Assessment and Accreditation—Luck of the Draw?

I was skimming through Inside Higher Education ran across an article by Herman Berliner on Feb. 14 titled Assessment. Berliner is an ABA reaccreditation team member and his musings from an assessment team member’s perspective hit a nerve with me.

Berliner states:

“I have a very high regard for the peer review process. Almost without exception, the teams I have served on and the teams that have visited Hofstra have been as diligent and objective as a group of individuals can be. Yes, on rare occasion I have had the sense that a visiting team has been overly picky. And yes, on rare occasion I have felt that a visiting team should have asked more questions.

From my recent service as well as my earlier service, I have also sometimes had a sense that the schools with the most prestigious reputations, at times, get a pass because reviewers feel that their overall reputation justifies overlooking some individual standards.”

It is well known that an institution’s success in a review hinges on the luck of the draw, i.e., the mix of accreditation team members assigned to the visit. Our institution faces an upcoming HLC visit. There are a number of us directly involved with the masters’ program who are concerned in regards to the inherent “research atmosphere” component of our accreditation process. We are a young institution when it comes to research as our master’s program is in its infancy. But, when you go back to the last visit and our institutions commitments to research and the research climate, we are a bit nervous. We can’t rely on our overall reputation in that regard—so it appears we are down to the luck of the draw. I hope we win the hand when we go “all-in”.