HSU Granted Reaccreditation ’till 2019
Lumberjack Editorial Cartoon Addressing Communication Issues on Campus
Progress noted, but more change needed
Guest Post By Matthew L. Hawk
It looks like the degrees handed out by Humboldt State University will continue to be worth more than the paper they are printed on.
After a few difficult years and significant changes to the way the school administers an education, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the governing body that could have stripped HSU’s ability to hand out diplomas and receive federal aid for students, granted the school reaccreditation through the academic year of 2019.
While HSU made vast improvements in the past two years to the way it functions as a public institute of higher learning, the school still has a long way to go. WASC requested the school provide an interim report to address progress come 2013. In addition, another accreditation review will take place in the 2015/16 academic year and be completed by 2019.
In a letter sent to HSU President Rollin Richmond, WASC noted that HSU has “undergone a remarkable transformation in a relatively short period of time, and this transformation speaks well for the entire campus community.” WASC pointed to four areas of improvement:
- Assess Student Learning – At the time of a WASC visit in 2007, HSU could not provide evidence of learning outcomes. Since then HSU has “taken to heart” the need to evaluate student learning on “multiple levels,” writes Ralph Wolff, Executive Director of WASC. But the institution has a “long way to go before assessment and evidence-decision making are fully embraced by its faculty and staff,” he adds.
- Making Excellence Inclusive – It’s well known that HSU has problems with diversity, especially among its faculty (Out of the 508 faculty/lecturers on the school’s 2009 roster, eight of them were African-American – 1.5 percent.) WASC noticed attempts at improvement by the school through its “Dissecting Diversity Report” and other reports aimed at better understanding demographics, but the association raised questions as to whether the report really achieved “meaningful and sustainable results across the institution.”
- Embracing Institutional Change and Making Critical Choices – When WASC visited a few years ago, administrators and faculty argued like little children. All they could agree on is the fact they didn’t like each other. Wolff wrote that this issue speaks to the core of HSU’s “historical difficulties and the need to create a new campus culture that is based on shared understandings, clear governance structures, ongoing communications, and mutual respect.”
- Realigning Resources and Institutional Structures – “HSU’s most pressing challenge has been to align its resources with educational objectives and institutional purposes,” writes Wolff. “To meet this challenge HSU has built new infrastructure and engaged in program prioritization.”
After hiring an outside firm to deal with communication issues and creating a “Cabinet for Institutional Change,” the administration is thrilled with the reaccreditation decision and the progress made so far.
“This recommendation sets an excellent agenda for us for the next few years,” wrote Richmond in an email to the community. “I am confident that we can achieve the goals that WASC has set for us and continue to provide outstanding educational opportunities for the people of California and beyond.”
Claire Knox, Chair of the Child Development program at HSU, is also happy about the university’s reaccreditation and believes the 2013 follow-up makes perfect sense.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” she said. “Accreditation is always a process. The value of it, in part, is what you learn doing it.”
At the end of the 2008/2009 school year, Knox was one of 128 faculty to vote for a second “Vote of No Confidence” in President Richmond’s leadership. Knox said a lot has changed since then.
“We’ve identified the issues,” she said. “Have we made progress on these issues? I think that remains to be seen.”
For a timeline of the WASC process, click your little mouse pointer here.
Matthew L. Hawk is a former editor and reporter for The Lumberjack and now freelances for the Times-Standard, among others. Got any questions or want to share, call Matthew at 707-362-1169 or email him at mhawk42@gmail.com.
