Five Dimensions of Quality: A Common Sense Guide to Accreditation and Accountability

By Linda Suskie and Stanley O. Ikenberry

Meet calls for increased quality and understand accreditation expectations

Author Linda Suskie is internationally recognized for her work in higher education assessment, and she is a former vice president of a major regional accreditor. In Five Dimensions of Quality: A Common Sense Guide to Accreditation and Accountability in Higher Education she provides a simple, straightforward model for understanding and meeting the calls for increased quality in higher education ever-present in today's culture. Whether your institution is seeking accreditation or not, the five dimensions she outlines will help you to identify ways to improve institutional quality and demonstrate that quality to constituents.

For those wading through the accreditation process, which has become more difficult in recent years due to increasing regulation and pressure for greater accountability, Suskie offers expert guidance on understanding the underlying principles of the expectations of accrediting bodies. Using the model presented here, which is much easier to understand than the sometimes complex resources provided by individual accrediting bodies, American colleges and universities can understand what they need to do to earn and maintain their regional accreditation as well as improve overall institutional quality for their students. You'll be able to:

• Identify ways to improve institutional quality
• Demonstrate the quality of your institution to internal and external constituents
• Avoid wasting time and energy on misguided institutional processes to comply with accreditation requirements

By focusing on why colleges and universities should take particular actions rather than only on what those actions should be, Five Dimensions of Quality gives them the knowledge and strategies to prepare for a successful review. It is an ideal resource for leaders, accreditation committee members, and everyone on campus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Aug 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781118761502

Book preview

Contents

List of Tables and Exhibits

List of Jargon Alerts

List of Acronyms

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction: Today’s Quality Context

Chapter 1: Why Is American Higher Education Under Fire?

Economic Development

Return on Investment

The Changing College Student

Initiatives to Address These Concerns

Chapter 2: Understanding American Accreditation

Regional Accreditors: The Cornerstone of U.S. Accreditation

Accreditation as a Process of Collegial Peer Review

The Higher Education Act and Title IV

A Focus on Evidence of Outcomes

The Spellings Commission and Its Aftermath of Criticisms

Does U.S. Accreditation Work?

Chapter 3: Quality: Committing to Excellence

A Commitment to a Pervasive, Enduring Culture of Excellence

A Culture of Relevance (Chapters 5–6)

A Culture of Community (Chapters 7–8)

A Culture of Focus and Aspiration (Chapters 9–12)

A Culture of Evidence (Chapters 13–16)

A Culture of Betterment (Chapters 17–18)

Interrelations Among the Five Cultures

Defining Program Excellence Through the Five Cultures

Defining Teaching Excellence Through the Five Cultures

Chapter 4: Why Is This So Hard?

Quality Continues to Be Defined by Reputation, Not Effectiveness

The Money Is Not There

A Culture of Isolation

A Culture of Reticence

Change Is Hard

A Culture of Silos

Colleges Are Not Always One Big Happy Family

Academic Freedom Is Misunderstood

Fuzzy Focus and Aspirations

We Do Not Put Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

A Culture Relying on Antecedents and Anecdotes

Emphasizing Assessment Over Learning

We Have Pockets of Mediocrity

Dimension I: A Culture of Relevance

Chapter 5: Integrity: Doing the Right Thing

Meet Your Responsibilities

Put Your Students First

Know Your Key Stakeholders and Meet Their Needs

Keep Your Promises

Serve the Public Good

Demonstrate That You Are Ensuring Quality and Meeting Your Responsibilities

Chapter 6: Stewardship: Ensuring and Deploying Resources Responsibly

Recognize That People and Their Time Are Your Greatest Resources

Ensure Your College’s Health and Well-Being

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Monitor Where Your Money Is Being Spent

Monitor the Impact of Your Investments

Deploy Resources Efficiently

Dimension II: A Culture of Community

Chapter 7: A Community of People

A Culture of Respect

A Culture of Communication

A Culture of Collaboration

A Culture of Growth and Development

A Culture of Shared Collegial Governance

A Culture of Documentation

Chapter 8: Leadership Capacity and Commitment

Capacity and Commitment

Empowered Leadership

Independent Leadership

Putting Your College’s Interests Ahead of a Third Party

Collaborative Leadership

Board Engagement

The Right People

Ongoing Education and Development

Dimension III: A Culture of Focus and Aspiration

Chapter 9: Purpose: Who Are You? Why Do You Exist?

Essential Activities: What Would You Keep Doing No Matter What?

Distinctive Traits: Why Should Anyone Enroll or Invest Here?

Underlying Values: What Are the Rationales for Your Decisions?

Target Clientele: Whom Do You Aim to Serve?

