Carnegie
Corporation
of New York
Fall 2007
The Future of the Collegiate Learning Assessment
So there you have it. After only three years, the Collegiate Learning Assessment is being used by a wide range of institutions of higher education—from highly selective institutions such as Harvard University to vast public universities with diverse student enrollments such as the University of Texas System and Arizona State University—and by small- to mid-size liberal arts colleges, institutions like the University of Charleston and Kalamazoo College. All have come forward voluntarily to respond to the growing pressures for accountability, persuaded that Collegiate Learning Assessment results can provide the vital signals they need to improve teaching and learning at their respective institutions.
Meanwhile, the Council for Aid to Education has begun a community college version of the Collegiate Learning Assessment. “We do know that community college students [experience] a lot of growth,” says Benjamin, but since they generally do not take the SAT, “another measure is needed” to benchmark that growth. Also under consideration by the Council for Aid to Education is a new generation of assessments in which the Collegiate Learning Assessment framework might be adapted to meet the need for learning assessments within academic disciplines as well as assessments to measure personal and social responsibility outcomes.
At the same time, the Collegiate Learning Assessment finds itself at the top of the list of “preferred” higher education learning assessments of the U.S. Department of Education, inspiring anxiety among some that the assessment could become the feds’ standardized test of choice to measure collegiate student learning. Both supporters and critics of the Collegiate Learning Assessment roundly reject such a “silver bullet” scenario.
Still another indication of the impact the Collegiate Learning Assessment has had on the higher education establishment is that three of the largest testing companies in the country—ACT, the College Board, and ETS—have made offers to buy out the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Council for Aid to Education President Roger Benjamin confirms that the offers have been made and that they are receiving careful consideration.
Given how swiftly these developments have played out, and
how impatient for change Americans tend to be, it is instructive to remember
that the concept of a liberal arts education that arose in the Middle
Ages has evolved gradually over time. Then, study of the quadrivium
(the four roads)—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music—and
of the trivium (the three roads)—grammar, rhetoric, and
logic—were the hallmarks of an education that helped define a free
human being. Today, the subject matter of a liberal arts education has
changed to include study of the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and
social sciences. While the content of a liberal arts education has changed
dramatically over the centuries, what has not changed is the notion that
the ultimate outcome of a liberal arts education should be the liberation
of the human mind and spirit. Unless we are desert monks, most of us struggle
to learn so that we can do. In a democratic society, it is imperative
that we learn to “do” competently, purposefully, and, if at
all possible, joyfully. In the highly competitive global society of the
twenty-fi rst century, it is equally imperative that we have the means
to determine whether we are succeeding. How we measure the results of
a liberal arts education has become the subject of a national conversation
in American higher education today, a conversation that the Collegiate
Learning Assessment has helped to stimulate and inform.