The first two of the reports that follow were prepared by a joint subcommittee of the Association’s Committee on Accreditation and Committee on College and University Governance and approved for publication by the two parent committees. The third report was approved for publication by the Committee on Contingent Faculty and the Profession. Comments are welcome and should be addressed to the Association’s Washington office.
Through their higher education commissions, six regional agencies accredit approximately three thousand colleges and universities in the United States. These private, nonprofit organizations are the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.1 Since its beginnings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, regional accreditation has been a voluntary enterprise: no college or university is required to seek accredited status. However, because the federal government requires that institutions be accredited by a federally recognized agency in order to access federal student aid and other federally funded programs, regional accreditation can now be called voluntary only in the strictest and most technical sense. This “gatekeeper” function has made regional accreditation a major force in American higher education.
Despite the important role played by regional accreditation, most faculty members seem to have little knowledge of or interest in the institutional accrediting process. Yet accreditation reviews can result in significant changes in areas of primary concern to faculty, such as governance, curriculum, and academic policy. Furthermore, the quality of an accreditation review depends on the knowledge of academic matters that faculty possess. For these reasons, the Association, in its 1968 statement The Role of the Faculty in the Accrediting of Colleges and Universities, recommended that faculty be involved in the processes of institutional accreditation, both at their institutions and through the regional accrediting commissions.
The first two of the reports that follow advance various arguments for faculty participation in the accreditation process and provide practical information and suggestions for those who wish to participate. The third report examines accreditation standards as they relate specifically to part-time faculty.
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1. These accrediting bodies serve the following geographic areas: Middle States: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands; New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont; North Central: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming; Northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington; Southern: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia; and Western: California, Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa, the Republic of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Back to text