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This book is an informative resource on college accreditation today and explains how colleges and universities can manage the accreditation process successfully. Readers will learn the history of accreditation, and how effective management of accreditation can help internal revitalization and improve public respect for their institutions.
Is the accreditation system “broken” as claimed by successive Secretaries of Education and some recent reports? This book addresses this question head-on, asking whether accreditation is indeed in need of radical reform, and whether the agencies’ authority should be curtailed; or whether in fact the changes now underway – that accrediting agencies contend ensure rigorous and consistent standards and degrees that are a reliable gauge of student attainment – are moving the academy and the nation in the right direction. In a sweeping and ambitious book, Paul Gaston deploys his knowledge and experience as a peer reviewer for three regional accrediting agencies, a former board member and chair of the Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, and his involvement in the early stages of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, to go beyond the polemics to explore whether a strategy that builds on the emerging values and good practices can achieve the substantive and positive improvements the public is demanding.As an introduction for readers new to the debate, he provides a brief overview of the development of accreditation, its terminology, and structure, describing how it currently works, and what it has achieved; and offers insight into the proliferation of the missions of accreditation – as well as the multiplicity of stakeholders with an interest in its outcomes – to question whether the mandate of accreditation should, as some contend, be expanded, or particular missions reassigned or abandoned. This established, he undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the arguments and recommendations of critics and supporters of the current direction of accreditation to identify common ground and explore constructive ways forward, paying specific attention to current and potential reforms of the three sectors of higher education accreditation: the seven regional accrediting associations, the national accreditors, and programmatic, or “specialized” accreditation. The book concludes by outlining a comprehensive approach to reform. His proposal would preserve practices that already work well while advancing important changes that can be incrementally implemented. The result would be a higher education accreditation structure more cost effective, more efficient, more transparent and accountable, and more responsive to institutional and public needs.
From its inception in the late nineteenth century, social work has struggled to carry out the complex, sometimes contradictory, functions associated with reducing suffering, enhancing social order, and social reform. Since then, social programs like the implementation of welfare and the expansion of the service economy-which should have augured well for American social work-instead led to a continued loss of credibility with the public and within the academy.A Dream Deferred chronicles this decline of social work, attributing it to the poor quality of professional education during the past half-century. The incongruity between social work's promise and its performance warrants a critical review of professional education. For the past half-century, the fortunes of social work have been controlled by the Council of Social Work Education, which oversees accreditation of the nation's schools of social work. Stoesz, Karger, and Carrilio argue that the lack of scholarship of the Board of Directors compromises this accreditation policy. Similarly, the quality of professional literature suffers from the weak scholarship of editors and referees. The caliber of deans and directors of social work educational programs is low and graduate students are ill-prepared to commence studies in social work. Further complicating this debate, the substitution of ideology for academic rigor makes social work vulnerable to its critics.The authors state that, since CSWE is unlikely to reform social work education, schools of social work should be free to obtain accreditation independently, and they propose criteria for independent accreditation. A Dream Deferred builds on the past, presents a bracing critique of the present, and proposes recommendations for a better future that cannot be ignored or dismissed.
The Politically Correct University shows how the universities' quest for 'diversity' has produced in too many departments a stifling uniformity of thought. Required reading for those who want American universities to eschew political correctness." — Michael Barone, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Institutional research is more relevant today than ever before as growing pressures for improved student learning and increased institutional accountability motivate higher education to effectively use ever-expanding data and information resources. As the most current and comprehensive volume on the topic, the Handbook describes the fundamental knowledge, techniques, and strategies that define institutional research. The book contains an overview of the profession and its history, examines how institutional research supports executive and academic leadership and governance, and discusses the varied ways data from federal, state, and campus sources are used by research professionals. With contributions from leading experts in the field, this important resource reviews the analytic tools, techniques, and methodologies used by institutional researchers in their professional practice and covers a wide range of topics such as: conducting institutional research; statistical applications; comparative analyses; quality control systems; measuring student, faculty, and staff opinions; and management activities designed to improve organizational effectiveness.
Most economies advance by simultaneously decreasing costs and increasing quality. Unfortunately, when it comes to higher education, this has been turned on its head. Costs keep rising while quality declines. How has this happened? What can be done? This exceptional volume looks at the issues facing higher education from the perspective of both economics and history. Each chapter explores how the lessons learned from market competition in other sectors of the economy can be applied to higher education in order to bring about innovation, improved quality, and lower costs. The opening section offers a history of for-profit education before the Morrill Act—the federal legislation that funded land-grant universities; reviews the Act’s impact; and concludes with an exploration of federal student aid and how it prevents new funding options from entering the market. Section two examines higher education as it stands today—what is driving up college prices; tenure; administrative bloat; and university governance. And, the concluding third section shows how robust competition in higher education can be energized, and takes a deep look at for-profit vs. non-profit institutions. Unprofitable Schooling provides a sober and informative assessment of the state of higher education, critically covering historical assumptions, increasing government involvement, reflexive aversion to profit, and other, maybe unexpected, conclusions.