All about accreditation
— By Trent Sutton, vice provost and accreditation liaison officer
Welcome back for the spring 2024 semester. Because we had several accreditation-related activities during the fall 2023 semester and have more lined up for 2024, I wanted to give everyone an update on where we stand and plans for the spring semester.
Institutional accreditation
The site visit with the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities peer evaluation team for the mid-cycle self-evaluation took place on Oct. 2-3, 2023. Over the two-day visit, the peer evaluation team held 14 meetings and went on three campus tours with various combinations of faculty, staff, and administrators. Preliminary feedback from the peer evaluators on UAF strengths and opportunities was provided on mission fulfillment, student achievement, programmatic assessment and progress toward the year-seven evaluation of institutional effectiveness. Overall, the feedback was positive, and the peer evaluation team noted that UAF has made significant progress and has a clear roadmap in its preparation for the year-seven evaluation. The final official feedback from the NWCCU will be made publicly available on the accreditation website following its approval at the Commission Board meeting in February. We will distribute the feedback then, with additional guidance on what needs to be done moving forward. Thanks to everyone who participated in the various meetings and tours, and stay tuned for more information in a few weeks.
Mission fulfillment indicators
In response to NWCCU Accreditation Standard One on Student Success, and Institutional Mission and Effectiveness, a steering group of faculty and staff members, students, and administrators identified and developed 14 mission-fulfillment indicators across four categories during academic year 2023. During the spring 2024 semester, faculty and staff, grouped into each of the four indicator categories, will evaluate these data to validate progress in meeting our institutional mission as well as to identify areas for improvement, provide a comparison to peer institutions, and address equity gaps leading up to the year-seven valuation of institutional effectiveness. Once these reports have been compiled, we will make those findings available on the mission-fulfillment indicators website. Currently on that website is a data dashboard that includes the aggregated indicator metric data and, where applicable, also the disaggregated data. If you have not yet taken a look at these data, please do so and contact us if you have any questions or feedback.
Specialized accreditations
In addition to institutional accreditation, UAF also has 30 academic programs with specialized or program-specific accreditations. Academic programs seek specialized accreditation for a variety of reasons, including a desire to meet discipline-specific professional standards, to ensure that students are eligible for needed licensure and/or certifications, and to assure students, graduates, employers, and other stakeholders of program quality. Programs with specialized accreditation have been determined to meet the professional standards of their field through rigorous self-study and evaluation at cycles that range from yearly to every 10 years by their specific external accrediting body. At UAF, we are currently revamping how we track and support specialized accreditations, and will have more information on that initiative by the end of the spring semester. If you are engaged in specialized accreditations, please reach out to our office so we can ensure your program is tracked and supported.
If you have any questions or if there is anything that you need from me or my office, please do not hesitate to contact us. In the meantime, have a great spring semester!