How many of you know that Monmouth College will undergo its ten-year accreditation review process this coming week? This process, by a team of consultant-evaluators from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), will examine the educational experience offered at our institution, determining whether or not Monmouth deserves to be accreditated. Simplistically, this group of consultant-evaluators determines whether or not our diplomas will mean anything.

The team will do more than merely reaccreditate Monmouth—it will make suggestions and recommendations for improvement. Since, according to the Higher Learning Commission, the campus must “publicize the schedule of the team’s open meetings,” you are very much able to attend the meetings and inform the evaluators of how you think Monmouth could be better.  Well, you could if Monmouth actually publicized the schedule of the team’s open meetings.  The Faculty Accreditation Committee assured members of the student government that an open forum for students only would be made; however, they have since changed that open student meeting into a meeting with hand selected students, mostly from Residence Life.  The meeting (Huff Center Classroom 1012A on Monday at 4:30) has an invitation list of:  Paige Halpin, Harrison Heilman, Matthew Henning, Ellen Duffin, Matthew Faron, John Kaiser, Jordan Hedberg, Abigail McLaughlin, Monica Miller, James Vallarta, Libby White, Samantha Morgan, Kathryn Fitzsimmons, Ian Van Anden, Nathaniel Coleman, Marc Arulfo, James Shepard, Michael Diamond, Nishant Dixit, Walker Filip, Zak Edmonds, James Fry, Emily Isaacs, Morgan Moller, Trevor Newton, Alex Tanney, Elise Waldorf, Melissa Gorski and myself.  So, if you want the consultant-evaluators to know something, inform one of the aforementioned people of your issue(s), especially since the college hasn’t “publicize[d] the schedule of the team’s open meetings”. 

The accreditation process is going to be interesting, since, as I peruse the criteria of HLC in their Handbook of Accreditation, Monmouth seems to be starkly lacking.  For instance, who believes that Monmouth is “supportive of innovation and change”? Or, how about whether Monmouth “demonstrates openness to innovative practices that enhance learning”? Faculty still have a hard time adapting to a student body that grew up immersed in new and developing technology:  professors refuse to allow e-mail as a valid communicative tool; faculty dislike implementing Moodle and other online capabilities; and, when the student senate moved that Monmouth should buy a Scantron machine, so students might actually receive tests back and graded in a timely fashion, the faculty said that a Scantron was diametrically opposed to the liberal arts. I wonder how all those other liberal arts institutions maintain their integrity with a Scantron. Monmouth is supposed to, however, “support faculty in keeping abreast … of technological advances that can positively affect student learning and delivery of instruction”. At this point, high schools have more technological advances than an institution of higher learning.

Monmouth seems to have other problem areas as well. The college has done a self-study of its Integrated Studies program, which, if you have been in any Integrated Studies course, is about as integrated as CHEM 101. Supposedly, the Integrated Studies program improves and aids in the development of critical thinking skills, which is odd when you realize that Monmouth is in the 38^th to 46^th percentile nationally for critical thinking, according to the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST).  The Faculty Accreditation Committee rationalizes this fact in its “Self-Study Presented to the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association” by saying that the “ranking is consistent with the mean ACT scores of our entering students, suggesting that Monmouth on average neither out-performs nor under-performs as an institution”. If the Integrated Studies program is supposed to improve critical thinking skills, then wouldn’t the CCTST reflect that Monmouth students out-perform their ACT scores? Basically, students take nothing away in the development of critical thinking from Integrated Studies, since our ACT scores solely explain our poor performance on the CCTST.

Monmouth administered the Collegiate Learning Assessment, which “requires students to answer open-ended questions that are characterized as either performance tasks or analytic writing tasks,” in 2006-2007. How did Monmouth students do? Again, we ranked in the 40% range of colleges nationally similar to Monmouth. Justifying this, the Faculty Accreditation Committee gloated that we ranked “better than 30% of institutions”. For those bad at subtraction, this ranking also means that Monmouth did worse than 60% of institutions. Again, ACT scores are used to rationalize the poor performance. So, at what point is the faculty responsible for our performance on assessment tests, and not our ACT scores?

How many of you knew about those assessments? According to the HLC’s Handbook of Accreditation, “results obtained through assessment of student learning [should be] available to appropriate constituencies, including students themselves”. Maybe one recommendation for Monmouth would be to make available more information to one of its most important constituencies:  students.

If one were to examine the goals and objectives that the Faculty Accreditation Committee devised, a person would be left wondering if a business department existed on this campus. According to business professors, goals and objectives must be SMART:  specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, and timely. Under the goal of “ensuring the integrity of the Integrated Studies program,” one finds the objective of ensuring vertical integration of the Integrated Studies courses without any mention of how such integration is going to be achieved or measured, what body will be held accountable for such integration, or the timeframe for such integration. When the Faculty Accreditation Committee was asked about such specifics, several professors responded by saying that they did not want to be “prescriptive”. For those wondering, the words “specific” and “prescriptive” are different. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “specific” as being “explicitly set forth; definite,” while “prescriptive” is “making or giving injunctions, directions, laws or rules”. Goals and objectives can be specific without becoming prescriptive. Well, obviously not the goals and objectives of Monmouth College.

While none of these problems would necessarily result in accreditation being revoked, they are issues that Monmouth should attempt to resolve.  Perhaps by even involving the student body in the decision making process, because, as you remember, the students are Monmouth’s most important constituency.  Without you, Monmouth is merely a collection of buildings.

So, Huff Center Classroom 1012A on Monday at 4:30, right?

