WMU seeks input from students, faculty on HLC reaccredation bid

By Josh Holderbaum
Western Herald

Western Michigan University wants input from students and faculty to make sure it’s ready to be reaccredited later this year.

A comment session for WMU’s Higher Learning Commission self-study report will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Bernhard Center’s Martin Luther King, Jr. room.

The report offers examples about how WMU meets the HLC’s criteria for accreditation: mission and integrity, future preparedness, student learning and effective teaching, application of knowledge and engagement and service.

For each criterion, WMU needs to offer at least five to eight examples of how it has met those requirements.

“This is a chance for us to assess whether the evidence is strong and compelling,” said Eileen Evans, Ph.D., vice provost for Institutional Effectiveness and chair of the steering committee for the self-study report.

“Have we put absolutely our strongest evidence out and represented the whole university?”

Around 122 people from all areas of WMU have contributed to the report, with some very surprising evidence, Evans said.

“For the section presenting evidence that the university attends to issues of inclusion and diversity, some of the evidence offered is that for students of different cultures, on the holiday of Ramadan, food service hours are adjusted,” Evans said. “People who don’t interact with dining services would have no idea we do that.”

The public comments will be added in to the report before it goes out July 1.

After the report’s submission, the HLC will send a team of experts to campus Oct. 18 to 20 to assess the report’s accuracy firsthand.

The team, made up of professors and administrators from other colleges, often outside Michigan, will meet with President John Dunn and other groups, including informal meetings with students, before drafting a report of their own.

WMU will receive a copy of the team’s report to note errors and have a chance to respond to it before the process officially ends next spring, with the HLC deciding whether or not to reaccredit the university.

Not being reaccredited would hurt both the university and students.

“We do it for the general public, for quality assurance, but we also do it for students,” Evans said. “To be eligible for federal [financial] aid, we need to be accredited. For accredited programs at the university, like engineering, business and teacher education, those can’t be accredited if the institution isn’t accredited.”

Accreditation also affects whether employers decide to reimburse tuition for workers going back to school and whether WMU’s credit hours can be transferred to other accredited institutions.

For a draft copy of the report and more information on the HLC self-study, visit www.wmich.edu/poapa.

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