invited frederick deboer who is with us today to write a white paper that was released last week about the state of colleges today. it is, where it is going, what it means. what i think you find from reading the paper which is both synthesis of where things are today and a provocative look at where things can be going, you will find there is more out there than people realize. there are very smart people and we have some of them in the room talk about this web been doing great work over the last decade and more. developing new ways of assessing student learning. people have become very interested in these assessments. the broader idea of using standardized assessments and learning is one that is more familiar to us from the k-12 where it has remained very controversial yet very much part of the fabric of our schools. there is a lot of trepidation. some of it warranted, some of it not in higher education about whether it is possible or appropriate to assist people in a more consistent or standardized means. complicatedlot of technical questions about how to do that and there are a lot o