Outcomes Assessment and the Faculty Culture: Conflict or Congruence?

The greatest challenge to developing an effective outcomes assessment system is the institutional culture of the faculty. This paper describes some characteristics of many engineering faculty cultures which create challenges and opportunities for those developing new outcomes assessment systems. Specific issues which the assessment team will face, and some approaches by which they can deal with the circumstances created by the faculty culture, are presented. By generating appropriate responses to the issues raised, the assessment team can develop specific, effective tactics for successfully developing and implementing an outcomes assessment system.