Fordham is preparing for the accreditation process it embodies from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), the regional accrediting body in the United States. It all culminates in the site visit in spring of 2025. MSCHE has seven standards of excellence the university continuously strives to comply with every eight years. The university was last accredited in 2016 and prepares for accreditation this upcoming spring 2025. Co-chairs Dr. Melissa Labonte and Dr. Greer Jason-DiBartolo are facilitating an institutional self-study, inviting all students to volunteer their time, ask questions and contribute thoughts by emailing [email protected].
It is a two-year process for this institutional self-study where accreditation is maintained through compliance every day. In preparation for the visit, the university is keeping itself informed of the standards that the Middle States Commission outlines for Fordham as an organization. The university has been working since the last accreditation, ensuring familiarity with new standards in place and that all activities are meeting and exceeding those standards. The university going through a re-accreditation process is not about preparing a report or for a visit, but living as an organization day to day as a reflection of those standards and expectations by the Middle States Commission’s accrediting body. The university has been working towards the visit, and, most recently, Jason-DiBartolo and Labonte assembled seven working groups and teams, one working group for each of the seven standards and three teams. One team is the evidence inventory team. Their role is to collect all data and documents all seven working groups need to do. Team two is the communications team, where they help to finalize the resort and put together websites. Team three is the student voice team, a profile of students in leadership and not. Provost seeks to maximize the diversity of membership of these groups of students.
“The next step is to invite these diverse and representative groups of students in a week or two to serve as sounding boards for all of the working groups. If a working group wants to do a focus group with students, they’ll have this student group of volunteers. If the working group would like to survey students, they’ll have this group of students. If a working group would like a student perspective on something on a survey that may go out to a larger population of students, they can consult with this group of student volunteers,” said Jason-DiBartolo. These groups of students will represent all the colleges, undergraduate and graduate, commuters, residents, business and social work. A meeting was held on Friday, Sept. 22 at the Lincoln Center campus where working groups were presented with self-study materials and guidelines on how to engage in work. The working groups will meet several times in the next couple of months to answer a series of questions related to their standards, which help shape and guide the work of each of the standards.
“There would be no way for us to do justice to a self-study process without including and integrating meaningfully the student voice. We take that part of the entire initiative very seriously. We are really looking forward to engaging with students across different working groups to be able to hear from their perspective the different standards and lines of inquiry. There will be opportunities for students who are interested in being more involved. They should email us at the self-study email and website,” said Labonte. There are plenty of opportunities for community engagement, including students, like the student town hall. Last April, a town hall event took place with Sean McKitrick for faculty and staff, as well as a separate town hall for students. Provost intends to continue to engage in this manner, reaching out to students and welcoming students to ask questions and get involved.
After the planning part of the study, Provost seeks to gauge interest and perspectives needing to be covered. This is where direct engagement with students is expected to happen through the student voice team. In fall of 2024, a draft of the final report will be prepared, and will begin to engage with different community stakeholder groups, including students. “We’re looking forward to engaging with formal institutions like USG and students with unique perspectives on the university, residential life, resident hall directors or commuter or international students. We want to cast that net as wide as possible in terms of consultation that’s going to give us the most information that will tell us how well we are meeting the standards and what area we need to pay closer attention to for continuous improvement,” said Dr. Labonte.
“It is important for the university to maintain its accreditation and utilize the self-study process as a discernment opportunity to dive deep into what is promised to students and if the university is delivering on that promise,” said Jason-DiBartolo, co-chair associate dean of strategic initiative and executive director of operations.
The standards of excellence within eight years make for institutional success. “The standards are a vision of what higher education should be serving in terms of goals, practices, policies, and day-to-day practices of the institution, reflecting a series of standards in order to deliver on the goals of higher education. The seven standards are outlined by Middle States, things like mission and goals, ethics and integrity, design and delivery of student learning experience, the support for student experience, educational effectiveness assessment, planning resources and institutional improvement, and governance/leaderships/administration,” said Labonte. Standards overlap, and within each standard, there are a set of criteria that need to be fulfilled. According to “Standards of Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation,” there are requirements for affiliation. Middle State Standards overlap with federal compliance standards universities must abide by. All accreditation processes are multi-year in length. There is a lot of coordination and collaboration to compile evidence demonstrating Fordham’s compliance with those seven standards for accreditation, as well as a number of requirements of affiliation that to maintain full compliance with federal regulations.
While the Middle States has standards for universities to uphold and define, the university also has institutional priorities. In preparation for the visit, Labonte and Jason-DiBartolo met with many organizations. A steering committee is then established, a collection of faculty and administrators to help lead efforts to write the self-study. This brings to fruition a self-study design, a fifty-page document outlining how the next year and a half will be spent writing the self-study itself. After this document is put together, the Office of Provost hosts the liaison this past spring semester, the Vice President Liaison from the Middle States, Sean McKitrick, for a one-day visit.
