BRC Progress Report to AACSB Membership

We are pleased to provide you with this progress update on the work of the Blue Ribbon Committee on Accreditation Quality (BRC). It has been our honor and privilege to co-chair this committee, composed of 24 members selected for their experience and leadership with accreditation and for the diversity of their backgrounds and perspectives.

The goal of the BRC is to shape the future of management education over the next ten to twenty years by reviewing all of the accreditation standards, processes, and other activities of AACSB, and by achieving full AACSB member understanding and support of the BRC activities and recommendations. The BRC was specifically asked to consider the changing business school environment, lessons learned during the past ten years of accreditation, and calls for accreditation to have more value externally.

In our first year, we facilitated discussions about the BRC work in many venues. Perhaps you were among the more than 2000 people from AACSB member schools to participate in one or more of these sessions. The dialogues helped us first to identify the most important issues facing accreditation, then to think about how to address them. We are now about midway through the two-year process. In the coming year, we will draw upon continued discussions with members as we refine our recommendations through the remaining three of six planned BRC meetings.

At this stage, the BRC has identified five critical issues for accreditation. For three of these issues, the BRC members are generally aligned behind future directions, and are preparing more specific recommendations. These directions are highly summarized as:

1. Take mission-driven standards to the next level by identifying a business school's areas of distinctiveness, focusing on outcomes implied by its mission, and ensuring that the mission emphasis is carried throughout the standards. Read More
2. Encourage an appropriate balance of academic and professional engagement consistent with quality in the context of a school's mission. Read More
3. Recast the assurance of learning section so that "Curricula Management" serves as the main focus, embrace other avenues for assessment, and foster more holistic approaches to managing a portfolio of evidence. Read More

Our attention is now shifting to focus on two challenges for which the BRC has already spent a fair amount of time, but has not yet reached full agreement on how to address:

4. Despite the general view that the current institutional scope of accreditation is not sustainable in the long run, there is not yet agreement among BRC members about what changes to recommend. Read More
5. There is serious concern that high-quality faculty models continue to evolve and diversify as a function of market and environmental factors, decreasing the relevance of current standards and guidelines. Read More

These are knotty issues to say the least, but we cannot afford to ignore them because they are difficult. After all, we are changing the standards for tomorrow, not today. Nobody would disagree that our world, our markets, and our models are changing, and so should our expectations for accreditation.

What can you expect moving forward? The BRC meets in April to formulate specific recommendations for changes in the standards. It will also again tackle tough questions about scope and faculty. Another update and an initial preview of draft standards will be provided in San Diego at the beginning of the International Conference and Annual Meeting. A BRC Q&A session also will be held at the end of the conference.

The most specific update on anticipated new standards will be provided at the Annual Accreditation Conference in Atlanta, and we are counting on this event as an important venue for member feedback. Meanwhile, you can follow the work of the BRC website.

We are honored to serve you as co-chairs of the BRC and appreciate the high level of involvement you already have demonstrated in shaping the future of AACSB accreditation and, thus, management education.

Best Regards,