KU preparing to meet accreditation committee

Briefing distributed to key constituents for meetings with NCA

Key administrators, faculty, staff and students will meet with representatives of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools this month to reiterate KU’s commitment to research, education and outreach.

The meetings, which will take place Jan. 31 through Feb. 2, will involve a team of 12 consultant-evaluators from other research universities visiting KU’s Lawrence campus. Evaluators will seek to confirm evidence collected in the past two years by a team of KU staff and faculty who examined how the university satisfies the aforementioned goals.

The research was compiled into a 300-page self-study, which was completed last fall and posted online. An executive summary of the document can be accessed at www.ku.edu/~oirp/NCA/ReportTOC.shtml.

A briefing about the self-study recently was compiled to assist those who will meet with NCA representatives at the end of January. Barbara Romzek, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and leader of the group that compiled the self-study, said all faculty and staff would receive an e-mail copy of the briefing before the NCA meetings.

“ The self-study was an opportunity for institutional reflection,” Romzek said. “It’s been a time to stop and look at what the university does and how well it’s accomplishing its mission.”

KU is the first research university to opt for review under new criteria for accreditation developed by NCA. In years past, Romzek said, accreditation reports emphasized institutional resources, such as numbers of faculty and students, sizes of budgets, number of books in the libraries, research activities and facilities.

Universities undergoing review this year had a choice of using the old standards or the new ones. Under “mission-based” reviews, schools assess how well they are meeting their mission and provide the site visitors with evidence of their success. To demonstrate this, the accreditation review asks the universities to demonstrate how well they are educating students, as well as how they plan for the future, acquire new knowledge and engage in the world beyond campus.

“ We chose the new criteria for our review because we decided it would be more useful to KU than the old way,” Romzek said. “We’ve learned a lot about the university.”

Next year, all schools seeking accreditation from NCA will be required to use the new method.

Romzek said the reaction to the self-study from readers across campus has been amazement at the depth and breadth of KU’s contributions.
Romzek said she is confident that KU is in a good position for re-accreditation. She said the self-study already had given the university invaluable information.

“ We have a much better sense of what the university is up to across the broad range of its activities,” she said. “If the university as a whole has a better sense of what’s going on, we’re better informed about what we need to do next. The exercise is much like an audit. Now we know our strengths and challenges.”