Unified Accreditation Update
Dear UMS Community members:
We are pleased to share the second of three drafts being posted publicly for your review and feedback as work continues on our UMS self study and preparations for the October 2-5, 2022 visit by a team evaluating us on behalf of our regional accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE).
As you may recall, we shared the first self study draft with you in September. The third draft will reach you in mid-May. We remain on track to finish and submit the self study in mid-June.
A few notes as you read the draft:
- For this second opportunity to offer feedback, we are again sharing the narrative portion of the self study. A pair of data teams comprising UMS and university institutional research and assessment staff, as well as faculty representatives, are hard at work on two sets of data we will include as part of the self study. We plan to share those data sets in the third and final public draft. A third team is currently assembling what NECHE calls a “digital workroom,” where links to UMS/university reports and related documentation will be made available to the evaluation team before and during their visit. Campus accreditation officers and UMS staff are partnering on that project.
- The document you’re seeing today is a draft: a work-in-progress. It is not comprehensive at this stage and should not be read as such. It is not final. As was true of the earlier draft, this one contains placeholders in several areas where new or updated outcomes or data will be added.
- Choices about what to include, what to leave out, and how best to articulate where we are and where we’re headed in our unified state remain challenging. Ultimately, as we noted last September, our Chancellor, Presidents, and Law Dean will decide, in accordance with UMS Board priorities. We must put forth a representative and evidence-based set of examples and initiatives from our universities and the Law School; reference our points of pride while offering fair voice to concerns about areas where improvements or changes may be needed; and, do this while using what NECHE terms “one voice”: that is, rendering the work done (past and future)— by more than 130 members of the writing teams, data teams, marketing and communications staff, and others— in a uniform tone and voice.
- Aside from ongoing editing for accuracy, clarity, and balance, the most notable changes from the previous draft are these:
- We have included the initial drafts of the Introduction and the Institutional Overview.
- We have trimmed significantly throughout. The reason: NECHE sets a 100-page limit for the self study narrative. Our first draft came in at nearly 140 pages, and we still have a number of updates to weave in. Every section has consequently seen considerable pruning, and material addressing subjects invoked in two or more places in the first draft has, in most cases, been consolidated and condensed.
We encourage you to share your thoughts. All suggestions and input will be reviewed by the editorial team responsible for finalizing the self study. Constraints of space (as noted above), prioritization of content, and in some cases, simple irreconcilability will mean that not every suggestion makes its way into the self study. But be assured: all comments will once again be weighed carefully, and all will have value.
The draft self study can be found here and on the Unified Accreditation website.
The link to the feedback instrument is here (External Site). The deadline for submitting your feedback on this draft is Monday, February 28, 2022.
Thank you. We look forward to hearing from you.
Read the full self-review draft