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Final Steps to Reaccreditation for SOM
By Michelle Nery
A peer review team will visit the School of Management (SOM) on Sunday, Feb.
17, in the final step to reaccreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate
Schools of Business (AACSB International). During its visit, the team will tour
the campus and talk to faculty, students, and the business community to validate
the content of the self-evaluation report submitted by the school and its Accounting
Program in August. SOM and the Accounting Programs were originally accredited
in 1989. Only about 10 percent of the 3,000 management programs in the United
States are accredited.
The AACSB International accreditation process evaluates based on self-evaluation
and peer review. In the self-evaluation process, a school assesses its accomplishments
in relation to its mission and objectives, as well as according to the criteria
in the accreditation standards. The peer review is an external analysis of a school’s
processes for achieving its mission, assessing educational outcomes, and planning
for continuous improvement.
Key areas of review by AACSB International include the school’s mission,
faculty composition, undergraduate and graduate curriculum, the university’s
and the school’s individual resources, the student body, and the intellectual
contribution of faculty members to their discipline.
“The reaccreditation process provides us with the opportunity to pause
and reflect on where we’ve been, what we’re doing, and where we are
going in the future,” says David Harr, associate dean for undergraduate programs.
“We can evaluate what processes work and what don’t and can determine
how to modify those processes.”
This process is a déjà vu of sorts for professors Ken Heller
and Phillip Buchanan who were co-authors of the first self-evaluation report for
the Accounting Program and who contributed, along with a group of other SOM faculty,
to the production of the current five-volume package making up the self-evaluation
report. “We were here when we got the initial business accreditation 10 years
ago. It was a lot of work but well worth the effort,” says Buchanan. “It
was enlightening to go through the process,” says Heller, “because you
can see what you are good at and what you’re not and make improvements going
forward.”
Since Heller and Buchanan worked on the first report, AACSB International has
changed its accreditation standards and procedures from a quantitative, one-size-fits-all
model to a new mission-linked standard designed to support institutional diversity
in management education.
Accreditation for SOM and the Accounting Program is crucial for students, faculty,
and businesses. “When we’re recruiting students, the accreditation really
matters,” says Buchanan. “It is very important in terms of making our
students competitive in the job market, especially for M.B.A. graduates and employers.
It has also helped us in recruiting faculty. We wouldn’t be able to hire
the quality faculty that we have if we were not accredited.”
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