For at least two decades, we've spent a lot of time talking about "accountability" in higher education. As with so many things in academe, the concept means different things to different people.
What comes to mind first are the continued calls from state and federal officials for uniform standards and methods of assessing student learning. But the culture of accountability in academe involves much more than that, and has taken on the form of a movement.
The appeals for state or national standards are the most well known and have sparked considerable debate. A case in point: the call by the U.S. Department of Education's Spellings Report for specific national standards for student performance and a process for accurately measuring that performance. Most faculty members and administrators agree that establishing