Use Systematic Evidence and Collaboration

How to Articulate Your Purpose

Chapter 10: Goals and Plans: Where Are You Going? How Will You Get There?

Identify Your Destinations

Articulate Your Destinations

Plans: How Will You Get There?

Integrate Goals and Plans Throughout Your College . . . Reasonably and Appropriately

Be Prepared to Attune and Adjust Your Goals and Plans

Chapter 11: Who Is a Successful Student?

What Do Students Need to Learn?

Identify Your Learning Outcomes

Articulate Your Learning Outcomes

Integrate Learning Outcomes Throughout Your College . . . Reasonably and Appropriately

Chapter 12: Helping Students Learn and Succeed

What Helps Students Learn?

What Helps Students Persist and Complete a Degree?

Designing Curricula to Help Students Learn and Succeed

The Role of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and General Education

Helping Students Learn and Succeed in Non-Traditional Venues and Modalities

Facilitating Transfer

Dimension IV: A Culture of Evidence

Chapter 13: Gauging Success

Gauging Student Success

Gauging Responsiveness to the Changing College Student

Gauging Economic Development Contributions

Gauging Contributions to the Public Good

Gauging Achievement of College Purpose and Goals

Gauging Student Learning

What About the Ineffables?

Chapter 14: Good Evidence Is Useful

Know Your Stakeholders and What Is Useful to Them

Tie Evidence to Key Goals

Aim for Reasonably Accurate and Truthful Evidence

Chapter 15: Setting and Justifying Targets for Success

Choose an Appropriate Perspective for Comparison

Set Justifiably Rigorous Targets

Set a Range of Minimal and Aspirational Targets

Have Clear Goals

Set Both Milestone and Destination Targets

Chapter 16: Transparency: Sharing Evidence Clearly and Readily

Form Follows Function

Make Clear, Meaningful Points

Tell Your Story in Your Voice

Make Evidence Easy to Find

Be Honest and Balanced

Dimension V: A Culture of Betterment

Chapter 17: Using Evidence to Ensure and Advance Quality and Effectiveness

Recognize and Celebrate Successes

Use Evidence to Advance Quality and Effectiveness

Use Evidence to Deploy Resources Prudently

Use Evidence to Refine Goals and Targets

Use Evidence Fairly, Ethically, and Responsibly

Chapter 18: Sustaining a Culture of Betterment

Foster a Culture of Community

Value Efforts to Change, Improve, and Innovate

The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good

Document Evidence

Periodically Regroup and Reflect

Conclusion: Integrating and Advancing the Five Dimensions of Quality

Chapter 19: Demonstrating Quality to Accreditors

Use Accreditation Processes as a Tool and Lever

Understand What Your Accreditor Is Looking For . . . and Why

Start Early, with an Honest Appraisal of Where You Are

Understand Your Accreditor’s Emphasis on the Five Cultures of Quality

Organize Your Report and Supporting Documentation

Provide Good Quality Documented Evidence for Everything You Say

Put Shortcomings in Context . . . with Integrity

Respect the Reviewers’ Time

Chapter 20: Program Reviews: Drilling Down into Programs and Services

What Is a Quality Program?

Specialized Accreditation as a Form of Program Review

View Program Reviews as Cousins of Grant Proposals and Business Plans

Ensure Program Review Integrity and Value

Chapter 21: Where Do We Go from Here? A Six-Point Agenda for Ensuring and Advancing Quality

Know Your Stakeholders, and Make Your College Relevant and Responsive to Them

Encourage and Support Great Teaching and Learning

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Fight Complacency

Break Down Silos

Tell Meaningful Stories of Your Successes

How Can Higher Education Leaders and Others Help?

Three More Ideas for Accreditation

Can We Do This?

References

Index

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The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series

Five Dimensions of Quality

A COMMON SENSE GUIDE TO ACCREDITATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Linda Suskie

Foreword by Stanley O. Ikenberry

Professor and President Emeritus, University of Illinois, and Co-Principal Investigator, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment

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ISBN 978-1-118-76157-1 (hbk); ISBN 978-1-118-76150-2(ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-76140-3

To my husband Steve and our children Melissa and Michael

To everyone whose passion is helping students get the best possible education

And in memory of Petey

LIST OF TABLES AND EXHIBITS

Table 12.1 Strategies That Help Students Learn

Exhibit 12.1 Curriculum Map for a Hypothetical Four-Course Certificate Program

Exhibit 12.2 Template for a Curriculum Map for a Course Syllabus

Table 13.1 Examples of Dashboard Indicators for Some Hypothetical College Goals

Exhibit 15.1 Rubric Results for a Hypothetical Assessment of Written Communication Skills

