HLC- Regional Reaccreditation
Reaccreditation under Open Pathways
Dr. Joseph Frizado
Vice Provost for Academic Operations & Assessment
Regional Accreditation
• North Central-Higher Learning Commission
• 10 years
• Self-study
– 2 years to produce
– Hundreds of pages
– Resource Room
• New methodology – Open Pathway
Why Accreditation?
• Ensures transferability of course credits
• Assures colleges and employers that a
student's education meet acceptable levels of
quality
• Allows students’ access to federal financial aid
Open Pathway
• Two components
– Quality Initiative
• Shorter term improvement project
– Assurance Document
• Demonstrates continued best practices/improvement
• Replaces self-study and resource room
• Provides evidence of federal compliance
Quality Initiative
• New proposal/project to improve institutional quality
• Original proposal identified two areas
– Enrollment Management and General Education
• HLC Consultants visited Mar. 2010
• Chose University Learning Commons as our project
• Report was submitted and approved Fall 2012.
Assurance Document
• Replaces the self study
• Moved to an online process
• Requires answering a series of prompts to
address five major criteria
• New criteria
Criteria
• Mission
• Integrity: Ethical & Responsible Conduct
• Teaching & Learning: Quality, Resources, and
Support
• Teaching & Learning: Evaluation and
Improvement
• Resources, Planning, and Institutional
Effectiveness
Assurance Document
• HLC website is very limited access
• A draft of our document was made available
on BGSU website Feb. 25
• Comments/suggestions were incorporated
• Final version was locked on March 15
• Final version (without links) made public April
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Federal Compliance
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Credits, program length and tuition
Student complaint process
Transfer policies
Verify student identities (distance)
Title IV information
Institutional Disclosures on Advertising/Recruitment
Materials
• Relationships with other Accrediting Agencies
• Public Notice of Evaluation Visit
Title IV Information
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General programs findings
Financial Responsibilities requirements
Student loan default rates
Campus Crime information
Student Right to Know
Satisfactory Progress/Attendance Policies
Contractual relationships
Consortial relationships
Campus Visit
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Assurance Argument Website is closed on March 15th
BGSU Documents available via web to HLC
Campus Visit April 15th – 16th
Specific meetings
• President
• Board of Trustees
• Faculty Senate leadership
• Requested clarifications
Open Forum Public meetings (faculty, staff, students and
all other interested parties)
Participating in the Process
• Federal Notification- email/letter directly to
HLC
• Comments on draft
• During the visit
– Public fora on Criteria
– Drop-in sessions for any general comments