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. As readers of the little blue book discover, the Alverno faculty’s deliberations—prompted by overarching questions that probed the connections between professional practice, education for citizenship, and academic learning—led them to make a key distinction between possessing knowledge and using knowledge. Tests and examinations, while providing evidence of the first, remained silent on the second—that is, students’ developing ability to integrate and use what they know in multiple real-world contexts. This realization moved Alverno faculty inquiry into unchartered territory. Over thirty years later that territory has become the familiar ground of performancebased assessments and students’“taking responsibility for learning” in relation to clearly articulated learning outcomes at beginning, developing, and advanced levels. This radical rethinking of teaching, learning, and assessment became known as “abilities-based education.” Now thoroughly embedded in the lexicon of higher education, the question that the Alverno faculty members asked themselves—what should every graduating student know and be able to do?—has recently been answered by roomfuls of educators at meetings convened by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Their responses led to the four essential learning outcomes identified in College Learning in the New Global Century: knowledge of human cultures and the natural and physical world, intellectual and practical skills, personal and social responsibility, and integrative learning.