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To assess ... in its origin literally means to sit down beside [late ME<ML<assess(us) ptp. of assidere (as + sidere)]. In its development it has come to mean using careful judgment based on close observation that comes from sitting down beside.
—Alverno College Faculty
The “little blue book”—an affectionate title used by admirers of Student Assessment-as-Learning at Alverno College—is written (rather stunningly) “by the Alverno College Faculty.” The story behind this paradigm-shifting work on assessment underscores the vital role faculty inquiry plays in institutional and system-wide educational reform—if this inquiry is organized to think through pressing questions.
For those unfamiliar with how Alverno—a small, urban, Catholic liberal arts college for women—came to re-imagine its mission in the early 1970s, when the value of college in general and a liberal arts education in particular were being scrutinized nationally, the highlights are instructive. Sister Joel Read, then president of Alverno, after listening to several years of faculty conversations, made two forward-thinking decisions.
First, she reorganized the college’s class schedule so that Friday afternoons would be set aside for campus-wide discussion. Second, she invited academic departments to investigate the kinds of questions professionals in their field of study were asking and whether related problems and issues were featured in the department’s general education courses and in work for the major.
Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich, co-directors of the Washington Center for Improving Undergraduate Education (www. evergreen.edu/washcenter), lead its national learning-communities work and other system-wide curricular reform initiatives. Both have taught for many years: Lardner teaches academic writing and composition, and Malnarich teaches sociology and pre-collegiate/entrylevel studies. They currently teach in The Evergreen State College’s Evening and Weekend Studies Program.
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