The is this the book-length work addressing the development of academic freedom and the procedures designed to protect it from the 1915 founding of the AAUP and the AAC to their endorsement of the key document in the history of professorial rights and responsibilities, the 1940 Statement of Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure.

American higher education needs a major reframing of student learning outcomes assessment Dynamic changes are underway in American higher education. New providers, emerging technologies, cost concerns, student debt, and nagging doubts about quality all call out the need for institutions to show evidence of student learning. From scholars at the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA), Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education presents a reframed conception and approach to student learning outcomes assessment. The authors explain why it is counterproductive to view collecting and using evidence of student accomplishment as primarily a compliance activity. Today's circumstances demand a fresh and more strategic approach to the processes by which evidence about student learning is obtained and used to inform efforts to improve teaching, learning, and decision-making. Whether you're in the classroom, an administrative office, or on an assessment committee, data about what students know and are able to do are critical for guiding changes that are needed in institutional policies and practices to improve student learning and success. Use this book to: Understand how and why student learning outcomes assessment can enhance student accomplishment and increase institutional effectiveness Shift the view of assessment from being externally driven to internally motivated Learn how assessment results can help inform decision-making Use assessment data to manage change and improve student success Gauging student learning is necessary if institutions are to prepare students to meet the 21st century needs of employers and live an economically independent, civically responsible life. For assessment professionals and educational leaders, Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education offers both a compelling rationale and practical advice for making student learning outcomes assessment more effective and efficient.

With roughly 25% of those teaching college classes belonging to a union, higher education is one of the most heavily organized industries in the United States. Substantial research-based literature exists as scholars have been studying the topic for a half of a century. Following an overview of its history and context, this monograph synthesizes and analyzes the existing research on faculty and graduate student unionization. It points to evolving understandings of faculty attitudes regarding collective bargaining and the findings on the relationships between unionization and compensation, satisfaction, procedural protections, organizational effectiveness, and related issues for tenure-line faculty. Additional chapters consider the more limited research on non-tenure-line faculty and graduate student instructors. As such, this monograph illuminates the accepted understandings, contested arguments, and the substantial gaps in understandings that remain. This is the third issue of the 43rd volume of the Jossey-Bass series ASHE Higher Education Report. Each monograph is the definitive analysis of a tough higher education issue, based on thorough research of pertinent literature and institutional experiences. Topics are identified by a national survey. Noted practitioners and scholars are then commissioned to write the reports, with experts providing critical reviews of each manuscript before publication.

Scholars and practitioners of learning outcomes assessment widely recognize the importance of faculty engagement with the planning and implementation of assessment activities. Yet garnering participation by the majority of faculty has remained a significant challenge due in part to faculty concerns over the purposes of assessment, the value that it holds, and the costs of its implementation. In this paper I consider another claim that contributes to faculty resistance: that learning outcomes assessment is a fundamental abridgment of academic freedom. Granted, assessment activities can be imposed in ways that violate faculty rights, but such a consequence is not inevitable. Faculty control of the curriculum and effective shared governance set the stage for assessment that supports and builds on the faculty's ongoing efforts while protecting their historic and essential right to academic freedom.