University approaches reaccreditation process

Tufts will have the opportunity to gather input from its benchmark schools when a group of administrators visit the Medford campus in March to evaluate the recently-drafted reaccreditation self-study. The visit, as well as the reaccreditation process, was explained to the few members of the Tufts community in attendance at yesterday's reaccreditation committee meeting.

Faculty and administrators discussed the self-study, a compilation of the evaluations of 12 committees formed to assess the University's current state as part of the reaccreditation process. University Professor and former Provost Sol Gittleman, co-chair of the Self-Study Steering Committee, presented the nearly 200 page draft.

The document is the first step toward reaccreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). All institutions of higher education must undergo the exercise of self-study in preparation for accreditation every ten years.

The document "tells the story of Tufts and its vision," Terkla said.

The committees have been working since June 2001 to assemble the draft, which will be presented to a visiting NEASC committee in March 2003.

The reaccreditation process was both a formality and a critical opportunity for feedback, Gittleman said. "In some ways [accreditation] can be considered to be a rubber stamp approving Tufts," he said. But the process provides the University with important feedback from an outside committee on areas in need of improvement.

Some of the most eclectic and highly regarded individuals in higher education will serve on Tufts' reaccreditation committee, said Steering Committee Co-Chair Dawn Terkla, Executive Director of Institutional Research. Current Dartmouth President James Wright will head the committee, accompanied by deans and vice-presidents from universities including the other Ivy Leagues, University of Chicago, and Wesleyan.

The visit _ during which the committee will comment on the reaccreditation report and provide suggestions that must be followed up on _ will provide a comparison of where Tufts stands in the world of higher education. "We're being benchmarked by some of the best universities in the US," Gittleman said.

The evaluation by the committee will provide more of a vision of where Tufts is going, which is not addressed by the self-study. In the past, critical suggestions have come out of this part of the reaccreditation process. In 1992, NEASC told the University that its library, athletic department, and technology "were in trouble," Gittleman said. "We certainly have made progress in these efforts since then."

A vision of the future of Tufts will also be provided by the report by the Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience, Terkla said.

Tufts' last accreditation occurred in 1992, but the 2002 process was pushed back a year due to the University's 150th anniversary celebration last year.

Only a dozen people, mostly Steering Committee members, attended yesterday's forum. Although a mass email, ads in the Daily, and posters advertised the event, very few students showed up at the forum. Students were, however, involved in the 12 committees.

In addition to clarifying the University's vision, the self-study will help the Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience, which seeks to gather opinion on the University's current state.

"The Task Force will use this document as a resource for how students are looking at the current situation at Tufts and how we should be looking at ourselves," Task Force Chair Gilbert Metcalf said. "It gives us a reference for what to work on in the future."