I noted a recent Chronicle article that describes new pressures on specialized accreditors because of their budgetary impacts. It is a dilemma, because many, if not most, of these disciplinary alliances are at least somewhat objective markers of excellence. They apply the peer-review process, which is so crucial to academe, to academic programs themselves.
The wonderful thing about professional accreditors is that they provide disciplines with incredible leverage for budgets and personnel. Programs that enjoy specialized accreditation may, in fact, find themselves the target of jealousy and even some subterfuge from departments that do not have such an extra level of certification.
As a dean, I have often chuckled at the way that some of these other departments try to piggyback on the gravitas of the specialized accreditors. Any department chair or dean worth her salt will learn very quickly that an invocation of “The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education requires” or “The National Association of Schools of Art and Design says” can often find new support for an initiative that has been stalled. This can spread more broadly: I once heard an English-department chair brag that he had convinced his chief academic officer that the Modern Language Association was really a professional accreditor, so he would always say, “Well, MLA requires us to . . .” and the vice president for academic affairs would just accept it as the gospel truth. He laughed to a table full of other chairs at a conference, “My VPAA has never, not once in fact, asked to see the MLA criteria for accreditation of our program. I’m bluffing, of course, but hey, as long as it works, I’ll keep on doing it.”
Do you think that professional accreditation is always worthwhile or is it really just a way for some departments to have longer levers for lifting than other departments that do not have accreditors?
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4 Responses to My Accreditor Says . . .
gedge - October 13, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Chemistry departments have been playing the “MLA game” for years. The American Chemical Society “approves” chemistry programs, but many departments sell themselves as “ACS Accredited.” My guess is that this lexical slip occurs mostly for leverage with administrators. I do not mind chemistry departments getting a disproportionate amount of support because a strong chemistry program is central to being a comprehensive university. I do object to them using accreditation as a ruse for getting resources.
drcjsnider - October 14, 2009 at 8:35 am
At my insitution the chemistry department has the same or fewer majors as the history department, but twice the number of faculty members because they claim that ACS Accreditation requires them to have individual faculty members to offer courses in all the various areas of chemistry.
svandena - October 15, 2009 at 11:37 am
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jesor - October 19, 2009 at 2:29 pm
My experience has been that specialized accreditation is also utilized as a means of persuading prospective students. Typically it is dangled out as a way to dissuade these students from attending schools that have not applied for or obtained these accreditations and approvals. Usually, you can hear a faculty or recruiter say something like “it would be very hard for you to get into a graduate program, or get a job if you do not have a degree from a program with our accreditation.” Unfortunately from my experience, the specialized accreditation of a program has very little to do with the employability or admissibility of a graduate.