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Deadline extended until Sept. 23 for
accreditation
committee selections
Sept. 17, 2010
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Dear ASU Faculty,
Staff & Students:
As part of the self-study process for ASU’s Higher
Learning Commission visit in 2012, ASU must demonstrate that it has met
all of the components of the Five Criteria
for Accreditation as supported by appropriate evidence. A
committee will be formed for each of the five criteria. If you are
interested in participating in the self-study process, please review the
Criteria statements, their associated core components and examples of
evidence to determine your interests and strengths as a participant on
one of the committees. Using the attached survey at the end of these
descriptions, please rank the committees from 1-5 (1 being your first
choice) to indicate your committee preference. If you
only are interested in a specific
committee, please rank only that committee with 1.
Deadline for submission of committee choices
has been extended to Thursday,
September 23, 2010. The self-study process is a
campus-wide initiative and your participation will be much appreciated.
Criteria for Accreditation – The Higher Learning
Commission
The Criteria for Accreditation are organized
under five major headings. Each Criterion has three elements: Criterion
Statement, Core Components, and Examples of Evidence
1. Criteria Statements. These statements,
adopted by the Commission, define necessary attributes of an
organization accredited by the Commission. An institution must be judged
to have met each of the Criteria to merit accreditation. Sanctions may
be applied if an affiliated institution is in jeopardy of not meeting
one or more of the Criteria.
2. Core Components. The Commission identifies
Core Components of each Criterion. An institution addresses each Core
Component as it presents reasonable and representative evidence of
meeting a Criterion. The review of each Core Component is necessary for
a thorough evaluation of how an institution meets a Criterion.
3. Examples of Evidence. In the Examples of
Evidence, the Commission provides illustrative examples of the specific
types of evidence that an institution might present in addressing a Core
Component.
Institutions may provide other evidence they
find relevant to their mission and activities. Some types of evidence
suggested by the Commission may not be appropriate for all institutions;
therefore, the absence of a specific type of evidence does not in and of
itself mean that the institution fails to meet a Core Component.
Committee 1 – Mission and Integrity
Criterion One: Mission and Integrity
Criterion Statement The organization operates
with integrity to ensure the fulfillment of its mission through
structures and processes that involve the board, administration,
faculty, staff, and students.
Core Component 1a The organization's mission
documents are clear and articulate publicly the organization's
commitments.
Examples of Evidence
• The board has adopted statements of mission,
vision, values, goals, and organizational priorities that together
clearly and broadly define the organization’s mission.
• The mission, vision, values, and goals
documents define the varied internal and external constituencies the
organization intends to serve.
• The mission documents include a strong
commitment to high academic standards that sustain and advance
excellence in higher learning.
• The mission documents state goals for the
learning to be achieved by its students.
• The organization regularly evaluates and, when
appropriate, revises the mission documents.
• The organization makes the mission documents
available to the public, particularly to prospective and enrolled
students.
Core Component 1b In its mission documents, the
organization recognizes the diversity of its learners, other
constituencies, and the greater society it serves.
Examples of Evidence
• In its mission documents, the organization
addresses diversity within the community values and common purposes it
considers fundamental to its mission.
• The mission documents present the
organization’s function in a multicultural society.
• The mission documents affirm the
organization’s commitment to honor the dignity and worth of individuals.
• The organization’s required codes of belief or
expected behavior are congruent with its mission.
• The mission documents provide a basis for the
organization’s basic strategies to address diversity.
Core Component 1c Understanding of and support
for the mission pervade the organization.
Examples of Evidence
• The board, administration, faculty, staff, and
students understand and support the organization’s mission.
• The organization’s strategic decisions are
mission-driven.
• The organization’s planning and budgeting
priorities flow from and support the mission.
• The goals of the administrative and academic
subunits of the organization are congruent with the organization’s
mission.
• The organization’s internal constituencies
articulate the mission in a consistent manner.
Core Component 1d The organization’s governance
and administrative structures promote effective leadership and support
collaborative processes that enable the organization to fulfill its
mission.
Examples of Evidence
• Board policies and practices document the
board’s focus on the organization’s mission.
• The board enables the organization’s chief
administrative personnel to exercise effective leadership.
• The distribution of responsibilities as
defined in governance structures, processes, and activities is
understood and is implemented through delegated authority.
• People within the governance and
administrative structures are committed to the mission and appropriately
qualified to carry out their defined responsibilities.
