Accreditation Overview

The accreditation process requires institutions to examine their own goals, operations and achievements through a comprehensive self- study. While each institution is unique, these institutional goals and operations are to be consistent with the eligibility standards for accreditation as outlined by the Northwest Commission.

The NWCCU Accreditation Handbook (2003 edition) states:

"Accreditation is a process of recognizing educational institutions for performance, integrity, and quality that entitles them to the confidence of the educational community and the public. In the United States this recognition is extended largely through nongovernmental, voluntary institutional or professional associations that have responsibility for establishing criteria, visiting and evaluating institutions at their requests, and approving those institutions and programs that meet their criteria."

Institutional accreditation is granted by a regional accrediting agency within a scope of authority approved by the U.S. Department of Education. Institutional accreditation applies to the college or university as a whole, not individual programs or units within the institution.

As stated by Dr. Al Johnson, Vice President of the Northwest Commission, "The purpose of the self study is to understand, assess, analyze, evaluate, and improve planning and effectiveness of the institution in fulfilling its mission - not merely defending what already exists."

We do not have to be perfect in every way, but must provide an evidence based assessment that the institution operates with clearly defined and appropriate educational goals and is reasonable organized, staffed and supported to accomplish these goals.

This webpage is one vehicle by which information about the accreditation will be conveyed to the campus community. The webpage also allows for input from the campus community. As noted below, there will be multiple ways by which the accreditation process will attempt to connect with the campus community. The accreditation affords the campus an opportunity to accurately, candidly, and directly identify the strengths, weaknesses and achievements of the institution. It should also serve as a guide for improved planning to address any problems and to insure that successes are continued.

In summary form, the accreditation process for the Central Washington University can be described by the following points.

• CWU's decennial accreditation is scheduled for 2009. The site visit will be on campus October ???, 2009 .
• We must prepare a comprehensive "Institutional Self Study Report" that addresses the nine standards of the Northwest Commission of Colleges and Universities. The simple way to describe the self study is that we must provide an evidence based assessment that we are achieving the stated goals of the University.
• The nine standards (and the name of the chairs for the committees examining each standard) are:
  1. Institutional Mission and Goals, Planning and Effectiveness (Dr. Libby Street)
  2. Educational Program and Its Effectiveness (Dr. Warren Street)
  3. Students (Ms. Leslie Webb)
  4. Faculty (Dr. Patsy Callaghan)
  5. Library and Information Resources (Ms. Jane Chinn and Ms. Anna Creech)
  6. Governance and Administration (Dr. Connie Roberts)
  7. Finance (Mr. Kevin Conwell)
  8. Physical Resources (Mr. Robert Tosch and Ms. Mickey Parker)
  9. Institutional Integrity (Mr. John Lasik)
• The titles of the standards capture the broad area. Some standards are quite large and others far more focused. For example, standard 2 covers nearly everything about our curriculum - undergraduate, graduate, core, distance education, continuing education and assessment. Others, such as Finance (7) and Governance (6) are far more focused on who does what and how records are kept. The specific components of each standard are available for review elsewhere on the University's accreditation webpage.
• There must be considerable faculty, staff and even student involvement with the preparation of the self study. While a particular standard may not necessarily be chaired by a faculty member (i.e. 7 Finance), there must be membership and involvement on all committees. Ideally all members of the campus community will take advantage of opportunities to provide input about the self-study.
• To enhance input, there will be open forums for faculty staff and students throughout the next 18 months. Some of these forums will be more general and designed to identify broad issues of concern across the campus. Others will be targeted to specific issues related to specific standard.

Connections to each College (and other significant units) must be made (as relevant) for each standard. The standard committees and the director of the accreditation process will schedule meetings with various campus groups as appropriate. If you wish to have the director of the accreditation process visit your department, campus, student or community group, please contact Phil Backlund either via email or by phone (509-963-1852).