Does Assessment Make Colleges Better? Who Knows?

Erik Gilbert

Last year the younger of my two sons went off to college. As we went through the search process, we looked at university and department websites, checked faculty research interests, looked for evidence of faculty involving students in their research, flinched at the prices, marveled at the climbing walls, and considered quality of the food on campus. Basically we did all the things a typical middle-class family would do in a college search, along with a few insider concerns like looking at faculty publications and grants and checking that the university libraries had at least one of my books. In retrospect one question that never crossed my mind was, “I wonder what this place’s assessment program is like?” I suspect I am not alone in this.

My lack of curiosity about assessment when making an important choice about my children’s education probably surprises no one, but it should. It’s unsurprising in that no one, higher-ed insider or not, ever seems to worry about this when choosing a college. No admissions officer ever touted his institution’s assessment results. No parent ever exclaimed, “Suzy just got into Prestigious College X. I hear they are just nailing their student learning outcomes!” But it’s still a little surprising in that I am a professor and an administrator who has been involved in assessment in various forms for a long time. I have been dutifully doing assessment in my classes almost since I started teaching a decade and half ago.