• Faculty and other academic leaders share
responsibility for the coherence of the curriculum and the integrity of
academic processes.
• Effective communication facilitates governance
processes and activities.
• The organization evaluates its structures and
processes regularly and strengthens them as needed.
Core Component 1e The organization upholds and
protects its integrity.
Examples of Evidence
• The activities of the organization are
congruent with its mission.
• The board exercises its responsibility to the
public to ensure that the organization operates legally, responsibly,
and with fiscal honesty.
• The organization understands and abides by
local, state, and federal laws and regulations applicable to it (or
bylaws and regulations established by federally recognized sovereign
entities).
• The organization consistently implements clear
and fair policies regarding the rights and responsibilities of each of
its internal constituencies.
• The organization’s structures and processes
allow it to ensure the integrity of its cocurricular and auxiliary
activities.
• The organization deals fairly with its
external constituents.
• The organization presents itself accurately
and honestly to the public.
• The organization documents timely response to
complaints and grievances, particularly those of students.
Committee 2: Preparing for the Future
Criterion Two: Preparing for the Future
Criterion Statement The organization’s
allocation of resources and its processes for evaluation and planning
demonstrate its capacity to fulfill its mission, improve the quality of
its education, and respond to future challenges and opportunities.
Core Component 2a The organization realistically
prepares for a future shaped by multiple societal and economic trends.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization’s planning documents reflect
a sound understanding of the organization’s current capacity.
• The organization’s planning documents
demonstrate that attention is being paid to emerging factors such as
technology, demographic shifts, and globalization.
• The organization’s planning documents show
careful attention to the organization’s function in a multicultural
society.
• The organization’s planning processes include
effective environmental scanning.
• The organizational environment is supportive
of innovation and change.
• The organization incorporates in its planning
those aspects of its history and heritage that it wishes to preserve and
continue.
• The organization clearly identifies authority
for decision making about organizational goals.
Core Component 2b The organization’s resource
base supports its educational programs and its plans for maintaining and
strengthening their quality in the future.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization’s resources are adequate for
achievement of the educational quality it claims to provide.
• Plans for resource development and allocation
document an organizational commitment to supporting and strengthening
the quality of the education it provides.
• The organization uses its human resources
effectively.
• The organization intentionally develops its
human resources to meet future changes.
• The organization’s history of financial
resource development and investment documents a forward-looking concern
for ensuring educational quality (e.g., investments in faculty
development, technology, learning support services, new or renovated
facilities).
• The organization’s planning processes are
flexible enough to respond to unanticipated needs for program
reallocation, downsizing, or growth.
• The organization has a history of achieving
its planning goals.
Core Component 2c The organization’s ongoing
evaluation and assessment processes provide reliable evidence of
institutional effectiveness that clearly informs strategies for
continuous improvement.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization demonstrates that its
evaluation processes provide evidence that its performance meets its
stated expectations for institutional effectiveness.
• The organization maintains effective systems
for collecting, analyzing, and using organizational information.
• Appropriate data and feedback loops are
available and used throughout the organization to support continuous
improvement.
• Periodic reviews of academic and
administrative subunits contribute to improvement of the organization.
• The organization provides adequate support for
its evaluation and assessment processes.
Core Component 2d All levels of planning align
with the organization’s mission, thereby enhancing its capacity to
fulfill that mission.
Examples of Evidence
• Coordinated planning processes center on the
mission documents that define vision, values, goals, and strategic
priorities for the organization.
• Planning processes link with budgeting
processes.
• Implementation of the organization’s planning
is evident in its operations.
• Long-range strategic planning processes allow
for reprioritization of goals when necessary because of changing
environments.
• Planning documents give evidence of the
organization’s awareness of the relationships among educational quality,
student learning, and the diverse, complex, global, and technological
world in which the organization and its students exist.
• Planning processes involve internal
constituents and, where appropriate, external constituents.
Committee 3: Student Learning and Effective
Teaching
Criterion Three: Student Learning and Effective
Teaching
Criterion Statement The organization provides
evidence of student learning and teaching effectiveness that
demonstrates it is fulfilling its educational mission.
Core Component 3a The organization’s goals for
student learning outcomes are clearly stated for each educational
program and make effective assessment possible.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization clearly differentiates its
learning goals for undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate
programs by identifying the expected learning outcomes for each.
