This publication builds on the work of AAC&U’s VALUE project (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education)—a multi-tiered effort that, in its first stages, harnessed the expertise of hundreds of faculty and other education professionals across American higher education to identify the most commonly agreed upon criteria and standards of judgment to be used in assessing student work.  VALUE has since become a national movement to change the way we envision and approach the assessment of student learning gains and accomplishments in college.  Assessment That Works contextualizes this movement, describes several illuminating case studies of VALUE in action, and exhorts us to maintain the momentum and raise the visibility of this effort.

Published as part of AAC&U’s ongoing work on “Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement,” Civic Prompts addresses the undergraduate major as the next frontier of civic learning. A practical tool for building faculty capacity meaningfully to embed civic learning in their courses and programs, Civic Prompts represents a first step in investigating a largely unchartered territory. It offers a process, or set of prompts, through which faculty can begin to increase student learning by defining discipline-specific civic lenses that explore the public purposes, civic inquiries, and actions embedded in their fields. Ideal for faculty development initiatives, teaching and learning centers, and anyone interested in providing faculty the tools to embrace and implement effective civic learning.

Step Up & Lead for Equity: What Higher Education Can Do to Reverse Our Deepening Divides makes the case that America’s persistent gaps in education, income, and wealth are widening, with the fastest growing segments of our population the least likely to have the opportunities they need to succeed.It argues that, to effectively educate today’s students, higher education must focus more urgently on equity—and on bringing together what we know about closing achievement gaps and advancing high-quality learning outcomes for all students. This brochure builds the case for leadership to challenge the status quo and make the most empowering forms of college learning available to all students. Step Up & Lead for Equity is a Call to Action, supported by clear and convincing data, for college leaders to accept this challenge and begin this work by examining their own institutions’ history and data to develop an action plan. It is ideal for advancing dialogue...

This publication makes the case for the urgent need to expand access to and success in high-quality educational programs for students traditionally underserved in higher education.  The publication addresses students’ access and success in terms of traditional measures like college completion as well as important indicators of educational opportunity like participation in high-impact educational practices. The authors present an equity-minded guiding framework that can be used throughout higher education.  They suggest principles for evaluating equity and advancing institutional change, with a specific focus on improving outcomes for students affected by stratification in educational opportunity by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class status. Excellent resource for launching conversations among educational leaders and practitioners about diversity, equity, and institutional change.