Institutional Effectiveness
Accreditation for Department Chairs and Program Directors
NWCCU Reaffirmation of Accreditation - Department Chairs and Program Directors
A Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) peer review committee comes to Ellensburg every seven years, with a midcycle evaluation in year three, to evaluate the extent of CWU’s mission fulfillment based on the NWCCU Eligibility Requirements and Standards for Accreditation.
Any NWCCU Eligibility Requirement or Accreditation Standard is fair game for a question from an evaluator. Evaluators will likely be particularly interested in your perspectives on CWU’s student profile, mission, challenges and adaptability, sustainability (both financially and in terms of the quality and competitiveness of academic offerings and student services), and interactions between/among faculty, staff, students, and administrators.
Below you will find a series of sample questions the NWCCU evaluators may ask.
- Please describe the changes your department has made as a function of assessment findings. Examples include:
- Program-level and/or course learning outcomes
- Other curriculum changes
- Policies, procedures, practices
- Pedagogy
- Faculty and staff hiring
- Faculty and staff professional development
- Facilities/equipment
- Advising
- Experiential learning opportunities
- Resource requests/allocations
- How did you assess the impact of those changes?
- What was the impact of those changes?
- What is the primary mission of the institution? Who are the students CWU serves?
- Has the student profile changed since the last NWCCU comprehensive site visit (fall 2018)?
- How will the change in mission / strategy impact your college or department?
- How does your department/program support the institution’s mission? How do your strategic goals and initiatives promote the institution’s mission?
- To what extent is the institution fulfilling its mission?
- Where and in what ways is the institution meeting or exceeding the expectations it set for itself?
- Where and in what ways is the institution falling short?
- How is the institution addressing those shortcomings?
- To what extent is your department/program fulfilling its mission?
- Where and in what ways is your department/program exceeding the expectations you have set?
- Where and in what ways is your department/program falling short?
- What are you doing to address those shortcomings?
- Since the last NWCCU site visit, in what ways have the institution and your college/department/program had to adapt to changing circumstances – in terms of both external and internal factors?
- How well has the institution and your department/program adapted to change?
- Thinking about the future, how well-equipped is the institution to adapt to change?
- What are the primary challenges the institution and your college have had to overcome since the last NWCCU site visit (fall 2018)?
- What are the primary challenges the institution and your college/department/program currently face?
- What challenges are on the horizon?
- How do you see the institution and your college/department/program addressing and overcoming those challenges?
- What are two or three primary changes you have undertaken to improve your deparment/program?
- What data/information did you use to determine these specific changes were necessary?
- What information did you (or will you) use to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of these changes?
- How effective have these changes been? What is working well - and what is not?
- Other possible question topics about your college include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Questions about specific Eligibility Requirements and/or Accreditation Standards
- College mission, vision, strategic initiatives – and your evaluation of progress to date
- College-level assessment – both in terms of quality assurance and continuous improvement (evaluators will want to hear about specific examples)
- The General Education Program (GE)
- How would you describe the current GE program at CWU?
- What do you see as the benefits of the GE program?
- Do you see any drawbacks to the program? Can those drawbacks be mitigated? If so, how?
- How does your department/program contribute to the current GE?
- To what extent has your department/program been involved in the assessment and, by extension, improvement of the current GE?
- Department/Program Self-Studies (aka Program Review) and Assessment
- What are your program learning outcomes for each of your programs? When were they last reviewed/updated?
- What are your course learning outcomes? When were they last reviewed/updated?
- Do you have an Advisory Board and/or other method(s) for ensuring your program-level and course learning outcomes are current?
- Do you have a curriculum map of program-level learning outcomes and specific courses?
- Please describe your department's/program's assessment process(es). Who is responsible for department- and program-level assessment?
- Please describe improvements/enhancements your department/program has made as a function of assessment findings. How did you assess the impact of those changes? What was the impact of those changes?
- Specialized Accreditation - Same questions as above with the addition of the following:
- If you are seeking specialized accreditation, what challenges do you anticipate? What is your plan for address those challenges?
- If your department/program holds specialized accreditations, what challenges did you encounter in obtaining specialized accreditation? How did you address those challenges?
- If your department/program holds or is seeking specialized accreditation, please provide a summary of the department's/program's status and, if applicable, history of specialized accreditation.
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