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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