AACSB Blue Ribbon Committee on Accreditation Quality Tackles Policy and Process Issues

The recently established Blue Ribbon Committee on Accreditation Quality (BRC) has been hard at work, attempting to meet a charge from the AACSB board of directors to propose modifications to the accreditation standards and process by the Annual Meeting in April. Already the group has addressed several fundamental points regarding accreditation.

Policy Issues
The 11-member committee, which is chaired by Andrew J. Policano, business dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is proposing three goals for AACSB accreditation:

•Quality assurance

•Imperative for continuous improvement

•Information to stakeholders

According to preliminary discussions of the committee, all AACSB accreditation would be driven by these goals. The mission-linked nature of AACSB accreditation would be retained with no definition of "categories" for accreditation. A form of candidacy would continue to assist schools to prepare for accreditation.

The BRC also is considering that accreditation be awarded to an "administrative unit." That unit variously might be titled a school, department, college, division or other designation. All business programs delivered by that administrative unit would be included in the review for accreditation, both degree programs and non-degree education; all programs in which the administrative unit actively participates would be included in the review. Committee members recognize that AACSB would need to develop a process for defining the administrative unit.

"Guidelines would have to be provided for the definition process," said Policano. "The school would have to make a case as to what the unit is, express the rationale for boundaries and be clear about why and what other programs are included. One institution could have multiple AACSB accreditations," he said. Rather than develop regulatory language to attempt to resolve all questions about the boundaries of the administrative unit, a process would need to be developed for use as a first step of accreditation. The institution and AACSB would work together to define the administrative unit for accreditation purposes.

Committee members are aware that affiliations and joint programs may cause some special problems for which guidelines would be needed. An important indicator of whether a degree program would be included would be whether the administrative unit is the degree-granting entity. Programs that are jointly delivered with another discipline may be excluded from accreditation if those programs have accreditation from the other discipline. "The head of the administrative unit would be able to exercise some discretion in including other units of the campus in the accredited administrative unit," said John Kraft, University of Florida business dean who is on the committee. Kraft also is AACSB’s 2000-2001 vice chair-chair elect.

Programs that are clearly non-business, but are included in the activity in the administrative unit, would be excluded from the re-view. Examples of such programs might include a liberal arts economics program, information technology, public administration and health administration.

"To create universal criteria, the accreditation standards must be clearly oriented toward educational achievement and must avoid mandating structural features that may only illustrate one manner of reaching the desired achievements," said Kraft. "Structural indices are likely to reify culture-specific educational patterns. For more universal standards, schools must articulate their educational model, describe their processes, give examples and document outcomes."

BRC members are recommending that a white paper, "Routes to Quality Education," be developed to provide examples of different pathways to achieve educational goals. The paper would show different models and their financial and resource implications.

Process Issues
According to the committee’s early deliberations, AACSB would develop a process of accreditation based on an initial accreditation review followed by a continuing process of accreditation maintenance, not reaccreditation. The initial review would be similar to the current procedures in its execution. The standards would be adjusted to make them more universal. Accreditation would be for a five-year term, with review occurring in year four.

Furthermore, once an administrative unit has achieved initial AACSB accreditation, it would maintain that accreditation by a process that includes annual reports. The annual reports would be a natural part of the strategic planning activity of the school, detailing what has been accomplished and what priorities will guide the school in the next year(s). A two-person review team would visit the school four years following its most recent visit. Information for the review team’s use in its evaluation would come from the four annual reports, with no additional information. The visit would have a strong consulting flavor based on the planning implications in the annual reports.

As part of the review, the team would indicate a set of business schools it considers to be peer programs. "The reviewers would be representatives from the peer units identified by the school," said Policano. "The review would look for any indications that the school is not meeting the minimum educational achievements required for AACSB standards, assess the school’s performance appropriate to its chosen peer group revealed in the four annual reports and offer consultative advice regarding the school’s strategic planning activity. If no issues are found in the four-year review, no further review would be required until an additional four-year cycle has been completed," he said.

If serious problems are found in the achievement of AACSB standards or in the fit of the school to its chosen peer group, a fifth year review would be required. The review team would define the fifth year review and the additional required documentation that would allow reviewers to assess the school’s success on the disclosed problems. The fifth year review would be conducted by a four-person team chosen from the peer group, and the visit would be organized around specific problems identified by the four-year review team. If problems still remain at the end of the fifth year review, the review process could continue for up to two additional years with annual reports. At that time, all problems would have to be resolved or the school would be suspended from the AACSB Accreditation Council.

BRC meeting summaries and other materials are posted on the committee’s Web site:  http://www.aacsb.edu/accred/blueribbon.  AACSB members are encouraged to contribute to the Web site as continuous member input is considered critical to the group’s success.