Continuous improvement is the alternative to stagnation. Minimum standards are necessary but far from sufficient to achieve acceptable quality in higher education, and the strongest institutions will stay strong through ongoing aspiration. The Higher Learning Commission embeds improvement as one of two major strands in all its pathways, the other being assurance that institutions meet the Criteria for Accreditation and the federal requirements.
A process of assessment is essential to continuous improvement and therefore a commitment to assessment should be deeply embedded in an institution’s activities. Assessment applies not only to student learning and educational outcomes but to an institution’s approach to improvement of institutional effectiveness.
For student learning, a commitment to assessment would mean assessment at the program level that proceeds from clear goals, involves faculty at all points in the process, and analyzes the assessment results; it would also mean that the institution improves its programs or ancillary services or other operations on the basis of those analyses. Institutions committed to improvement review their programs regularly and seek external judgment, advice, or benchmarks in their assessments.
Because in recent years the issues of persistence and completion have become central to public concern about higher education, the current criteria direct attention to them as possible indicators of quality and foci for improvement, without prescribing either the measures or outcomes.
Innovation is essential in a time of rapid change and challenge; through its criteria and processes the Higher Learning Commission seeks to support innovation.
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