Tod Treat

March 30, 2014

Over the past two weeks, I have had a most remarkable and quite possibly unique experience in that my past and current institutions were both experiencing accreditation site visits at the same time and I have just completed a site visit at a third institution. The confluence of these three visits has caused me to reflect upon my role as a chief academic officer as well as a peer reviewer. Because these visits span two different accrediting bodies, I also have had an opportunity to reflect upon process.

My memory of accreditation visits as a faculty member and later as a Dean is one of institutional trepidation, a mad last second scramble to document a variety of things the institution does, and distant, curmudgeonly reviewers intent upon finding “gotcha” moments and compliance gaps. While I cannot speak for the experience of the site visit of my former institution, my experience on both ends of the site visits I participated in couldn’t be further from those memories. In fact, I found both experiences to be celebrations of what each institution does well even as reviewers provide suggestions for improvement. (I do have to say that the last second scramble I remembered is just the same as my actual experience this time. Finishing touches in such a high-stakes activity are probably pretty consistent across institutions and accrediting bodies).

Accreditation is community autobiography, not a homework assignment.

There is great value in bringing people together with a common purpose of putting the best face on institution and in telling the institution’s story. Both of the portfolios we assembled included teams of faculty, staff, and even students making efforts to answer questions intended to force self-reflection and demonstrate results. The work of these teams coalesced as a writing team began putting finishing touches on the portfolio. We highlighted a series of “vignettes” that highlighted our processes for needs assessment and scans, for plans and strategies, for implementation of those plans and strategies, measures and results, and finally improvements. In some cases, we knew we had a good story but we had failed to collect appropriate data to prove it. In other cases, we collected data but we weren’t sure quite what to do with it or how to analyze it. Despite this, both institutions came together to build the best collections we could than demonstrated that students are learning at our college, that we are listening to our stakeholders, that we value our people and community, and that we are driven by desire for continuous improvement. Surprisingly, both institutions took a much more solitary approach to ‘completing the assignment’ in past accreditation visits, employing a single person to write the report and scramble around to others to find answers. The institution I reviewed approach the activity as an assignment as well resulting a document that failed to capture lived experience. The site visit uncovered dramatic and substantial programs and experiences of distinction that emerged once multiple voices were involved in telling it. Since the whole institution lives it, the whole institution should be involved in documenting it.

Accreditation is an intergenerational homogenizer. As I addressed my campus following the site visit, I was mindful of the unique intergenerational nature of accreditation. An accreditation site visit is a culmination of work that begins long before many of the faculty, staff, and leadership are on a campus. At the same time, the purpose of a portfolio and visit is necessarily retrospective meaning that those involved in writing today’s portfolio are writing about yesterday’s lived experience.   Those who came before are instrumental in creating the frameworks that are recognized today. The value of this cannot be overstated: even as personalities, approaches, and visions by leadership change they all go into a soup that is defined by the institutional culture and described in the portfolio. Institutions are not defined by personnel changes, except perhaps the president, but they are refined by them, and accreditation serves as a reminder that each of us owes much to our predecessors.

The portfolio is for the institution, not the accrediting body. Accreditation reports are often described as something you do every once in a while and then put up on a shelf. That may be true at some, or even most institutions, but the institutions are underutilizing a process and documents of great potential value. It is helpful to think about the portfolio as a compilation of the institution’s best work: just as a portfolio can be effective to demonstrate what a student has achieved, or a potential employee can do, an institutional portfolio can be a source of pride, of celebration, of sharing, and even marketing. Approached in this way, an institution can assemble, modify, and update its portfolio continuously, keeping it on the desk, not on the shelf.

Linking the retrospective (accreditation) to the prospective (planning) enhances the value of both. As a “looking forward” activity, strategic planning provides an opportunity for the institution to adjust its direction in response to, or anticipation of, changing environmental conditions such as changes in employment trends, demographics, internal and external stakeholder needs, and strategic partnerships. Good strategic plans are built off of good data and a lot of listening. Accreditation can inform this process. As a “looking backwards” activity, the accreditation self-study provides an opportunity for the institution to reflect upon the degree to which it has met its mission and fulfilled its core themes and objectives. While accreditation processes are often thought of in the context of potential punishment (if we don’t do this will lose our accreditation), the spirit of the regional accreditation processes in the United States is really about demonstrating that we do what we claim to do and identifying areas where we can improve.

Intentionally timing these two important activities at the same time provides a great opportunity for faculty and staff engagement that will result in a lot of learning. Utilizing a team approach over 3 to 4 months requires meetings, homework, and a lot of good discussion about values, culture, activities, and the impact of the work. The look back helps create the look forward and institutions that make greater effort to understand themselves can chart a much more successful future.

Accreditation is a celebration of institutional distinctiveness.

Finally, accreditation is a celebration of excellence and growth. Every institution has its challenges or maybe even a few warts, but every institution also has programs and practices of distinction that make it unique. Accreditation highlights those areas of institutional distinctiveness. As a reviewer, I have an opportunity to use the site visit to confirm programs and practices of distinction from an objective perspective. At my current institution, the sense of pride in the room was palpable as reviewers complimented the college for its culture of engagement and assessment and its use of a faculty forum to allow all faculty a voice in a safe space that is then shared by a facilitator at our representative instructional council. Likewise, as my colleague and I reported out to the college we visited – a small rural college – the spirit of celebration of a job well done, and our intentional effort to promote it, led to a sense of renewed vigor and commitment to the work that can spur even better results.

From a process perspective, the key to success as an institution and as a reviewer is to be approach the work from an appreciative lens. We all have challenges, we all have work, we all fail to be as systematic or evidence driven as we ought, but we all also have programs and practices of distinction that make us unique, special and effective.