Accreditation is a term that is constantly heard with respect to colleges. Accreditation is a peer review process that educational communities have used since the 20th century for the purpose of self-regulation. The process is voluntary and is intended to strengthen and sustain the quality and integrity of higher education, making it worthy of public confidence. Institutions apply for accreditation status and after being accredited agree to abide by certain standards and take responsibility for self-improvement.
The Middle States Accreditation process, specifically, analyzes the university’s progress and adherence to certain standards. The Middle States Commission defines, maintains, and promotes educational excellence across institutions with diverse missions, student populations, and resources. It examines each institution as a whole, rather than specific programs within institutions. The accreditation process has several steps. The institution first does a self-evaluation, after which a Middle States Visiting Team creates their own report. The institution then has a chance to rebut the visiting team report, to which the Chair of the Visiting Team makes a confidential response to the Board of Middle States, and the Accreditation Board meets in a month and a half to go over all documents and make a decision. The Middle States team consists of administration staff and faculty from other colleges. Stevens Institute of Technology has just gone through the second step of the accreditation process; the Middle States Visiting Team did their study between April 6 and April 10. Stevens has been continually accredited since 1927.
Stevens administrators were involved with the assessment of the university’s progress, and students provided insight into the progress of the school. Both former and current SGA cabinets were involved in meetings with the accreditation teams, as well as certain campus leaders that were invited by the Visiting Team.
There are seven different standards that were discussed in the Summary Report given by the Visiting Team — Mission and Goals, Ethics and Integrity, Design and Delivery of the Student Experience, Support of the Student Experience, Educational Effectiveness Assessment, Planning, Resources, and Institutional Improvement, and Governance, Leadership, and Administration. Stevens met all the standards. The Summary consisted of three parts for every standard: the Report, what Middle States found, the Suggestions, what Stevens should work on improving, and the Recommendations, what Stevens must do to better that area.
The Summary Report was extensive and covered a large variety of topics. Stevens did a good job with the self-study and interviews with students and staff. Middle States also pointed out the continuous progress in research and the importance of hiring a diversity educator, Jacquis Watters. The report also stated that the school does a good job periodically reviewing the University Standards and tracking the strategic plan. The academic early warning system is effective and helps with retention. As far as educational departments go, the College of Arts and Letters is doing amazing. Course data is not only collected but also used to improve classes and departments. Even the Board of Trustees was included in the report. The Visiting Team assessed that the Board of Trustees has appropriate oversight and that it is good that faculty is included on the board.
The Summary Report discussed the importance of including a Student Life team, which is the entire Student Affairs department, in the strategic plan and that the values of the team should be reflected in the values of the entire university. At first glance, this appears to be a vague statement, which could be defined in a variety of ways. President of the Student Government Association Lucas Gallo said that in his opinion this means getting faculty and administration more involved in Student Life. Gallo pointed out that there is currently no Vice President of Student Affairs. Sara Klein, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, said that the strategic plan lacks coverage of the student experience outside of the classroom. Currently, the department is working on improving the first year experience for freshmen students and moving the Health and Wellness Center to the Pond House. However, none of these goals are formally listed in the strategic plan. Dean of Students Kenneth Nilsen said that Stevens needs space for programs to grow. Diversity is mentioned in the plan, but mostly in terms of admission and faculty, which is important, yet, now that different populations are at Stevens, things need to be improved. Associate Director of Student Life Chris Shemanski pointed out that a lot is required to make students happy on a day to day basis. The summary also suggested that the SGA and Office of Student Life should get more students involved in clubs since only 20% of the students are involved on campus. However, when asked if they knew where this number came from, Gallo, Klein, Nilsen, and Shemanski were all unaware of the origins of the data. Klein mentioned that, to her, that percentage seems wrong, since 40% of students are involved in Greek Life, which is part of Student Affairs.
Mental and Physical Health Services received a positive review in the report. However, there is a stigma around the Health Center being a middleman between students and doctors. Nilsen and Klein say that is the point of a small university health center. The Health Center should be efficient by meeting needs of the students instead of duplicating services that could be provided by doctors that students can see with their insurance. The goal is to take the wants of the students and provide them with efficient services; however, there is no data for what the students actually want. Klein discussed the talks on campus for a women’s health doctor. She said that even though there was some interest, she wasn’t sure if students would actually use the service. It takes a lot of money to provide health services, and it is important that the money is used properly.
Data and surveying were discussed in almost every standard of the summary report. The report recommended that the 2017 NSSE data, which is a national survey that goes around every four years, should be used to identify ways to improve Student/Faculty relations. Gallo critiqued that the NSSE survey is vague and not tailored to Stevens. The report recommended that Stevens collect and share data from climate surveys. Climate surveys can be more frequent than the NSSE and catered to Stevens. Stevens was critiqued for getting quantitative data but not progressing with the data. Gallo stated that the only quantitative data is from course evaluations and the SGA. He gave the example of the student health survey, to which about 300 students responded. However, departments wouldn’t even use this data because it didn’t represent the entire student body. Gallo hopes that in the future, the data gathered by the SGA is used even with the small representation, or at the very least, that Stevens departments help the SGA to get students involved. The Visiting Team also noted that Stevens doesn’t share data with students. For instance, students don’t know results of course evaluations.
The summary report also had some suggestions in regards to education. Stevens needs to define what general education means. Gallo said that there is a need for a more concrete description of general education. General elective classes can be anything, including classes in a student’s major. Yet, the whole point of general electives is to diversify student knowledge outside of their major. It was also noted that Stevens has a slow and complicated process for changing the curriculum. It was suggested that a document of procedure should be made. Gallo discussed that the Schaefer School of Engineering & Science is working with the SGA to create a “SES Dean/Student Advisory” committee. This committee will have nine students from every major within SES, including the Computer Science and Math departments. Currently, both the Dean of Engineering and Science, Dean Jean Zu, and the Dean of Systems and Enterprises, Dean Yehia Massoud, are hiring for a liaison position between faculty and students.
The Summary Report covered a lot of suggestions and recommendations, which Stevens has to comply with within the ten-year review. Even though Stevens doesn’t have to comply with suggestions, Gallo thinks that Stevens will follow them anyway because the school wants to do better and just isn’t aware of all the problems. The SGA has already written an action plan in response to the summary, which Gallo will be sending out to the student body. Middle States was an important way for Stevens students to bring issues to administration and for administration to realize that they need to be able to have a way to hear students’ comments and take them into account.
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