Accreditation Conversations

The equity gaps in higher education have never been more noticeable and prevalent than they are today.

Ensuring we are serving students and championing for their best interest on campus has always been our most important job as accreditors and assessors. But there is more that can be done to take improvements a step further if we are willing to have those conversations.

Assessment can impact equity on our campuses in a big way. Learning how to utilize our roles as assessment leaders to effect change on campus can make a world of difference, especially when thinking about what’s next when it comes to the future of equitable assessment.

Dr. Gianina Baker, Acting Director at National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA), joins the show to discuss the importance of utilizing assessment to promote equity in higher education learning.

Join us as we discuss:

• NILOA’s newly released book “Reframing Assessment to Center Equity”
• How to center equity as a leader on campus
• The growth and maturing of assessment practices post-pandemic

See Dr. Gianina Baker’s full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Dr. Gianina Baker is the acting director at the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) where she provides leadership and directs research specific to the assessment of student learning at colleges and universities. Additionally, Dr. Baker serves as the associate director of evaluation, learning, and equitable assessment at the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL). She supports and promotes OCCRL through her project management work of the REACH Collaborative. She also assists at OCCRL with assessment/evaluation consulting services, public engagement, and the organization's research agenda. Her main research interests include student learning outcomes assessment at Minority Serving Institutions, access and equity issues for underrepresented administrators and students, assessment in athletics, and higher education policy. Dr. Baker holds a Ph.D. in Educational Organization & Leadership with a Higher Education concentration from the University of Illinois, a M.A. in Human Development Counseling from Saint Louis University, and a B.A. in Psychology from Illinois Wesleyan University. Prior to this position, she was the Director of Institutional Effectiveness & Planning at Richland Community College.

When students go to obtain a degree in higher education, they expect that what they have studied and paid for is worth it all in the end. The goal is to have student success after graduation.

No student would want to go through long hours of schooling and their degree not be accredited in the end.

Herman Bounds, the Director of the Accreditation Group within the Office of Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, is tasked with ensuring that the accreditation agencies are following the proper regulations so that higher education institutions are upholding the standards for the students.

Join us as we discuss:

• Employer involvement with programmatic accreditors
• How accreditation agencies are conducting proper oversight of their institutions
• The steps to ensure a fair evaluation process for the institutions

Check out the book Herman mentioned during the podcast:

• Winning in FastTime: Harness the Competitive Advantage of Prometheus in Business and Life

See Herman’s full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Herman Bounds is the Director of the Accreditation Group within the Office of Postsecondary Education. He assumed that position in February 2014 after spending two years as an Education Program Specialist in the Accreditation Group. Herman was the Deputy Director at the Aviation Career Campus of Metro Technology Centers, a career and technical education school district in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. While serving as the deputy director Herman played a major role with developing a first of its kind workforce development project which provided Tinker Air Force Base with approximately 1,500 credentialed aviation maintenance technicians. During his tenure as deputy director the Aviation Career Campus maintained a 90 percent graduation and placement rate average for the aviation maintenance technology program. Herman was active in the accreditation process at the state level and served on site visit teams for the State Department of Career and Technical Education. Herman was also a subject matter expert for a human factors study (Psychological Study of Aircraft Accidents) conducted by Federal Aviation Administration. In addition, Herman is a U.S. Army veteran with 20 years of service.

Herman has a MS degree in Aerospace Administration from Southeastern Oklahoma State University; and an Ed.S. in Education Administrator Leadership from Walden University.

Zoom lectures might be new to some students, but distance education is not, and neither is its accreditation.

In this episode, Leah Matthews joins the podcast to speak about her role as Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC). DEAC is in its 96th year of operating as a quality assurance body for distance education. But what exactly does that mean?

To Leah, personally, it means quite a lot. Her life's work has been to develop accreditation procedures to serve and protect students and communities.

Come along as we explore some timely topics in the accreditation world such as the accreditation of distance education, improvements to better protect students, and the future of accreditation.

