excerpts from the symposium opening session featuring Alicia Hurley, director of NYU’s Office of Federal Policy; Jane Oates, senior education adviser to Senator Edward Kennedy; and Catharine Stimpson, dean of NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.

Approaching Assessment: Perspectives

Excerpts from a symposium panel discussion featuring Mary Brabeck, dean of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education; Sean Fanelli, president of Nassau Community College; Ted Marchese, senior consultant to Academic Search Consultation Services; and Margaret “Peg” Miller, professor, University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education.

Studying the First Year of College

Peter Teitelbaum, NYU assistant vice provost and director of institutional research, reviews some of the University’s methods of assessing the undergraduate experience.

What the Best Teachers Do

For his recent book What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain, director of NYU’s Center for Teaching Excellence, spent 15 years studying the practices of outstanding college teachers. Here he shares some of their fundamental approaches.

Assessment at Nassau Community College

In this brief note NCC President Sean Fanelli indicates some of what the largest community college in the State University of New York system has been doing in terms of assessment.

Assessment and Evaluation of Faculty Performance

Demands on faculty time continue to grow, but have the assessment and evaluation of faculty performance kept pace? Sonia Gonsalves, professor of psycology at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, addresses this important issue.

Educational Assessment—Not Just an Afterthought

Frances K. Stage, ID TK, insists that by changing our thinking about assessment we can better meet our audience’s needs.

Responses and Reflections: Continuing the Dialogue

Excerpts from the symposium’s concluding conversation, featuring Glenda Price, president of Marygrove College, and other symposium participants.

An Open Letter of Members of Congress Regarding the Higher Education Act

From the Director

Each year, the federal government provides more than $60 billion in grants and loans for students, financial aid that is governed by the provisions of the Higher Education Act (HEA). The HEA proposes new standards of accountability that will impact which types of institutions receive funding; in particular, institutions with fewer resources may have less success in competing with the uniform standards of assessment that are applied under the HEA. With the bill to reauthorize the HEA being presented to Congress in 2004, the question of assessment and accountability is one of the hottest topics at institutions of higher learning today.

In November 2003 the Faculty Resource Network hosted at New York University a national symposium on this subject, during which hundreds of Network faculty members and administrators assembled to discuss the implications of this critical topic, including ways in which federal funding can be quantified into verifiable outcomes.

To report on that symposium, the FRN takes pleasure in launching its online publication, NETWORK: A Journal of Faculty Development. As you can see from the contents of this issue, we here present excerpts from several of the sessions that took place during the symposium, as well as individual articles by participating panelists that relate directly to the topic of assessment and accountability.