The authors investigated student and faculty perceptions of academic challenge at their institution, based on early administrations of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). This analysis revealed that the NSSE did not fully capture many meanings of academic challenge held by these faculty and students. This study led to a proposal for the development of an internal assessment approach using a modification of the NSSE and other scale items on academic challenge and student engagement. The authors discuss several implications of this study for academic scholarship and for institutional policy concerning the assessment of academic challenge.KEY WORDS: assessment; National Survey of Student Engagement; academic challenge.State legislators, accrediting bodies, employers, parents, and faculty members continue to comment concerning the imperative of highquality learning outcomes for college students. Institutions of higher learning obviously confront these stakeholder expectations and try to demonstrate their commitment to assessing and improving student learning outcomes. As do other institutions, Georgia College & State University (GC&SU) continues to formulate strategic plans related to learning outcomes for students.GC&SU received a new mission in the late 1990s as the public liberal arts institution of Georgia, and the institution has noted significant increases over the last 5 years in its entering students' SAT scores. The average SAT for freshmen increased from 975 for Fall 1996 to 1,089 for Fall 2003. Evidence of increases in other outcomes

The described interdisciplinary course helped a mixed population of in-service secondary English and biology teacher-participants increase their genetics content knowledge and awareness of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) that arose from discoveries and practices associated with the Human Genome Project. This was accomplished by applying a critical literacy approach that allows people develop cognitive skills such that they are able to “read the world” (Wink, 2004). The approach is one that permits readers to go beyond the literal text to examine what is present as well as what is missing as it relates to issues of equity and fairness. Becoming critically literate enabled these teacher-participants to challenge the subtle attitudes, values, and beliefs conveyed by a range of written and oral texts. The teacher-participants in this course improved their critical literacy skills by actively reading, critically writing about, and using evidence to support their conclusions about issues arising from advances in human genetics. A biologist, a linguist, and an educator collaboratively designed and taught the course. The personalized focus on the integration of thoughtful reading and writing in this class enhanced the teacher-participants' (n = 16) professional and intellectual development and will potentially improve learning in their biology and English classrooms in the future.

Creativity is conspicuously absent in the outcomes of liberal arts higher education institutions generally and Georgia College particularly. One strong candidate for rectifying this deficit is the incorporation of curriculum based on Kieran Egan's theory of Imaginative Education (IE, 1988). There is a dearth of investigation as to how IE might be used in colleges and universities by faculty and students to allow the "the unusual and effective to flourish" (IERG, 2008). This paper presents a component of the work of one grass roots faculty development group as it learned about and sought to implement aspects of IE into their undergraduate curriculum and university culture.

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