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Stephen J. Friedman, Outcomes, Learning, and Assessment in General Education 37as my colleagues and I discovered, it can and should occur. In the earlydays of my involvement in assessment, I was preoccupied with imposinga framework on departments and programs that was grudgingly accepted.Energy was poured into writing outcomes, developing measures, gatheringdata, and using the data to close the feedback loop. Learning was rarelymentioned. As assessment procedures began to function across our campus(and I am sure at others), the disingenuous nature of the enterprise becameapparent, and we were determined to work towards a different model—one inwhich the curriculum and assessment become seamless, complementing eachother rather than being at odds.ConclusionI began with the goal of sharing some of my perspectives on threeconcepts: outcomes, learning, and assessment. As students proceed through acourse of study (like a GEP), some learning likely occurs, even (especially?) ifstudents spend every waking moment on the Internet. Assessment, though, hasmore to do with delineating specific outcomes of interest and determining theextent to which they are achieved. This is a reasonable expectation for a GEPwhere students are required to take certain courses, often in a predeterminedsequence. If those who designed the curriculum feel strongly about whatstudents are expected to learn, then they should not balk at assessment;either the designers know what they are doing or they do not. Assessmentprovides a mechanism to monitor and improve the impact of programs. Priorto embarking on any educational enterprise, it makes good sense to determinewhat students are expected to know and be able to do, how we intend to help