• Assessment of student learning provides
evidence at multiple levels: course, program, and institutional.
• Assessment of student learning includes
multiple direct and indirect measures of student learning.
• Results obtained through assessment of student
learning are available to appropriate constituencies, including students
themselves.
• The organization integrates into its
assessment of student learning the data reported for purposes of
external accountability (e.g., graduation rates, passage rates on
licensing exams, placement rates, transfer rates).
• The organization’s assessment of student
learning extends to all educational offerings, including credit and
noncredit certificate programs.
• Faculty are involved in defining expected
student learning outcomes and creating the strategies to determine
whether those outcomes are achieved.
• Faculty and administrators routinely review
the effectiveness and uses of the organization’s program to assess
student learning.
Core Component 3b The organization values and
supports effective teaching.
Examples of Evidence
• Qualified faculty determine curricular content
and strategies for instruction.
• The organization supports professional
development designed to facilitate teaching suited to varied learning
environments.
• The organization evaluates teaching and
recognizes effective teaching.
• The organization provides services to support
improved pedagogies.
• The organization demonstrates openness to
innovative practices that enhance learning.
• The organization supports faculty in keeping
abreast of the research on teaching and learning, and of technological
advances that can positively affect student learning and the delivery of
instruction.
• Faculty members actively participate in
professional organizations relevant to the disciplines they teach.
Core Component 3c The organization creates
effective learning environments.
Examples of Evidence
• Assessment results inform improvements in
curriculum, pedagogy, instructional resources, and student services.
• The organization provides an environment that
supports all learners and respects the diversity they bring.
• Advising systems focus on student learning,
including the mastery of skills required for academic success.
• Student development programs support learning
throughout the student’s experience regardless of the location of the
student.
• The organization employs, when appropriate,
new technologies that enhance effective learning environments for
students.
• The organization’s systems of quality
assurance include regular review of whether its educational strategies,
activities, processes, and technologies enhance student learning.
Core Component - 3d The organization’s learning
resources support student learning and effective teaching.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization ensures access to the
resources (e.g., research laboratories, libraries, performance spaces,
clinical practice sites) necessary to support learning and teaching.
• The organization evaluates the use of its
learning resources to enhance student learning and effective teaching.
• The organization regularly assesses the
effectiveness of its learning resources to support learning and
teaching
• The organization supports students, staff, and
faculty in using technology effectively.
• The organization provides effective staffing
and support for its learning resources.
• The organization’s systems and structures
enable partnerships and innovations that enhance student learning and
strengthen teaching effectiveness.
• Budgeting priorities reflect that improvement
in teaching and learning is a core value of the organization.
Committee 4: Acquisition, Discovery, and
Application of Knowledge
Criterion Four: Acquisition, Discovery, and
Application of Knowledge
Criterion Statement The organization promotes a
life of learning for its faculty, administration, staff, and students by
fostering and supporting inquiry, creativity, practice, and social
responsibility in ways consistent with its mission.
Core Component 4a The organization demonstrates,
through the actions of its board, administrators, students, faculty, and
staff, that it values a life of learning.
Examples of Evidence
• The board has approved and disseminated
statements supporting freedom of inquiry for the organization’s
students, faculty, and staff, and honors those statements in its
practices.• The organization’s planning and pattern of
financial allocation demonstrate that it values and promotes a life of
learning for its students, faculty, and staff.
• The organization supports professional
development opportunities and makes them available to all of its
administrators, faculty, and staff.
• The organization publicly acknowledges the
achievements of students and faculty in acquiring, discovering, and
applying knowledge
• The faculty and students, in keeping with the
organization’s mission, produce scholarship and create knowledge through
basic and applied research.
• The organization and its units use scholarship
and research to stimulate organizational and educational improvements.
Core Component 4b The organization demonstrates
that acquisition of a breadth of knowledge and skills and the exercise
of intellectual inquiry are integral to its educational programs.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization integrates general education
into all of its undergraduate degree programs through curricular and
experiential offerings intentionally created to develop the attitudes
and skills requisite for a life of learning in a diverse society.
• The organization regularly reviews the
relationship between its mission and values and the effectiveness of its
general education.
• The organization assesses how effectively its
graduate programs establish a knowledge base on which students develop
depth of expertise.
• The organization demonstrates the linkages
between curricular and cocurricular activities that support inquiry,
practice, creativity, and social responsibility.
