NEASC
In the last three years I have participated as part of a New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, or NEASC for short, accreditation team on site visits to two institutions. This year in November I will be going on another one, but this time under the new standards adopted in January 2006. I recently attended a standards training session and specifically met with other librarians who will be assessing institutions on their ability to express their work on Standard Seven Library and Other Information Resources and Standard Ten Public Disclosure. I do not know why NEASC always pairs those two standards and gives them to one individual to review, but they do. How understanding libraries and academic technologies equates with marketing and web presence is a logical disconnect for me. Still it is my assignment and each time I do it I learn so much about how colleges and universities work, how interconnected all of our work is, and how varied and yet similar educational institutions accomplish their tasks.
Another benefit of working with the NEASC materials is the insight I gain looking toward our own institution’s next NEASC site visit in 2010. With the revised standards we have a lot of work to do to make seamless and transparent our interconnectedness. For example, what’s not new with the new standards is that they are purposely constructed ambiguously since they are mission-centric, intended to be aspirational and to be met at least minimally, non-prescriptive (only three numbers are prescribed in all of the standards), largely qualitative, include evaluation for improvement and are intended to help the institution anticipate the future. What are new sections are heightened emphases on educational quality and student success, program review, institutional capacity, role of the governing board, public disclosure and institutional effectiveness.
Institutional effectiveness is expressed as balancing inputs, processes and outcomes. NEASC does not proscribe one way to do this assessment. They acknowledge that there are multiple valid approaches to measuring student success. They know that not every measure is appropriate for every institution. But they do require that institutions do some kind of measurement(s) and explain why they are doing that approach. Every standard now has as the last numbered paragraph references to institutional effectiveness.
Since one of my review areas is Public Disclosure, it is interesting to note that there are some new items that NEASC looks for institutions to disclose including: statements of goals for students’ education and success in achieving those goals; rates of retention and graduation and other measures of student success; passage rates for licensure exams; total cost of education; and availability of academic and other support services. There’s a new “Public Disclosure ‘checklist’” that breaks down each piece of Standard Ten and requires an institution to list the URL or print publication where that piece of information is available.
As we go through the process of creating our four-year institutional effectiveness plans, it is not too soon to look at the NEASC standards and think about how your program or unit’s assessment plan will address your particular standard’s institutional effectiveness section. There might not be a fit, since NEASC isn’t prescriptive and is constructed ambiguously to give us the latitude to do our work in the way that makes the best sense for our institution. Still it doesn’t hurt to take a look and know what will need to be addressed in the future.
Page One Public Disclosure Checklist
Page Two Public Disclosure Checklist
