The UB Post

Unfamiliar faces will be seen around the University of Baltimore in February. They won't be freshmen faces, but those of visitors from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), an organization responsible for granting, renewing and removing accreditation of universities and colleges throughout the mid-Atlantic region. UB is due for reaccreditation and has been preparing for the last two years.

What does this mean for students? A lot, if money matters to them. If UB was not accredited or failed to be reaccredited, no student would receive federal financial aid and degrees would have no market value.

UB's preparation for the routine decennial evaluation culminated in a 202-page draft of a self-study entitled "Strengthening Foundations for the Future." The in-depth process is required every 10 years with less intense Periodic Review Reports required at five-year intervals. UB was first granted accreditation in 1971 and has successfully undergone reviews every five years.

According to their website, MSCHE is a "voluntary, non-governmental, peer-based membership association dedicated to educational excellence and improvement through peer evaluation and accreditation." MSCHE's team will spend three days conducting interviews with staff, faculty, administrators and students to determine whether the realities on campus match what has been reported in UB's self-study.

A Steering Committee and seven subcommittees, made up of 47 staff, faculty and student leaders, were formed specifically for conducting the self-study. The representative groups organized focus groups and collected survey data in order to catalog UB's strengths and weaknesses at academic and institutional levels.

Three themes addressed throughout the self-study's seven chapters are strategic planning, consistency in processes and university-wide assessment. Described in the introduction as a "living document that will guide the university in its future development," the self-study examines the good and the bad in an effort to demonstrate and improve UB's ability to fulfill its mission.

MSCHE instructed the Steering Committee to be brutally honest throughout the review. The purpose of the evaluation process goes beyond reaccreditation. MSCHE says the self-study's aim is "to understand, evaluate and improve, not simply to describe or defend."

Linda Randall, Ph.D., associate provost and co-chair of the Steering Committee, acknowledged that as a "human organization," UB will always have room to improve. The self-study is not so much about admitting the discovery of problems as it is about implementing solutions to those problems, she said.

Catherine Albrecht, Ph.D., associate professor of history and co-chair for the Steering Committee, was amazed by the self-study outcome. "Internally, the biggest finding—which maybe seems obvious, but when you lay it all down, it's really remarkable—is how much change there's been on campus—positive change."

Randall said, "To be reaccredited means upholding a number of standards."

MSCHE cites 14 standards of excellence, which are described in detail in "Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education: Eligibility Requirements and Standards for Accreditation" (2006).

Increasing awareness throughout the UB community in preparation for MSCHE's visit in February is imperative to administrators.

"We want the students to know that this important event is happening, that we're going to want them to be part of it," Randall said.

Despite past efforts by the Steering Committee to communicate through informative bookmarks, website content, published articles, an online feedback form and a question and answer session, many students are unaware of the reaccreditation and self-study issue.

As the sole student representative on the Board of Regents for the University System of Maryland, Caitlin Heidemann will participate in the Education Policy Committee's review of MSCHE's assessment of UB. Heidemann is a jurisprudence student at UB, and has overheard minimal talk, if any, by fellow students about the reaccreditation topic. She believes the students' lack of attention to this matter is because it is "trusted in the hands of the administration."

Regardless of the students' apparent disinterest, the visiting team from MSCHE will want to speak with students. Besides academic integrity, the quality of student life is a factor in reaccreditation and the topic of chapter four, "Enhancing the Student Experience," of the self-study.

"We need to have people who can represent a variety of views of student life on campus to meet with the [MSCHE team's] vice president of student affairs to talk about what it is they feel is operating well, what is not operating well and any recommendations," Randall said.

Is it possible that UB will not be reaccredited this time around? Although recommendations for improvements are standard, the Steering Committee co-chairs said that no red flags went up during the self-study that would jeopardize UB's accreditation status.

When asked what the university would do differently if the reaccreditation process was not required, Albrecht and Randall both replied: nothing. They said that self-evaluation is not a foreign idea to this school today.

"It is nice, however, to have outsiders looking at us to catch anything we may not otherwise have noticed," Randall said. "So any recommendations by the MSCHE team will be welcomed."

Barr, features editor for The UB Post, can be reached at meredith.barr@ubalt.edu.

MSCHE
web - www.msche.org

UB Self Study
e-mail - lrandall@ubalt.edu
web - www.ubalt.edu/provost/currentinitiatives

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