The College successfully completed its reaccreditation process, Provost Carol Folt announced in an August letter to the Dartmouth community. The New England Association of Schools and Colleges' Commission of Institutions of Higher Education confirmed Dartmouth's accreditation in July following an almost three-year internal and external review process, Barbara Brittingham, director of NEASC, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
NEASC which is responsible for the reaccreditation of over 2,000 public and private institutions in the New England region commended the College for the quality and diversity of Dartmouth's faculty members and students, as well as the quality of the leadership and the support of the staff, according to the letter sent by Folt.
The reaccreditation team also identified potential opportunities for improvement, including a review of the undergraduate curriculum and increasing "synergies across the institution," the letter said.
The reaccreditation process began in 2008 with the formation of a steering committee to oversee all aspects of the review, Dean of Libraries Jeffrey Horrell, a member of the 11-person committee, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. Former Provost Barry Scherr led the committee until he stepped down in October 2009, at which point Provost Carol Folt took over his responsibilities, Horrell said.
"The committee was responsible for structuring the overall process, and for dividing up the work that would go into the reaccreditation," he said. "People throughout the entire Dartmouth community contributed to the effort."
The College completed a two-year "self-study" that allowed staff, students and faculty members to judge themselves on 11 different standards, Brittingham said. NEASC standards for reaccreditation include faculty, students, academic programs, financial resources, mission and purpose, planning and evaluation, organization and governance, library and other information resources, public disclosure, integrity, and physical and technological resources, according to Brittingham.
"Dartmouth spent a year and a half looking at each of the 11 standards and asked themselves where they met the standards and where their strengths were," she said. "Then they considered where they wished to be better, and what their plans were to improve."
The self-study report described several improvements at the College over the last 10 years, including the construction of new buildings, development of the three professional schools and diversification of the faculty. It also enumerated areas in which the College will continue working to improve, such as student satisfaction with advising.
The "foundational standards" provided by NEASC helped facilitate extensive introspection among various Dartmouth community members, Horrell said.
The nine-person team of NEASC reaccreditation evaluators, chaired by Amherst College President Anthony Marx, spent four days on Dartmouth's campus in November 2010.
"All the members of the commission had read Dartmouth's self-review and spent time listening to students, faculty and members of the governing board," she said. "They compared what they heard from those people to what they saw in the report, and based on that, Dartmouth was approved to continue with the accreditation."
The presence of outside reviewers from peer institutions was "extremely important" for the College, Horrell said.
"When you hear advice or criticism from really knowledgeable people who really understand your work and what you're trying to do, there's more relevance and substance to those words," he said. "Having a group of evaluators that come from similar institutions and that really understand our mission is very valuable."
College faculty members and staff were highly involved throughout nearly every step of the process, according to Horrell.
"Faculty whose work relates to each of the relevant standards were involved in the self-review process, whether it be drafting the specifics of the standard for Dartmouth or meeting and conversing with the NEASC commission," he said.
In addition to serving as a mechanism for self-review, the reaccreditation process is crucial for students applying for federal financial aid, Brittingham said.
"When a school receives accreditation, it is a signal to the federal government that Dartmouth's education capacity and facilities are up to standards for students to receive federal aid," she said.
During their time on campus, CIHE members also met with students in an open forum at the Top of the Hop.
"At the forum, students expressed their opinions on issues that impact students more than faculty," Patrick Gould '14, who attended the meeting, said. "People discussed a lot of the things that have been discussed on campus all year, like the Greek system and the existence of alternative social spaces on campus."
Another major issue discussed by students was the quality of health care at the College, Gould said.
"Everyone always talks about Dick's House and kind of kids around, but it seemed like a lot of people had had a bad experience, or had a friend who had had a bad experience," he said.
The breadth of issues discussed and the opportunity to talk to "unbiased" committee members made the forum feel more "more successful" than most similar meetings at the College, Gould said.
As the College embarks on a strategic planning process that consider Dartmouth's mission and composition for 10 to 20 years into the future, the recent reaccreditation process will prove extremely valuable, Horrell said. Dartmouth participates in the reaccreditation process approximately every 10 years and the College has never failed to be reaccredited. The next evaluation will occur in Fall 2019, although preparations for the NEASC review will begin approximately one to two years prior, according to Brittingham.
In accordance with a request from NEASC, the College will submit an interim report to the organization in 2014. NEASC asked that the College focus its internal research and evaluations particularly on its operating expenses, strategic planning, utilization of "learning assessments" in the arts and sciences and the College's year-old Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science.
