Founded by the citizens of DeKalb County and the DeKalb Board of Education under the Junior College Act of 1958, the College opened as DeKalb College in 1964 as the only public junior college in the State supported and controlled by a local Board of Education. It was established in order that any resident of the DeKalb School District who held a high school diploma or its equivalent and who desired to seek two years of postsecondary education might have the opportunity to do so.

The College's South Campus opened in 1972. Also beginning in 1972, students enrolled in DeKalb Area Technical School were able to enroll dually in vocational and collegiate programs, and the College was designated DeKalb Community College. As growth continued both for DeKalb County and the College, the North Campus was added and began operation in 1979. DeKalb College pioneered in Georgia in open-door admissions, personalized approaches to instruction, and community-related curricula and activities.

In 1985, DeKalb Vocational-Technical School was placed under the governance of a new statewide board for vocational-technical schools with daily operations remaining under the control of the DeKalb County School System. Students enrolled in specific Associate in Applied Science degree programs continue to enroll dually in the College and the Technical School, which is now known as DeKalb Technical College.

In 1986, when DeKalb County relinquished its support, the College was accepted by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia as the thirty-fourth member institution.

Designed to be readily responsive to the educational needs of the community, the College began offering dual programs in cooperation with Gwinnett Technical Institute in the fall of 1987. In addition, it offers at its Lawrenceville Campus a broad range of courses to students seeking Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degrees.

During spring 1993, DeKalb College in cooperation with Clayton State College, DeKalb Technical Institute, and Rockdale County Public Schools formed the Rockdale Center for Higher Education, which offers both credit and non-credit courses.

In November 1997, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved changing the name of the College from DeKalb College to Georgia Perimeter College to reflect its expanding mission and its service throughout the metro Atlanta area. As part of changing the College's name, the names of the campuses were changed to identify the cities in which they are located.

The College's academic offerings correspond with curricular content and requirements of the University System of Georgia. The College also serves as a community cultural center for the performing arts in music and drama. Curricula feature transfer, learning support, career, continuing and distance education programs as well as joint educational offerings with other System institutions and State-supported technical institutes. Associate degrees are awarded to graduates who complete the two-year transfer and career programs.

Evaluation, appraisal, and assessment of the quality of courses, programs, and services have been practiced at GPC for years. With an active institutional research program, it was clear that substantial outcome-oriented evaluation was already taking place including longitudinal profiling of the student body as a whole, student opinion surveys, and analysis of graduation and retention rates through the BOR.

The College is doing a great deal, but these efforts fell short in important ways. For example, the goals of general education and the majors are not directly evaluated through student outcomes, i.e. that students demonstrate that they have acquired the skills, techniques, and knowledge required. Even less frequently are the assessment techniques related directly to well articulated curricular objectives. The result, prior to 1996-97, was that assessment efforts were not tied into institutional planning and resource allocation as directly as they should be. Perhaps most important, the results of assessment are not systematically used to improve student learning in a regular, ongoing way.

To overcome some of these shortcomings in the College's assessment activities, a series of planning events made up of faculty and students representative of the governance committees with a major stake in assessment (and supported by staff familiar with the current institutional research efforts), worked during the Spring of 1998 to develop a plan specifically to assess student learning across the campus. The group's principal objective was to develop a conceptual model for the assessment which would be generally applicable at each level where student learning and achievement take place. These levels would include the course; the discipline curriculum and major; the general education program and its components.

The conceptual model was to unify the assessment process across units, in each case beginning with the institutional mission, moving to unit goals and objectives, then to the assessment and analysis phase leading to appropriate action at the individual, unit, or institutional level as the case may be. The process would be controlled through the governance system by the faculty (Executive Committees). In addition, rather than an intrusive chore imposed by an outside agency, the process ought to be compatible with the natural responsibilities of faculty members committed to teaching in their respective disciplines.