Liberal Education Resources

Accreditation Standards

Quality of the Degree: An Alliance between Faculty and Accreditors
A new report from AAC&U's Project on Accreditation and Assessment, a project that explored a unique moment when both regional and specialized accreditors were revising standards and their processes of accreditation. The goal of the project was to influence such revisions so that they placed greater emphasis on liberal learning outcomes and the demonstration by institutions of students' sophisticated intellectual capacities. The report from the project, Quality of the degree: An alliance between faculty and accreditors, expands on these concepts. It is available online in at PDF format at www.aacu.org/gex/paa/PAAreport.pdf. A companion print publication on the shared responsibilities of colleges and accreditors for student learning, will be available at AAC&U's annual meeting in 2004.

AALE Accreditation Standards and Criteria
The American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE), a national organization dedicated to strengthening and promoting liberal education through accreditation and research, has adopted revised Accreditation Standards and Criteria that are carefully designed to be appropriate to the nature, goals, and means of liberal education. These revised Standards and Criteria for institutional and program accreditation are now available on the academy's web site. Adoption of these new standards marks the first time substantive evidence of liberal learning has formed a central part in the accreditation requirements of a U.S. Department of Education recognized agency.

Accreditation Criteria for Interdisciplinary Studies in General Education
This report, prepared by a task force of the Association for Integrative Studies and endorsed by the Board of Directors of the Association in February 2000, has developed appropriate criteria of accreditation for interdisciplinary general education. The criteria we offer are advisory. The task force was commissioned by the Association for Integrative Studies, a professional organization for educators in interdisciplinary education and scholarship, in response to a request from the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). The recommendations may be taken as state-of-the-art counsel that can be published and endorsed by other professional groups.

Informing the Public About Accreditation
The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) has created a new section on its Web site, "Informing the Public About Accreditation." It is intended to provide those outside higher education with easily understood materials about the fundamentals of accreditation. It includes the CHEA Institutional Database (the only source for all accredited institutions in the U.S. reviewed by recognized accreditors), the CHEA International Database (information about accreditation and quality assurance organization from about fifty countries).

AAC&U offers these resources only as possible models of interest and has not submitted each of them to any substantial peer or quality review. If you have questions about any particular resource, please contact the institution sponsoring it directly.