Accreditation Update: January 18, 2013

As the College moves into the final year of its self-study and continues to make preparations for the Higher Learning Commission comprehensive evaluation, the Self-Study Steering Committee has been not only considering the Criteria for Accreditation, but also those areas that the Higher Learning Commission listed as "topics requiring institutional attention" during its last visit.  As part of our preparation, we are expected to reflect seriously on those issues and provide evidence to the Commission documenting the extent to which we believe they have been addressed.  The evaluation team indicated that five topics should receive attention by Concordia, the Commission expecting us to have made progress in each.  The next few updates will provide a little more information about those topics.  Information about the first topic can be found here.

The second topic requiring institutional attention that was highlighted during the 2003 Higher Learning Commission visit was that the "number and scope of initiatives exceed currently available human and financial resources; need to prioritize and focus institutional energy and resources."  Several issues were occurring at Concordia in 2003 that concerned the Commission, including too many task forces/working groups established to propose a new core curriculum, a limited number of senior, female and minority faculty members who were overextended in committee assignments, considerable committee commitments caused by a complicated constitution, and a strategic plan with excessive initiatives. The Commission also noted that these substantial commitments and full teaching loads limited the time that faculty had available for scholarly research.

The College will point to a number of specific changes that have been made to address this concern. A new Core Curriculum was approved by the Faculty and implemented beginning in the fall of 2006, though many of us recall that approving a curriculum was not without challenges.  There are more females in senior ranks of the faculty than in 2003, though some will point out that additional progress is needed.  The Faculty Constitution was revised with a number of committees eliminated and measures incorporated to reduce the committee assignments of faculty. The strategic plan approved by the Board of Regents in October has a reasonable number of initiatives and will more clearly focus institutional energy. Time for scholarly research remains limited, but several creative approaches have been considered to give faculty more flexibility, including released time, summer research, and grants.

A booklet describing all of the requirements of the Higher Learning Commission can be found here. If you have questions about the Higher Learning Commission or Concordia’s approach to the self-study, please direct them to either of the coordinators - Kristi Loberg or Michael Wohlfeil - or to any of the members of the Self-Study Steering Committee. 

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