After years of work and incremental change, the university will renew its accreditation in 2015.
Accreditation is a process by which individual colleges (such as the College of Business Administration or the College of Pharmacy) and entire universities (Harding as a whole) are evaluated based on standards set by a peer review board made up of faculty from other accredited colleges and universities.
University-wide accreditation runs in 10-year cycles and, according to Provost Larry Long, is a big deal for the university and its students as it allows transfer of credits, federal financial aid and national recognition of the validity of the students’ degrees.
According to Associate Provost Marty Spears, accreditation on all levels seeks to prove that a university or college is pursuing and basing decisions, finances and changes on its mission. This means being very intentional about everything the university does as well as constantly seeking to improve, Spears said.
“Ultimately, it is a process by which we carefully examine ourselves and what we’re doing and make sure everything we’re doing comes back to our mission,” Julie Hixson-Wallace, dean of pharmacy and assistant provost, said. “That’s the bottom line. There are some rules and regulations we have to meet as part of that, but even with that, if we are trying to live the way God wants us to live, we are going to do the best job we can and do the job as if it were for him.”
According to Spears, accreditation is a healthy process for the university. It provides a time of reflection on what the university is and what it is doing to improve.
“We are working hard on a lot of areas to confirm that our programs, practices and policies are appropriate,” Long said. “Harding was chosen by the Higher Learning Commission to serve as a ‘pioneer’ to help establish new processes in the accreditation process; so we have been involved in this accreditation process for over two years.”
On the university level, accreditation is essential for students to receive any sort of federal financial aid, Spears said. Additionally, a university’s accreditation shows students’ future employers that the students’ degrees were meaningful and rigorous. Without accreditation, students would suffer consequences, according to Dean of College of Business Administration Bryan Burks.
Burks also said he seeks accreditation for COBA, although it is not necessary to do so.
“Students should be proud of the fact that they’re at a college that took the time to go through that long and strenuous accreditation process to meet the guidelines, to put a plaque on the wall (that demonstrates) we are an accredited program and to know they went to a program that had very high academic standards,” Burks said.
Other programs, such as pharmacy, athletic training and education, are required to maintain accreditation for their programs.
According to Spears, accreditation standards for the university come from the Higher Learning Commission.
The HLC recently published a document called “Assumed Practices” that gives minimum standards. The HLC also keeps accreditation faculty at participating universities aware of other changes to HLC standards. In addition, Spears said the accreditation team has to stay up-to-date on new government regulations.
For example, the recent change at Harding of summer credit hour limits is due to a new government regulation. Executive Vice President David Collins, who headed up the committee that founded the Center for Student Success, said HLC documents talked a lot about support services. The HLC assumes that universities are providing for students who may need extra resources outside of the classroom.
While Harding previously had several separated support service entities, the Center for Student Success drew them all together under one roof and one leadership, according to Collins.
“Our purpose in all of this is to improve,” Collins said. “In the past, the purpose was to see if a university met the minimum standards … but I think the approach to accreditation now is about a process and demonstrating that a university is effective, but also demonstrating that a university is seeking to constantly improve. That is something we’re trying to do in the support services; we are always making sure we are doing the best we can and then looking at how we can even improve on that.”
In order to implement changes such as internship requirements or the Center for Student Success, the accreditation team relies on feedback from faculty and students through several campus committees. Sometimes the changes dramatically affect the entire university, and sometimes the changes only affect a few departments.
“It’s really great to work at Harding because everyone’s a team player,” Spears said. “If you visit other institutions, faculty can have a reputation of being really difficult to work with. The faculty at Harding are team players across the board, so they understand if the government is telling us we have to do something, then let’s work together to solve the problem. Sometimes, what will happen is we will get that negative feedback, which is important because we need to hear it, and everyone puts their thinking caps on, and we come up with a solution that is not as bad as we thought it was going to be.”
The academic leaders and academic affairs committees consist of members from all over campus, including faculty and deans from each department as well as a few student representatives.
Senior Ethan Coburn is a student representative on the Undergraduate Academic Affairs Committee.
The committee votes on changes that will be implemented in the next school year and engages in conversation about what will be best for each student, faculty member and department, Coburn said.
In addition to participation of these committees, deans also do a “tremendous amount” of paperwork to prove to accreditation boards that their colleges or departments are meeting and exceeding standards, Burks said.
Burks said he tries to keep the paperwork in the “front offices” so professors can continue to focus on teaching and their students. Still, some of those challenges trickle down to the professors. One of the biggest changes the accreditation team is currently working on is a new standard that states that every faculty member is supposed to have one degree higher than what they are teaching or equivalent experience.
“There are some adjuncts who are not going to be able to work with us, as a result,” Spears said. “It’s not that they weren’t good teachers, and we would stand behind them, but the minimum standards have changed. There are quite a few of them that have equivalent experience. We had to develop a protocol to approve someone with equivalent experience … It’s a hard conversation, but you make them know how valuable they are and that we hope they’ll start working on their master’s degree or whatever they’re lacking so they can continue to teach at Harding.”
Despite the tough decisions and challenge of implementing changes that affect an entire university, accreditation, at the end of the day, is about the students.
“When students receive their degree from Harding, (it) is going to mean something,” Collins said. “It’s going to be respected among graduate schools, professional schools, employers. They are going to look at Harding and know its reputation and know that it’s an accredited institution and that students coming out of Harding are going to be very well prepared to enter future study or their profession.”
