Accountability and assessment are two of the watchwords of the new millennium in higher education. Surely it has escaped no one’s notice that the push for accountability that crept through secondary education during the previous decade has now arrived at the doorstep of higher education with its big brother, assessment, in tow. Faculty are now informed that in order to be responsible educators they must teach so that students perform well on standardized, nationally-normed tests as those scores function as tacit advertising.   Commonly reported by the media, assessment scores illustrate the value of the degrees awarded by competing institutions.