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STANDARDS OF ACCREDITATION*
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INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT
Standard 1: Mission, Goals and Objectives
The institution’s mission clearly defines its purpose within
the context of higher education and explains whom the
institution serves and what it intends to accomplish. The
institution’s stated goals and objectives, consistent with
the aspirations and expectations of higher education,
clearly specify how the institution will fulfill its
mission. The mission, goals, and objectives are developed
and recognized by the institution with its members and its
governing body and are utilized to develop and shape its
programs and practices and to evaluate its effectiveness.
Standard 2: Planning, Resource Allocation and
Institutional Renewal
An institution conducts ongoing planning and resource
allocation based on its mission and uses the results of its
assessment activities for institutional renewal.
Implementation and subsequent evaluation of the success of
the strategic plan and resource allocation support the
development and change necessary to improve and to maintain
institutional quality.
Standard 3: Institutional Resources
The human, financial, technical, physical facilities, and
other resources necessary to achieve an institution’s
mission and goals are available and accessible. In the
context of the institution’s mission, the effective and
efficient uses of the institution’s resources are analyzed
as part of ongoing outcomes assessment.
Standard 4: Leadership and Governance
The institution’s system of governance clearly defines the
roles of institutional constituencies in policy development
and decision-making. The governance structure includes an
active governing body with sufficient autonomy to assure
institutional integrity and to fulfill its responsibilities
of policy and resource development, consistent with the
mission of the institution.
Standard 5: Administration
The institution’s administrative structure and services
facilitate learning and research/scholarship, foster quality
improvement, and support the institution’s organization and
governance.
Standard 6: Integrity
In the conduct of its programs and activities involving the
public and the constituencies it serves, the institution
demonstrates adherence to ethical standards and its own
stated policies, providing support to academic and
intellectual freedom.
Standard 7: Institutional Assessment
The institution has developed and implemented an assessment
plan and process that evaluates its overall effectiveness
in: achieving its mission and goals; implementing planning,
resource allocation, and institutional renewal processes;
using institutional resources efficiently; providing
leadership and governance; providing administrative
structures and services; demonstrating institutional
integrity; and assuring that institutional processes and
resources support appropriate learning and other outcomes
for its students and graduates.
EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Standard 8: Student Admissions
The institution seeks to admit students whose interests,
goals, and abilities are congruent with its mission.
Standard 9: Student Support Services
The institution provides student support services reasonably
necessary to enable each student to achieve the
institution’s goals for students.
Standard 10: Faculty
The institution’s instructional, research, and service
programs are devised, developed, monitored, and supported by
qualified professionals.
Standard 11: Educational Offerings
The institution’s educational offerings display academic
content, rigor, and coherence that are appropriate to its
higher education mission. The institution identifies student
learning goals and objectives, including knowledge and
skills, for its educational offerings.
Standard 12: General Education
The institution’s curricula are designed so that students
acquire and demonstrate college-level proficiency in general
education and essential skills, including oral and written
communication, scientific and quantitative reasoning,
critical analysis and reasoning, technological competency,
and information literacy.
Standard 13: Related Educational Activities
Institutional programs or activities that are characterized
by particular content, focus, location, mode of delivery, or
sponsorship meet appropriate standards.
Standard 14: Assessment of Student Learning
Assessment of student learning demonstrates that the
institution’s students have knowledge, skills, and
competencies consistent with institutional goals and that
students at graduation have achieved appropriate higher
education goals.
*From Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education,
Middle States Commission on Higher Education, 2002
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