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What Accreditation
Signifies
The specific requirements and standards of each accrediting
body are unique. However, any institution or program accredited
by a recognized accrediting body must:
- have an overall stated purpose (often called a mission)
that defines the students it serves and the objectives of
the institution's or program's activities;
- control the resources necessary to achieve its purposes;
that is, the institution must control its own financial
resources, employ adequately prepared faculty and instructional
staff, admit only those students whose qualifications make
them able to benefit from the programs offered, and present
educational programs in a coherent and current manner;
- be effective in achieving its immediate objectives;
- give evidence that it will continue to achieve those objectives
for the near future.
Accreditation of individual programs (called programmatic
accreditation) imposes the same requirements as accreditation
of institutions, but narrows its focus to the particular program
rather than the whole institution. Consequently, there are
usually some requirements for programmatic accreditation that
are specifically related to the practice of the particular
profession concerned.
What Do the Accrediting
Bodies Do?
All accrediting associations have two purposes: to assess
the performance of an institution or program in relation to
its stated mission and the accrediting body's standards, and
to foster improvement in member programs or institutions.
Recognized accrediting bodies follow a three-step process
to ensure quality:
- The institution carries out a self-study and writes a
report that is submitted to the accrediting body. The self-study
and report include the institution's mission, academic programs,
faculty, information resources, student services, physical
facilities, and system of governance.
- This is followed by a visit by an outside group of academics,
whose job is to validate what the institution has said about
itself in its self-study, make suggestions for the improvement
of the institution or program, and submit a report for consideration
by the accrediting association's governing body.
- The governing body then decides whether or not to grant
accreditation. Accreditation is never partial, and there
is no difference between the terms "fully accredited"
and "accredited."
Once an institution has successfully had an accreditation
visit and decision, the process continues. Institutions or
programs must file annual reports, reply to any rulings made
by the accrediting body, and undergo regular visits at least
once every five to ten years. They must also notify their
accreditors if they undergo any significant change — for example,
in ownership, mission, location of campuses, or offering of
a degree at a higher level.
Accreditation is not a way to rank member institutions. Rather,
it is a process that validates the integrity of an educational
institution. For the student, it is an indication that the
institution or program meets certain standards of excellence.
Accrediting associations require that institutions engage
in constant self-assessment in order to keep their programs
as current as possible. Such assessment ensures that the institution's
graduates are prepared for the current needs of society, and
that they have developed the capacity for continued learning,
which will allow them to meet the demands of society in the
future.
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