Accreditation No. 145 : Assuring and Enhancing Quality 2009

This volume offers insight into U.S. accreditation--its history, values, advantages, benefits, and challenges--and in so doing respond to recent critiques. They remind us that it is imperative for accrediting commissions and institutions to take steps to address the legitimate concerns raised about the ability of accreditation to function effectively and efficiently and to meet the needs not only of institutions, but of prospective students and their families, and they outline suggestions for how this might be done.

Chapters discuss:

1. Accreditation in the United States: How Did We Get to Where We Are?
2. Accreditation's Benefits for Individuals and Institutions
3. A College President's Defense of Accreditation
4. The Impact of the Changing Climate for Accreditation on the Individual College or University: Five Trends and Their Implications
5. An Accreditation Dilemma: The Tension Between Program Accountability and Program Improvement in the Programmatic Accreditation
6. Accreditation Systems in Japan and the United States: A Comparative Perspective on Governmental Involvement
7. Accreditation in the United States
8. Musings ont he Future of Accreditation

Accreditation has long been regarded as an effective mechanism through which to assure and improve the quality of higher education, and it has long been accepted as a fact of life for colleges and universities. Although campus chief executive offers might occasionally bemoan the cost or the effort associated with accreditation reviews, they have also been quick to realize the benefits of the process.

With the convening of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education (commonly referrred to as the Spellings Commission) in 2005, however, accreditation has come under attack. Critics of accreditation have argued that accreditation no longer serves institutions or the general public well. They have castigated accrediting commissions for emphasizing inuts over outcomes as measures of quality, for being insufficiently transparent about their processes, and for providing inadequate information to students and their families and to members of the general public.

This volume is an invaluable resource for institutions facing the accreditation process. It is the 145th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Higher Education. Addressed to presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other higher education decision makers on all kinds of campuses, New Directions for Higher Education provides timely information and authoritative advice about major issues and administrative problems confronting every institution.

Patricia M. O'Brien SND, is the deputy director of the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.