Editor’s Note

In its academic context, assessment acquires meaning only to the extent of its application as a tool crafted to advance the teaching and learning enterprise. Reports, whether self-congratulatory or self-deprecating, accomplish little if anything absent their connection to systems, institutions, and departments that are engaged in a collective quest to more fully realize their educational purposes. Among higher-education professionals, much has rightly been made over the years of the need to create a “culture of assessment.” The key to this imperative of attitude, however, lies not in doing assessment but in using it. The task of acting effectively upon what we discover about ourselves and our students is a profoundly complex undertaking best avoided by the faint of heart or the complacent of mind. If it does indeed “take a village” to raise a child, then it most certainly takes a school to produce graduates capable of functioning as leaders in their respective fields and the wider world.

The articles contained in JAIE 3.2 effectively illustrate the value of an “it takes an institution” approach to the assessment of student learning. Mary Yakimowski and Michael Alfano explore the benefits of combining the assessment of students in two related programs: undergraduate teacher preparation and graduate training of school administrators. Jennifer Fielding, Julia Hans, Frank Mabee, Kisha Tracy, Annamary Consalvo, and Layne Craig demonstrate the gains accrued from strengthening information literacy through the collaborative efforts of librarians and English faculty members. Eunkyong Lee Yook and Mikyong Minsun Kim analyze the hiring and training practices that make communication centers effective tools for developing oral communication and rhetorical skills. Abdou Ndoye advocates for the positive impact of outcomes assessment that is established as a community endeavor characterized by cross-disciplinary communication and shared commitment to learner-focused pedagogy. As a group, these authors present a compelling case for assessment that layers educational responsibility and interconnection across disciplinary and institutional boundaries.