UT delegation reports on Higher Learning Commission conference

April 26, 2011 | News, UToday
By Meghan Cunningham



The University of Toledo is well on its way in preparation for the site visit from the Higher Learning Commission in February, but there is still much work to be done.

An update on the process to prepare for University accreditation was presented to the UT Board of Trustees External Affairs Committee last week with reports from the University delegation that attended the commission’s Annual Conference on Quality in Higher Education earlier this month in Chicago.

More than 3,000 people attended the conference; there were representatives from 87 colleges and universities in Ohio.

A key focus for the University in the next year will be strengthening and revising student learning outcomes, particularly for general education courses. The update of the core curriculum around a set of five competency areas — communication, scientific and quantitative reasoning and literacy, personal and social responsibility, information literacy, and critical and integrative thinking — is part of that effort.

It also is important for UT to show how its policies, procedures, mission statement, values, strategic plan and more interact and work together to improve student learning, University leaders learned at the conference.

The University has just completed the first draft of its self-study report, which is a large component of the reaffirmation of accreditation process. The final draft is to be completed by August.

Trustee Susan Palmer, the chair of the board’s External Affairs Committee, said there will be a report each meeting about the progress of preparing for the Higher Learning Commission visit because accreditation is so important to the University.

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