Join us as we discuss:

• The quality review process of distance education programs
• NC-SARA’s importance to the success of distance education in America
• How the four regional compacts are champions for student protection
• Evaluating student-readiness for distance learning through accreditation standards
• The process of developing assessment standards as an accreditation commission

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• NC-SARA
• WCET
• Quality Matters
• EDUCAUSE
• Regional Compacts:
  • Western (WICHE)
  • Southern (SREB)
  • Midwestern (MHEC)
  • New England (NEBHE)

See Leah’s full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Leah Matthews currently serves as the Executive Director of the Distance Education Accrediting Commission located in Washington, DC. The DEAC is a private, non-profit accrediting organization founded in 1926. Ms. Matthews has over twenty years of experience in higher education accreditation. Her expertise in distance education policy led to her selection as a member of the U.S. Department of Education’s 2019 Distance Education and Innovation Committee. Ms. Matthews has contributed her expertise in distance education that includes serving as Chair of the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) a board member of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) and as vice-president of the board of directors for the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE).

Dr. Josie Welsh, a leader in assessment and accreditation, joins the show today to share her perspective and insight on innovation in assessment, similarities and differences across accreditors, and helpful guidance for peer reviewers. Josie has a long list of impressive titles from President of Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education to a Team Chair for the Peer Corps of the Higher Learning Commission, and even a social psychologist.

In these roles, her main goal is to share her wealth of knowledge to affect real change in the accreditation and assessment space, whether that’s having an understanding of what is happening across different accreditors or thinking about what's practical and replicable on different campuses.

Dr. Welsh’s main suggestion on how to accomplish change is quite simple; we must all decide we want to work together through assessment and accreditation to accomplish the mission of each institution.

Join us as we discuss:

• The future of assessment in accreditation and higher education
• How to really get the most out of assessment for your students
• Being a peer evaluator and what the role really entails
• NACIQI’s role in accreditation and relationship with accreditors
• The upcoming AALHE conference

See Josie’s full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Josie Welsh is a social psychologist who has worked in faculty and administration teaching research methodology and design and overseeing areas of assessment, institutional effectiveness, faculty development, curriculum management, and data analytics at small private, large public, and specialized institutions. She is president of the Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education(AALHE) and serves as a team chair for the Peer Corps of the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). Josie also has served as a lead evaluator in the SACSCOC region and as an accreditation liaison officer within WSCUC. Josie frequently speaks and writes about trends in the field, the future of assessment, and the reaffirmation process. She advocates for mission-focused, broad approaches to assurance of learning and student success. Josie can be reached at [email protected].

Fun and accreditation don’t usually appear in the same sentence together. But they should.

When it’s fun, you know it’s working.

In this episode, I speak with Mark LaCelle-Peterson, Founding Team Member and President at Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP), about how his programs bring fun back to accreditation — and shape the conversation about pedagogy.

Join us as we discuss:

• Strategies that energize colleges about their successes
• 4 performance standards for professional educators
• Building a community of cohorts around participation
• Revisioning accreditation as cyclical learning and improvement
• A philosophy of pedagogy focused on student paths to success

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Marilyn Cochran-Smith and her book Reclaiming Accountability in Teacher Education
• Improvement in Action: Advancing Quality in America’s Schools (Continuous Improvement in Education Series) by Anthony S. Bryk
• AAQEP Standards & Guide
• Ep. 2 w/ Linda Suskie

See Mark's full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Mark LaCelle-Peterson is the founding President of the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP), an accreditation agency founded in 2017 to strengthen P-20 education through excellent, innovative preparation of educators.

He has worked in accreditation and educator preparation for three decades, serving on the faculty and in leadership roles for several educator preparation programs in New York State. He served as President of the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) and as Senior VP for Programs at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).

His has enjoyed teaching courses in assessment literacy, historical, social and cultural foundations of education, research methods, social and emotional learning, humanities, and Anglo Saxon and Old Norse literature (in translation). A native of Minnesota, he holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. He lives in Rochester, New York, with his family and their canine companions.

AAQEP promotes and recognizes quality educator preparation that strengthens the system’s ability to serve all students, schools, and communities.

An accreditation visit can feel like an enemy encroaching on campus. Already suffering from accreditation fatigue, faculty and administrators just want to get that team off-campus as painlessly as possible.

But program accreditors offer institutions a chance to grow through a quality improvement process.

In this episode, I interview Anthony Stanowski, President and CEO of Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management, about how schools can benefit from accreditation processes.

Join us as we discuss:

• Reasons accreditors aren't the enemy
• Why premier programs should seek program accreditation
• How to eliminate accreditation fatigue
• Following your sherpas

See Anthony's full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Dr. Anthony Stanowski is the President & CEO for the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education, known as CAHME. Anthony guides CAHME’s strategic vision and operations to advance the quality of healthcare management education globally.