Exhibit 16.1 A Dashboard for a Hypothetical College Strategic Goal

Exhibit 18.1 Sample Template for Documenting Nascent Student Learning Assessment Processes

Exhibit 18.2 Rubric to Appraise a College’s Culture of Evidence and Betterment

Table 19.1 Comparison of Research Reports and Accreditation Reports

Table 19.2 Examples of Assertions with Suitable Evidence in Accreditation Reports

Table 20.1 Questions to Consider in Proposals for New Initiatives and in Academic Program Reviews

LIST OF JARGON ALERTS

In lieu of a traditional glossary, this book has Jargon Alert! sidebars sprinkled throughout that explain some of the jargon used in the worlds of higher education, accreditation, and accountability.

Academic freedom

Accountability

Accreditation standards, criteria, and requirements

Action steps

Assessment

Attrition

Backwards curriculum design

Balanced scorecards

Bloom’s taxonomy

Brightline

Capstones

Carnegie classification

Chief executive officer

Closing the loop

Competency-based

Completion

Continuous improvement and continuous quality improvement

Critical thinking

Curriculum alignment and curriculum maps

Dashboard indicators

Dashboards

Data

Direct evidence of student learning

Environmental scan

Financial ratio analysis

Flipped classrooms

General education

Improvement

Indirect evidence of student learning

Infographics

Information

Information literacy

Institution

Institutional assessment

Institutional effectiveness

Institutional governance

Key performance indicators

Learning-centered

Learning outcomes, learning goals, learning objectives, and learning competencies

Liberal arts

Massive open online courses (MOOCs)

Metrics

Mission

Mission creep

Objectives

Operational plans

Peer review

Performance indicators and performance measures

Persistence

Quality assurance

Reliability

Retention

Scaffolding

Scholarship of teaching

Stakeholders

Strategic goals, strategic directions, and strategic aims

Student-centered

Swirl

SWOT analysis

Tactical plans

Teaching-learning center

Title IV gatekeepers

Transparency

Validity

LIST OF ACRONYMS

FOREWORD

Accreditation of colleges and universities in the United States may be the linchpin that holds our highly decentralized and incredibly diverse academic enterprise together, but it is also one of the most poorly understood and controversial features of American higher education. Even for many academics, accreditation remains a mystery. Most faculty members and many academic administrators have had little or no direct involvement with the purposes and processes of accreditation and see it as a mysterious external force, intrusive and demanding, unnecessarily burdensome and distracting.

Critics from outside the academy tend to be even more skeptical, but for quite different reasons. Some policymakers, for example, see accreditation as self-serving, an affinity group of insiders in which academics scratch one another’s backs. Grievances are often contradictory: accreditors are too lax and indecisive—or—too harsh, uncaring, and precipitous.

Just what does accreditation really mean? On what grounds are decisions made to grant or withdraw accreditation? Why have the standards and expectations of the seven regional accrediting groups come under scrutiny?

Answers to these and similar questions have evolved and changed over time. In the beginning, accreditation was created by colleges and universities themselves to serve the needs of the academy. Which academic institutions were legitimate colleges and what academic work should be accepted for transfer? Status as an accredited college or university helped answer these practical questions.

Over time, however, the functions of accreditation expanded. Oversight and assurance of academic quality and student success remains paramount, but the list of users of accreditation has grown to include members of the general public, employers and—particularly relevant to this book—the federal government. With literally thousands of institutions offering academic programs and degrees, which institutions are reputable? Which should be eligible to receive federal funds for student aid and research? The federal government relies on accreditation to inform these and other national policies.

While the functions and uses of accreditation by governments, employers, academic institutions, and the general public are many, they signal a fundamental truth: the quality of American higher education matters more than ever before. For today’s college graduates who will live and work in a dynamic global society and economy, what they know and can do will shape their lives and define their place in the world. For those who pay for college—students, parents, governments, donors, and others—concerns for value escalate along with price. The success of businesses that recruit college graduates will turn on quality—what those new employees know and can do. The quality of life and economic competitiveness of communities and regions are tied to the strength of the academic institutions that serve them. Virtually everyone has a huge stake in the learning outcomes that flow from college and, as a result, accreditation is in the spotlight as never before. The key questions become: Who will assess academic quality and institutional integrity? What standards will be applied? and What evidence will inform accreditation decisions?

In most other nations, academic quality assurance is a governmental function. That a non-governmental agency such as a regional accreditation commission would play such a role would be—to say the least—novel. It would be especially difficult to understand why colleges and universities themselves—as is the case in the United States—would be allowed to perform such tasks, which raises the question: Why is it that this quite different approach to quality assurance—accreditation—has evolved in the United States?

