Competency-based education that uses direct assessment in lieu of credit or clock hours as the measure of student learning is a relatively recent innovation in American higher education. Common features of these innovative programs include competency-based curriculum, authentic assessment, mastery learning, student self-pacing, federal financial aid disbursed based on student learning rather than credit hours, and disaggregated faculty roles. The first programs designed as competency-based education offered through direct assessment (CBE-DA) have been in operation since 2013. The literature on the faculty experience in these programs has been limited to faculty roles, faculty development, and the faculty's transition to competency-based education from more traditional higher education programs. The purpose of this study was to describe faculty members' experiences in direct assessment offerings and the meaning the faculty ascribe to their role. Two research questions were asked: (1) How do faculty working in direct assessment offerings describe their experiences? and (2) How do faculty make meaning of their roles in direct assessment offerings? A basic qualitative study that used symbolic interaction as its theoretical framework was designed to answer these questions. Nine faculty representing four different institutions' CBE-DA programs agreed to participate in semistructured interviews conducted through online video conferencing. Two themes emerged from data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The first theme, "Tactics," centers on how the participants described three primary design features of the CBE-DA programs in which they worked, including competency-based curriculum, faculty role disaggregation (including their roles as assessors), and self-paced learning and student affordability. The second theme, "Meaning," reflected the participants' social and professional roles as faculty; how their role in CBE-DA supported their lifestyle; how they perceived themselves as isolated, forgotten, and devalued in their CBE-DA roles; and the methods they used to take a stand for quality. The interpretation of the findings shows the faculty understand and support the goals of their CBE-DA programs and that they were drawn to their programs' innovations. However, despite their motivations and attractions to join the CBE-DA program as faculty, their actual role experience created situational identities, or identities dependent on their situation in the CBE-DA faculty role, that often contradicted the fundamental conceptualizations they held of themselves as faculty. To resolve those contradictions, the participants either left the CBE-DA assessor role or asserted their culturally anchored faculty skills to maintain their most salient identities given their situational identities within the CBE-DA program. Their skill assertions often included breaking or skirting the rules of the CBE-DA program in order to, in their minds, best serve students and the professions the students would eventually enter or in which they would advance. Findings from this research have implications for both practice and further research. Practice implications include designing more effective assessment systems, improving faculty confidence in those systems, creating fluidity or collaboration across the disaggregated faculty roles, and creating strong integrations within the enterprise. Research implications include studying the relationship between faculty identity consistency, engagement, and program performance, as well as testing the model offered on CBE-DA faculty role conflict. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]