This book describes a seven-year project—Quality in Undergraduate Education (QUE)—that produced important changes in departments and in the teaching of individual faculty in 21 two- and four-year institutions across four states. Rather than a blow-by-blow report of the project, it focuses on the problems that led to the development of QUE: concern about low levels of student learning in postsecondary institutions and demands by state legislatures that funds for postsecondary institutions be tied to assessment of student learning.

The story is told first from the organizational perspective in national and local campus meetings, and then from the point of view of faculty in five chapters, one for each discipline of biology, chemistry, English, history, and mathematics. This description of QUE is intended as a model for administrators and faculty seeking to meet the challenges of increasingly diverse students as well as the increasingly divergent ways to earn a degree.