• Learning outcomes demonstrate that graduates
have achieved breadth of knowledge and skills and the capacity to
exercise intellectual inquiry.
• Learning outcomes demonstrate effective
preparation for continued learning.
Core Component 4c The organization assesses the
usefulness of its curricula to students who will live and work in a
global, diverse, and technological society.
Examples of Evidence
• Regular academic program reviews include
attention to currency and relevance of courses and programs.
• In keeping with its mission, learning goals
and outcomes include skills and professional competence essential to a
diverse workforce.
• Learning outcomes document that graduates have
gained the skills and knowledge they need to function in diverse local,
national, and global societies.
• Curricular evaluation involves alumni,
employers, and other external constituents who understand the
relationships among the courses of study, the currency of the
curriculum, and the utility of the knowledge and skills gained.
• The organization supports creation and use of
scholarship by students in keeping with its mission.
• Faculty expect students to master the
knowledge and skills necessary for independent learning in programs of
applied practice.
• The organization provides curricular and
cocurricular opportunities that promote social responsibility.
Core Component 4d The organization provides
support to ensure that faculty, students, and staff acquire, discover,
and apply knowledge responsibly.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization’s academic and student
support programs contribute to the development of student skills and
attitudes fundamental to responsible use of knowledge.
• The organization follows explicit policies and
procedures to ensure ethical conduct in its research and instructional
activities.
• The organization encourages curricular and
cocurricular activities that relate responsible use of knowledge to
practicing social responsibility.
• The organization provides effective oversight
and support services to ensure the integrity of research and practice
conducted by its faculty and students.
• The organization creates, disseminates, and
enforces clear policies on practices involving intellectual property
rights.
Committee 5: Engagement and Service
Criterion Five: Engagement and Service
Criterion Statement As called for by its
mission, the organization identifies its constituencies and serves them
in ways both value.
Core Component 5a The organization learns from
the constituencies it serves and analyzes its capacity to serve their
needs and expectations.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization’s commitments are shaped by
its mission and its capacity to support those commitments.
• The organization practices periodic
environmental scanning to understand the changing needs of its
constituencies and their communities.
• The organization demonstrates attention to the
diversity of the constituencies it serves.
• The organization’s outreach programs respond
to identified community needs.
• In responding to external constituencies, the
organization is well-served by programs such as continuing education,
outreach, customized training, and extension services.
Core Component 5b The organization has the
capacity and the commitment to engage with its identified constituencies
and communities.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization’s structures and processes
enable effective connections with its communities.
• The organization’s cocurricular activities
engage students, staff, administrators, and faculty with external
communities.
• The organization’s educational programs
connect students with external communities.
• The organization’s resources—physical,
financial, and human—support effective programs of engagement and
service.
• Planning processes project ongoing engagement
and service.
Core Component 5c The organization demonstrates
its responsiveness to those constituencies that depend on it for
service.
Examples of Evidence
• Collaborative ventures exist with other higher
learning organizations and education sectors (e.g., K-12 partnerships,
articulation arrangements, 2+2 programs).
• The organization’s transfer policies and
practices create an environment supportive of the mobility of learners.
• Community leaders testify to the usefulness of
the organization’s programs of engagement.
• The organization’s programs of engagement give
evidence of building effective bridges among diverse communities.
• The organization participates in partnerships
focused on shared educational, economic, and social goals.
• The organization’s partnerships and
contractual arrangements uphold the organization’s integrity.
Core Component 5d Internal and external
constituencies value the services the organization provides.
Examples of Evidence
• The organization’s evaluation of services
involves the constituencies served.
• Service programs and student, faculty, and
staff volunteer activities are well-received by the communities served.
• The organization’s economic and workforce
development activities are sought after and valued by civic and business
leaders.
• External constituents participate in the
organization’s activities and cocurricular programs open to the public.• The organization’s facilities are available to
and used by the community.
• The organization provides programs to meet the
continuing education needs of licensed professionals in its community.
Lynita M. Cooksey, Ph.D.
Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Services
Dean of University College
Arkansas State University - Jonesboro
P.O. Box 179
State University, AR 72467
870.972.2030
Committee Survey Link
Click Here OR GO TO:
https://spreadsheets0.google.com/a/sites.astate.edu/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dHBnblFjM0xVeGFkMjVCVnp4WlpBREE6MQ
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