How many of you know that Monmouth College will undergo its ten-year accreditation review process this coming week? This process, by a team of consultant-evaluators from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), will examine the educational experience offered at our institution, determining whether or not Monmouth deserves to be accreditated. Simplistically, this group of consultant-evaluators determines whether or not our diplomas will mean anything.

The team will do more than merely reaccreditate Monmouth—it will make suggestions and recommendations for improvement. Since, according to the Higher Learning Commission, the campus must “publicize the schedule of the team’s open meetings,” you are very much able to attend the meetings and inform the evaluators of how you think Monmouth could be better.  Well, you could if Monmouth actually publicized the schedule of the team’s open meetings.  The Faculty Accreditation Committee assured members of the student government that an open forum for students only would be made; however, they have since changed that open student meeting into a meeting with hand selected students, mostly from Residence Life.  The meeting (Huff Center Classroom 1012A on Monday at 4:30) has an invitation list of:  Paige Halpin, Harrison Heilman, Matthew Henning, Ellen Duffin, Matthew Faron, John Kaiser, Jordan Hedberg, Abigail McLaughlin, Monica Miller, James Vallarta, Libby White, Samantha Morgan, Kathryn Fitzsimmons, Ian Van Anden, Nathaniel Coleman, Marc Arulfo, James Shepard, Michael Diamond, Nishant Dixit, Walker Filip, Zak Edmonds, James Fry, Emily Isaacs, Morgan Moller, Trevor Newton, Alex Tanney, Elise Waldorf, Melissa Gorski and myself.  So, if you want the consultant-evaluators to know something, inform one of the aforementioned people of your issue(s), especially since the college hasn’t “publicize[d] the schedule of the team’s open meetings”. 

The accreditation process is going to be interesting, since, as I peruse the criteria of HLC in their Handbook of Accreditation, Monmouth seems to be starkly lacking.  For instance, who believes that Monmouth is “supportive of innovation and change”? Or, how about whether Monmouth “demonstrates openness to innovative practices that enhance learning”? Faculty still have a hard time adapting to a student body that grew up immersed in new and developing technology:  professors refuse to allow e-mail as a valid communicative tool; faculty dislike implementing Moodle and other online capabilities; and, when the student senate moved that Monmouth should buy a Scantron machine, so students might actually receive tests back and graded in a timely fashion, the faculty said that a Scantron was diametrically opposed to the liberal arts. I wonder how all those other liberal arts institutions maintain their integrity with a Scantron. Monmouth is supposed to, however, “support faculty in keeping abreast … of technological advances that can positively affect student learning and delivery of instruction”. At this point, high schools have more technological advances than an institution of higher learning.

Monmouth seems to have other problem areas as well. The college has done a self-study of its Integrated Studies program, which, if you have been in any Integrated Studies course, is about as integrated as CHEM 101. Supposedly, the Integrated Studies program improves and aids in the development of critical thinking skills, which is odd when you realize that Monmouth is in the 38^th to 46^th percentile nationally for critical thinking, according to the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST).  The Faculty Accreditation Committee rationalizes this fact in its “Self-Study Presented to the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association” by saying that the “ranking is consistent with the mean ACT scores of our entering students, suggesting that Monmouth on average neither out-performs nor under-performs as an institution”. If the Integrated Studies program is supposed to improve critical thinking skills, then wouldn’t the CCTST reflect that Monmouth students out-perform their ACT scores? Basically, students take nothing away in the development of critical thinking from Integrated Studies, since our ACT scores solely explain our poor performance on the CCTST.

Monmouth administered the Collegiate Learning Assessment, which “requires students to answer open-ended questions that are characterized as either performance tasks or analytic writing tasks,” in 2006-2007. How did Monmouth students do? Again, we ranked in the 40% range of colleges nationally similar to Monmouth. Justifying this, the Faculty Accreditation Committee gloated that we ranked “better than 30% of institutions”. For those bad at subtraction, this ranking also means that Monmouth did worse than 60% of institutions. Again, ACT scores are used to rationalize the poor performance. So, at what point is the faculty responsible for our performance on assessment tests, and not our ACT scores?

How many of you knew about those assessments? According to the HLC’s Handbook of Accreditation, “results obtained through assessment of student learning [should be] available to appropriate constituencies, including students themselves”. Maybe one recommendation for Monmouth would be to make available more information to one of its most important constituencies:  students.

If one were to examine the goals and objectives that the Faculty Accreditation Committee devised, a person would be left wondering if a business department existed on this campus. According to business professors, goals and objectives must be SMART:  specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, and timely. Under the goal of “ensuring the integrity of the Integrated Studies program,” one finds the objective of ensuring vertical integration of the Integrated Studies courses without any mention of how such integration is going to be achieved or measured, what body will be held accountable for such integration, or the timeframe for such integration. When the Faculty Accreditation Committee was asked about such specifics, several professors responded by saying that they did not want to be “prescriptive”. For those wondering, the words “specific” and “prescriptive” are different. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “specific” as being “explicitly set forth; definite,” while “prescriptive” is “making or giving injunctions, directions, laws or rules”. Goals and objectives can be specific without becoming prescriptive. Well, obviously not the goals and objectives of Monmouth College.

While none of these problems would necessarily result in accreditation being revoked, they are issues that Monmouth should attempt to resolve.  Perhaps by even involving the student body in the decision making process, because, as you remember, the students are Monmouth’s most important constituency.  Without you, Monmouth is merely a collection of buildings.

So, Huff Center Classroom 1012A on Monday at 4:30, right?

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