Accreditation raises concerns

Anthony Nguyen

The Signal

Despite facing another budget cut and a drought in new faculty, the university is interviewing candidates to occupy a newly cemented position for Quality Evaluation Director.

In 2004, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools implemented the Quality Enhancement Plan as a requirement for academic accreditation.

SACS is the agency that grants the University of Houston-Clear Lake and thousands of other schools accreditation based on compliance with over 75 accreditation standards and commission policies.

To help facilitate proper establishment of our QEP to meet SACS requirements, UHCL is working to hire a director for a new administrative position specifically for this purpose.

On its website, SACS defines the QEP as a “carefully designed course of action that addresses a well-defined and focused topic or issue related to enhancing student learning.”

Tom Benberg, vice president and chief of staff for SACS commission on colleges, explained that SACS wanted to establish a concentration on student learning at all accredited colleges and universities in the Southern region. Benberg said the QEP is a forward-looking plan focusing explicitly on student learning as opposed to past standards that involved SACS referring to an institution’s track record, which Benberg says is the nature of compliance.

The QEP has now become a bridge for colleges to acquire accreditation.

Academic accreditation by governing bodies like SACS is what gives credibility to degree-granting, higher-education institutions.

“Moreover, this accreditation allows students to seek financial aid that is federally subsidized,” said Larry Kajs, program area chair for educational leadership, professor of educational leadership and chair of QEP topic selection committee.

The following are examples of current QEP topics by various universities: “Intellectual Development of Rice Undergraduates in Urban Houston” (Rice University); “Do the Right Thing: A Campus Conversation on Ethics” (Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas ); “Discovery-Based Learning: Transforming the Undergraduate Experience through Research” (University of Houston).

“By participating in the QEP process students will have a unique opportunity to provide input into the process that shapes the development and implementation of QEP on their campus,” said Mrinal Mugdh, associate vice president for academic affairs. “Since QEP addresses student learning outcomes, students will have an opportunity to influence the QEP by sharing their educational expectations and experience at UHCL.”

As a collective effort from administration, faculty, staff and students, each school submits its own QEP draft to SACS for approval. Before making it to SACS, four proposals were submitted to UHCL Topic Selection Committee members. After the committee compiled components of each proposal they found most desirable, they synthesized those elements into what eventually became the UHCL QEP topic: “Applied Critical Thinking for Lifelong Learning and Adaptability.”

“[The committee decided on critical thinking] realizing how important it is for our students and all of us to be strong critical thinkers and to be able to problem solve,” said Kathryn Matthew, associate dean and professor in the School of Education and QEP topic selection committee member. “One of the things, being in education, that keeps coming out to us as teachers is that ‘we are teaching our students for jobs that don’t exist yet.’”

Now that the QEP has been instated, how long will it be tethered to the accreditation process?

“Our last reaffirmation of accreditation took place in 2002,” Mugdh said,”A university goes through the reaccreditation process every 10 years.”

Benberg explained that it is essentially up to the institution to decide the permanence of its QEP. Schools can decide what parts of their QEP work best for them, and edit them as they see fit.

“We hope that [QEP] will lose its identity and become integrated into the ongoing, operational fabric of the institution – as opposed to remaining a separately identified QEP project, “ Benberg said.

The SACS commission has a protocol to review accreditation standards, in-depth, every seven years. Since 2011 falls on the seventh year, there could be various degrees of changes to the QEP system.

“[QEP] can allow a university community to decide a main overall area (i.e., a QEP topic), such as writing or critical thinking, that is important for all disciplines and students to focus on,” said Robert Bartsch, interim associate dean for the School of Human Sciences and Humanities and associate professor of psychology. “If the university agrees to work together on promoting a specific area, then we will likely be more effective than individual instructors separately working on improving students in this area.

“If both faculty and students don’t think the QEP topic is important, then there will not be the adequate participation and energy needed to increase student abilities. Also, although we need to assess how students are currently performing and how they perform after implementing the QEP, if most of the work is placed on assessing how we’re doing and little of the work is placed on actually working with students on the QEP topic, then we are not helping students.”

For every QEP topic that exists for all colleges or universities looking to renew accreditation, there stands  a corresponding viewpoint in the accreditation paradigm.

“The QEP has complete support from the senior leadership, the faculty, staff and students,” Mugdh said when asked if there was any discernible resistance or embracing of the QEP among faculty and administration.

There are, however, some members of faculty who are opposed to SACS’ latest demand for accreditation.

“I think that arrogant bullies like that [SACS] need some blowback,” said Keith Parsons, professor of philosophy. “They need to hear that people are not going to put up with their BS.”

Parsons likened QEP to one of a number of “crackpot ideas” and “a mixture of vagueness and misplaced idealism backed up by not-too-veiled threats.”

“Some [faculty] are also angry that a source outside the university is telling faculty what must be done,” Bartsch said. “They feel that more regulation stifles teaching ability and decreases the time that can be spent on teaching.”

Those interested in the development of UHCL’s QEP can go to http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page/portal/PRV/QEP where they can voice their comments, concerns and questions.