Western Association of Schools and Colleges
Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities
Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities
The Nominating Committee of the Association of Schools and Colleges has presented a final slate of nominees to the region for the 2010 Commission Election. Chief Executive Officers of all WASC-accredited institutions are asked to cast their votes for the nominees, no later than Friday, April 9, 2010. Copies of the election ballot have been emailed to all member CEOs and may also be downloaded from the Commission Elections section of the WASC website.
December, 2009 -- In preparation for spring 2010 visits, WASC has posted a variety of reference materials for institutions and teams. If you will be hosting a visit or participating as a team member in spring 2010, you may download all applicable documents at: Spring 2010 Visit Tools and Requirements .
Within the past few years, institutions of higher education have come under increasing criticism for an alleged lack of transparency and accountability. This criticism was reflected in the 2006 report of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education in the United States, commonly known as the Spellings Commission Report, and surfaced repeatedly in the Congressional debates leading to the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Opportunity Act.
This good-practice guide (download) is designed to assist colleges and universities with meeting the new program review expectations within WASC's revised accreditation standards. While it is useful for meeting the revised standards, the guide is framed in terms of ‘good practices' for academic program review processes rather than accreditation compliance.
At its meeting on June 17-19, the Accrediting Commission took action on 27 institutions and two structural changes, and approved 17 substantive change applications.
For a copy of the full list of actions, please see the "President's Corner " section of the commission website.
As required by law, before the Department of Education can adopt new regulations it needs to enter into negotiated rule making, where representatives of stakeholder groups "negotiate" with a Department representative. Five negotiating panels were created to follow up on the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), and I had the opportunity to serve as the primary negotiator representing regional accreditation on one of these panels.
The Higher Education Opportunity Act also requires WASC to make changes to the appeals process that is used when institutions wish to appeal an action to terminate accreditation or deny candidacy.
The Commission discussed at its June meeting how it should be responding to the financial crisis throughout the region. At the time of the meeting, the budget had not been adopted in California, but it was clear that major reductions would be imposed on the University of California and California State University campuses. Similarly, the University of Hawaii was notified of major reductions in its system budget.
The Commission approved a final budget for 2009-10 that included a freeze in dues and fees for the upcoming year. A copy of the 2009-10 budget is available on the WASC website, www.wascsenior.org.
The Commission also will strive to hold to a zero or very small increase in annual dues for 2010-11 in light of the challenging financial situation in the region.
