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into each faculty member's existing syllabus. Not only do embedded assessments involve faculty on an integral level in the process, they provide a school with a written record of course performance over time. Using an embedded approach, a faculty comes together and decides what the learning objectives for a particular course should be. Then they study the assignments in those courses to identify or include questions that systematically measure student mastery of those learning objectives. Finally, they establish consistent ways of evaluating student respons- es to those questions—for example, a scoring guide that details the attributes of a good answer, perhaps on a level of one to five. Course-embedded assessment practices serve an institu- tion in several ways. They offer a systematic way to measure its success in teaching students that is related to what its fac- ulty are already doing. They do so in a way that is integrated On the Road to Assessment Texas A&M University-Commerce Commerce, Texas Professors are given a clear idea of the strengths and weaknesses of their courses and are eager to take steps to improve, says the school's dean, Harold Langford. The results of the CEAP, however, have been undeniably 30 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 percent or higher earn an "acceptable" rating. However, those that earn a pass rate of between 50 percent and 70 percent must be monitored, and any question that results in a pass rate of less than 50 percent is "unacceptable" and requires action on the part of the professor. The process has been both arduous and enlightening. In the summer of 2000, the college of business and technol- ogy at Texas A&M University in Commerce, Texas, initiated its course-embedded assessment program (or CEAP) for courses in its core curriculum. To begin, faculty committees determined objectives for each course and then wrote objective-specific questions to be integrated into its exams and assignments. With these objectives defined, students' overall success in answering embedded questions is now evaluated and given a pass rate based on a 100 percent scale. Similarly, the rates of all questions are averaged for an overall assessment of the course. Questions and courses that achieve a pass rate of 70 into the coursework and assignments students already must complete, ensuring that students will do their best. And, best of all, it adds very little expense to a school's budget. Progress, Not Penalties Business faculty, perhaps more than other educators, may be wary of assessment. After all, they have seen the misuse of performance indicators in the corporate world. They know that employees who are managed by the numbers often suf- fer the wrath of their superiors. As a result, faculty may be worried that assessment results will be used, not to improve curriculum, but to winnow out the "bad seed" among them. Wrestling with such perceptions frequently generates what I like to call a "paranoia shift" among faculty when it comes to learning assessment practices. Paranoia No. 1: Faculty worry about their jobs. Institutions that view learning assessment as a means to pin- positive, says Langford, who adds that such assessment prac- tices will now be an ongoing and integral part of his school's curriculum. In a recent interview, Langford explains what it took to plan the program and put it into practice. Our primary motivation to include assessment practices in our program was the increased emphasis AACSB was placing on assessment—Texas A&M University-Commerce was pursuing AACSB accreditation at the time. Secondarily, we have a faculty member here who is also an examiner for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. He pointed out that the assessment process was becoming more important in SACS affirmation. Until 1996, our college had been East Texas State University. We then became part of the Texas A&M system. We were suffering from declining enrollment, and we were having significant financial problems. We faced a number of years of uncertainty about where the ship was headed. Our faculty was more than willing to try something new to improve the college and move us in a positive direction. We had tried administering a standardized test in business as an assessment measure, but we had a problem—it's virtu- ally impossible to use it as a grade in any course. The test is fairly lengthy and offered only at certain times of the year; furthermore, the results do not come in until long after the semester is over. So students would say, "What do I care?" So, we decided to move to course-embedded assessment. We first looked at what we were doing in the college and decided that the best place to start was in our core curricu-