In retrospect, the answer appears obvious. Unlike most other nations, the United States has no Ministry of Education and no direct governance control over the higher education enterprise. While federal policies shape higher education in myriad ways, direct oversight and governance are diffused among the fifty states and thousands of independent governing boards. The result is an incredibly diverse array of academic institutions with quite different histories, missions, and academic programs serving students with widely varying expectations and capacities. For this country, regional accreditation played a crucial role in enabling the system to work, to evolve, and to flourish in response to changing needs in the society and the academy.

What has been the result? To the extent higher education in the United States is recognized as among the best in the world, some credit is due to the flexible, evolving system of voluntary accreditation that began over a century ago. It placed public and private institutions, large and small, under a large common tent. In many practical respects, regional accreditation has served the nation well, preserving academic freedom and protecting institutional autonomy and integrity, while also enabling innovation and experimentation to flourish in ways a governmental bureaucracy might well have resisted.

Even so, the stakes today are higher. Expectations for accreditation are higher, and the critics are more vocal. What began as a voluntary commitment by like-minded academic institutions to uphold compatible academic standards is not really voluntary any longer for institutions. And as national interests and student aid and research funding have grown more prominent in higher education, the relationship between accreditation and the federal government has become increasingly contentious.

Is there a better way? Might the fifty states take on the quality assurance responsibility? Should a new federal agency be formed to create the capacity for the federal government to make decisions on academic quality and integrity? Is it desirable to create an independent not-for-profit agency totally independent from government and the academic world to make these high-stakes judgments?

Such questions have been debated by academics and policy wonks for decades. Time and again, the consensual view has favored an approach to academic quality assurance that relies on the existing system of regional accreditation that has evolved over many decades—while at the same time pressing for reforms to make accreditation more effective.

The most important and needed step to strengthen accreditation is to increase the amount and quality of the evidence used to support accreditation actions. The central challenge is to define and assemble a range of evidence to confirm that students have learned what institutions and society consider to be important and can transfer this learning to the unscripted problems and circumstances they will face after college. Documenting what students have learned and are able to do and using that information to improve student and institutional performance has moved much higher on the agenda of colleges and universities. Assessment of student learning will continue to be the defining priority for regional accreditation. Issues of institutional capacity and the processes of teaching and learning remain important, but attention has shifted to evidence of results—the outcomes of student learning, student success, and the use of assessment to improve institutional performance.

To preserve the freedom of the academy to define and oversee the quality of higher education, accreditation must be strengthened, and colleges and universities themselves will be indispensible in that challenge. There is no more respected and knowledgeable voice on accreditation in American higher education than Linda Suskie. Drawing on her rich academic experience, she is a highly respected thought leader in accreditation and the assessment of student learning. She helped guide a regional accrediting commission and understands accreditation and the challenges of academic quality and public accountability from a campus perspective. She has shared her many talents and rich experiences as an internationally recognized consultant, speaker, and writer on assessment and accreditation in higher education. She places regional accreditation of institutions in the context of the accreditation of specialized, professional, and disciplinary accreditation.

Most important, Linda Suskie provides in this book a framework to help us think clearly and deeply about questions of quality: what matters to creating a culture of excellence and high aspiration, defining and achieving relevance, and building a learning environment informed by evidence and committed to improvement in a well-functioning academic community.

Ultimately, the quality of American higher education will be defined by the students, faculties, and institutions that create venues to facilitate teaching and learning. The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment recently completed its second national institutional survey of learning outcome assessment on the nation’s campuses. Findings confirm continued progress across the nation in gauging student learning and using that evidence to improve decisions and policies that lead to student success. Results also confirm that accreditation remains the prime driver of institutional efforts to assess student learning.

It is important to bring these two worlds of accreditation and quality assessment together, and the pages that follow do precisely that. This book deserves to be read by an exceptionally broad and diverse audience—not just those working with accreditation, but faculty members and college presidents, trustees and government policymakers, foundation heads, and other thought leaders inside and outside academe. The quality of American higher education matters immensely, more now than ever before, and all of us must play a role in meeting the challenges and capitalizing on the opportunities that lie ahead.

Stanley O. Ikenberry

April 3, 2014

PREFACE

For years I have joked about writing my tell-all exposé, relating all that I have seen and heard during my years working for a regional accreditor and as a consultant on assessment and accreditation. I can never do that, of course—my work is confidential. But for a long time, I have been thinking about sharing some of the inspiring work of today’s colleges and the advice I have found myself giving frequently on accreditation and accountability. This seems to be the right time to share these things, as conversations and initiatives on higher education quality, accountability, and accreditation multiply by the day.

Opinions and ideas on what is