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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Students at the Center: Feminist Assessment is the last of the
publications to emerge from a three-year research project on
women's studies and student learning funded by the U.S. Department
of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education
(FIPSE). During this last year, both FlPSE's Program Officer,
Helene Scher, and its Deputy Director, Thomas C. Carroll, provided
invaluable administrative support for the project. I am indebted to
them for their counsel and their intervention.
As with the June publication of The Courage to Question: Women's
Studies and Student Learning, the Association of American Colleges
(AAC) has functioned this past year and a half as the
administrative home for the project, providing office space,
financial support, and the companionship of congenial colleagues.
It has been a fruitful collaboration between AAC and the National
Women's Studies Association (NWSA), where the grant originated. I
am especially indebted to Paula P. Brownlee, president of AAC, and
to AAC's executive vice president, Carol G. Schneider, both of whom
have been unflagging in their belief in the importance of the
project and in the insights women's studies can contribute to
larger questions facing higher education today.
As with the previous project publications, we have profited from
the expertise of the Office of Public Information and Publications
at AAC. Once more, we have benefitted from the skills of Kristen A.
Lippert-Martin, who is no longer with AAC but was willing to edit
this final publication. Acting Director of Public Information and
Publications David M. Stearman, with his usual sharp wit and keen
eye, oversaw the production process with support from Holly Madsen,
assistant editor, and Cynthia Brooker, production editor.
Loretta Younger, office manager at NWSA, helped with some of the
administrative financial details, doing so with her characteristic
cheerfulness.
Although she had begun a demanding new job as meeting coordinator
at AAC before Students at the Center was completed, Suzanne Hyers,
former project associate with the grant, continued to provide
administrative and editorial support for this last volume and also
authored one of its chapters.
It is the members of the project's National Assessment Team,
however, who are responsible for reconceiving the boundaries of
this final publication. I am indebted to each of them for their
intellectual engagement with the project, their counsel throughout
the three years, and their professional and personal friendships.
Carolyne Arnold, Pat Hutchings, Lee Knefelkamp, Joan Poliner
Shapiro, Jill Mattuck Tarule, and Mary Kay Thompson Tetreault first
met as a group in October of 1989. During that breakfast meeting,
an excited conversation was initiated that eventually transformed
the idea for a rather pedestrian manual into the current volume.
While we hope that the final version has lost none of its practical
applications, we also have sought to insert a conceptual framework
about assessment, feminist theory, and student learning.
In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf insists, "A good dinner is
of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well,
sleep well, if one has not dined well." Our conversation about
feminist assessment began over a meal three years ago. We hope our
collective efforts since then generate additional animated
exchanges among diverse readers. There is an urgent need for those
of us in higher education to talk candidly together about what our
goals are as educators, how we can evaluate learning, and how
students can be central to that investigative process. With an aim
to initiating some of those dialogues, we offer this entree.
Caryn McTighe Musil
Project Director
Senior Research Associate, AAC
CONTENTS
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE: CONTEXTS AND CLIMATES
CHAPTER ONE
RELAXING YOUR NECK MUSCLES:
THE HISTORY OF THE PROJECT
CARYN McTIGHE MUSIL
CHAPTER TWO
THE ASSESSMENT MOVEMENT AND FEMINISM
CONNECTION OR COLLISION?
PAT HUTCHINGS
PART TWO: FEMINIST THEORY AND ASSESSMENT
CHAPTER THREE
WHAT IS FEMINIST ASSESSMENT?
JOAN POLINER SHAPIRO
CHAPTER FOUR
ASSESSMENT DESIGNS AND THE COURAGE TO INNOVATE
JILL MATTUCK TARULE AND MARY KAY THOMPSON TETREAULT
CHAPTER FIVE
SEASONING YOUR OWN SPAGHETTI SAUCE:
AN OVERVIEW OF METHODS AND MODELS
CAROLYNE W. ARNOLD
PART THREE: PRACTICAL ASSESSMENT RESOURCES
CHAPTER SIX
VOICES FROM THE CAMPUSES
SUZANNE HYERS
APPENDIX A
SAMPLE INSTRUMENTS
APPENDIX B
DIRECTORY OF CONSULTANTS
APPENDIX C
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
1992
Project Director
CARYN McTlGHE MUSIL
Senior Research Associate
Association of American Colleges
Project Associate
SUZANNE HYERS
Meeting Coordinator
Association of American Colleges
National Assessment Team
CAROLYNE W. ARNOLD, University of Massachusetts-Boston
LEE KNEFELKAMP, Teachers College, Columbia University
JILL MATTUCK TARULE, University of Vermont
JOAN POLINER SHAPIRO, Temple University
MARY KAY THOMPSON TETREAULT,
California State University-Fullerton
External Evaluator
PAT HUTCHINGS, American Association for Higher Education
Project Coordinators, Participating Colleges and Universities
ANITA CLAIR FELLMAN, Old Dominion University
LAURIE A. FINKE, Lewis and Clark College
ROSANNA HERTZ, Wellesley College
MARY JO NEITZ, University of Missouri-Columbia
MICHELE PALUDI, City University of New York-Hunter College
SUSAN REVERBY, Wellesley College
LINDA R. SILVER, Oberlin College
JOAN TRONTO, City University of New York-Hunter College
GAY VICTORIA, University of Colorado
JEAN WARD, Lewis and Clark College
MARCIA WESTKOTT, University of Colorado
BARBARA A. WINSTEAD, Old Dominion University