Accreditation
Last week John Harwood, Rhonda Brown, Jeff Kuhns and myself were invited by Matt Gardner to meet with two people involved in accreditation processes for the Dickinson School of Law. It was a good information exchange, I believe, and served as a reminder about one of the most important, all-consuming, stressful activities a college or program has to deal with - accreditation.
Accreditation processes have been hotly debated and contested in Washington, D.C. recently. These three articles from InsideHigher.com serve as a good primer for understanding the issues at the moment:
Pushback Against Perceived Power Grab
Drawing A Hard Line
Explaining the Accreditation Debate
Improved processes for assessment, regardless of how the legislative and policy winds are blowing, are welcome by Deans and department heads. IT can play a role in facilitating improved processes and there are a couple of activities going on in the IT world at Penn State that touch accreditation. Understanding accreditation, its importance, and possible changes to it will be important in the months and years ahead.
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The accreditation processes I've been involved in at PSU invoke some painful memories. Not because of the work involved, but because the curricula compromises we had to make to meet the accrediting body "standards." One size fits all just doesn't work in something as complex as a complete program.
The activity in DC must just make you cringe. There seems to be too little recognition of the variance in institutions, programs, disciplines. I'm all for assessment and accountability, provided the data to get there is valid.