ABSTRACT
If I were writing this chapter for the beginning of this volume, I would be focused on the impact of accreditation on assessment, not the impact of assessment on accreditation. The difference is not simply a semantic trick but one of attention to foreground and background. The first framing, the impact of accreditation on assessment, would lead me down a path of casting assessment in journalism and mass communication in the context of decisions made by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) and what is expected of programs to meet the new requirements. The second framework to the subject, the impact of assessment on accreditation, leads me, instead, to reflect on how and why assessment is being used to change accreditation policies and practices of not only ACEJMC but of other accrediting agencies and of the organizations that recognize them. This framing allows me to talk about a greater context that needs our vigilance. My purpose is not, then, to stress the importance of assessment whose time has come-although it has-but rather to raise lingering questions about the appropriate emphasis on assessment by accreditors.
