By Douglas A Wymer, Ph.D.
The second draft of the proposed Principles of Accreditation is out and it does not disappoint. I stand by my original statement that there is a lot to like in the new standards. I was recently at the SACCR annual meeting and did a presentation focused on the first draft and started that presentation with, “Everything I say might be wrong.” As it turns out, many of the areas of concern I brought up to my audience have been resolved in the second draft; however, others have arisen. Over the next little while I will write about specific elements of the new draft.
Another thing that caught my attention in both the first draft and the second draft is in Standard 10: Academic Program Content.
Standard 10: Academic Program Content. The institution demonstrates that, at all credential levels, its academic programs (a) align with the institutional mission, (b) are based upon fields of study appropriate to higher education, (c) embody a coherent course of study, (d) demonstrate a logical progression of higher-order thinking, including progressively more advanced academic content and skills development for graduate and post-baccalaureate professional programs, and (e) are designed and revised with faculty input.
Most of this is familiar territory. Programs based on appropriate fields of study, coherent course of study, and designed and revised with faculty input. OK, that last bit used to live somewhere else, but these are all old friends. It is the other two pieces that institutions should be thinking about.
First, at all credential levels academic programs must align with the institutional mission. For most programs and institutions this will be an easy lift. What led me to single out this bit is the Level III, IV, and V institutions with associate degrees on the books. Is the associate degree at an R1, Ph.D. granting institution really aligned with the mission of the institution? I believe the community college that is offering workforce baccalaureate programs will have a much easier time with this than the university.
Second is part (d). “…at all credential levels, its academic programs…demonstrate a logical progression of higher-order thinking, including progressively more advanced academic content and skills development for graduate and post-baccalaureate professional programs.” While not a compliance issue, I see the “at all credential levels” at the beginning to be redundant with the “…including progressively more advanced academic content…” added in the second draft of the standards. Getting back to the substance of this statement, I am going to use the community college baccalaureate programs as an example. Most primarily 2-year degree granting institutions that have baccalaureate degrees have some version of a leadership and administration program and most of those are a bit squishy. What do I mean? No prerequisites to be found among the baccalaureate-level courses, so no sequencing of the junior and senior level coursework. I respect the flexibility that offers to students, but demonstrating a logical progression of higher-order thinking when there is no order will be a challenge.
Finally, there is a piece of the current standard 9.6: Post-baccalaureate rigor that is not in the second draft of the standards. It was in the first draft, but not this one. Did you catch it? The focus on ensuring that students in post-baccalaureate programs engage appropriately with the literature of the discipline is not among the second draft standards.
What does it all mean? Well, we will have to wait on the final version of the standards and the Resource Manual to know for sure.
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