CAHME is a programmatic accreditor. Since 1968, CAHME has accredited programs in healthcare management, and will begin to accredit programs in healthcare Quality and Safety. Under Anthony’s tenure which began in 2016, CAHME-Accredited programs increased by 53% as students have found that quality healthcare management education is best delivered through CAHME accredited programs.

Anthony’s career includes executive and management positions with a large academic health system, a community health system, two global Fortune 200 companies, and a private healthcare technology firm. Anthony serves on several boards, and notably, for this podcast is on the Board of Methodist College in Peoria, IL.

Anthony received his doctorate degree from the Medical University of South Carolina, graduate degrees from Drexel (Marketing) and Widener (Health Care Administration) Universities, and a bachelor’s (magna cum laude) from the University of Pennsylvania.

Most institutions going through the accreditation process tend to panic if they get a ding. Inherently, however, assessment isn’t about proving how good you are. It’s about improving.

To institutions of learning, the notion that we aren’t perfect isn’t exactly novel.

In this episode, I interview Dr. Tisha Paredes, Accreditation Consultant and former Assistant Vice President of Institutional Effectiveness at Old Dominion University, about why the stress of accreditation can be good and steps for higher ed institutions to take to improve.

Join us as we discuss:

• Why assessment should lead to improvement
• How to handle an identified weak area
• Investing in people by demystifying accreditation
• Becoming a reviewer
• The future of accreditation

See Tisha's full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Most accreditation standards do not focus enough on teaching and learning. Accreditation, after all, is not about research but education.

In this episode, I interview Linda Suskie, a higher education assessment consultant, about two areas accreditation can help improve: faculty professional development and course design.

Join us as we discuss:

• The need for institutions to provide adequate support to help faculty learn about teaching methods
• A four-column course syllabi designed to motivate students
• How higher ed should communicate about learning
• Listening to why students are going to college and addressing learning outcomes that matter

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• Dee Fink course design resources
• Reframing Assessment to Center Equity (forthcoming in 2022)
• How to Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard

See Linda's full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Accreditation is a voluntary activity of institutions that want to demonstrate clearly to the public that they meet a high standard of accountability.

Accreditors, too, may seek accreditation from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). CHEA’s role is to set the standards of academic quality for institutions, students and families, and communities.

In this first episode of Accreditation Conversations, Dr. Amy Dykens, CEO of Weave, interviews Dr. Cynthia Jackson-Hammond, President at CHEA, about accrediting accreditors, supporting a highly educated citizenry, and defining student learning outcomes.

Join us as we discuss:

• The origin and values of CHEA
• Prioritizing student learning outcomes and continuous improvement
• Trends in data collection and assessment
• Educating parents, students, and the public about the importance of accreditation

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

• CHEA
• CHEA/CIQG 2022 Annual Conference

See Cynthia's full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.

Dr. Cynthia Jackson-Hammond is President of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Dr. Jackson-Hammond’s higher education experience spans more than 30 years and includes faculty status and tenured professorships, in addition to senior administrative leadership positions. She recently served on the boards of the Thurgood Marshall College Foundation, the 1890 Land-Grant Council of Presidents and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Executive Committee. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Grambling State University, Master’s degree in Education from the University of Louisiana in Monroe and her Doctorate in Education from Grambling State University.

Most of us probably didn’t want to be accreditation experts when we grew up. Accreditation leaders tend to fall into the role because of their talents and their vision for how accreditation serves staff and faculty, students, and the institution as a whole.

That’s why we’ve created a space for accreditation leaders on campus to learn from institutional effectiveness experts through fulfilling and authentic conversations.

In this trailer episode of Accreditation Conversations, producer Jordan Alford interviews host Amy Dykens, CEO at Weave Education, about what listeners should expect from the podcast.

Join Amy and Jordan to learn about:

• Our guests: accreditation leaders of all programs or institutions
• Our themes: funding, processes, engagement, student learning, and more
• Our audience: anyone who wants to hear the inside scoop from both sides of the accreditation ecosystem
• Our vision: talk, listen, learn, share, and improve

See Amy's full bio below!

Keep connected with us by subscribing to Accreditation Conversations on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Check out our website here.