Accreditation evaluation praises educational successes, urges more funding

The university has substantially enhanced undergraduate education in the past decade, but a lack of state funding is jeopardizing the institution’s long-term future, according to an independent review of the university.

The review, from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, says the university’s improvements in undergraduate education, particularly in advising and the development of residential learning communities, are “among the university’s major achievements of the past decade.”

The reaccrediting process and the evaluation report The report is based on the visit to campus April 12-14 by the evaluation team from the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. The evaluation team recommends continued accreditation until 2008-09. NCA is expected to grant the official reaccreditation later this year. The university was last accredited in 1989 and has been continuously accredited since 1913. The report states that UW–Madison has met the 24 general institutional requirements and five criteria for accreditation. It outlines strengths, concerns, observations and suggestions for improvement from the evaluation team. The evaluation team consisted of 14 faculty members and administrators from some of North America’s largest universities, including five Big Ten institutions (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State and Northwestern). Donald N. Langenberg, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, chaired the evaluation team and led the site visit. The evaluation team met with more than 100 administrators, faculty, staff, students, members of the UW System Board of Regents and state legislators during its visit. The key document upon which the evaluation team based its review was the university’s 1999 self study, undertaken as part of the reaccreditation process. To review the self-study, visit: http://www.wisc.edu/newdirections/. The 1989 reaccreditation and university self-study led to the “Future Directions” report, which Chancellor David Ward used in part to formulate “A Vision for the Future,” an updated strategic plan, in 1995. The 1999 self-study, along with the evaluation team’s report and the “Vision” document, will form the basis for future strategic planning at the university.

See also: The evaluation team report (PDF file)

The evaluation team recommends that NCA extend UW–Madison’s accreditation to 2008. The formal reaccreditation is expected later this year. The team’s visit is a requirement for reaccreditation, which occurs every 10 years. UW–Madison has been continuously accredited since 1913.

The NCA evaluation team, which visited the campus in April as part of UW–Madison’s reaccreditation process, expressed praise – and surprise – in its 31-page report that a state such as Wisconsin has been able to support one of the nation’s and world’s best public research universities.

“It is rather remarkable – and a bit of a puzzle, actually – that a state of such modest size and wealth has managed to build and to maintain for so long such a truly world class institution,” the report says. “As one of the team members observed, ‘This is a state and a university that delivers far beyond its resources.'”

The report offers several possible reasons for this phenomenon: the university’s creation in 1848, the same year Wisconsin gained statehood; the tradition of the Wisconsin Idea; and a faculty-centered culture that is one of the strongest in America. In addition to the improvements in undergraduate education, the evaluation team cited as achievements the university’s gains in assessing how students learn; increased campus diversity; success in attracting private support; attention to strategic planning; and improvements in international education.

But those achievements are shaded by several concerns. The report notes a continued lack of adequate state funding for the university; a high level of state regulation and bureaucratic constraints coupled with administrative inflexibility; and some negative aspects of the university’s decentralized structure, including faculty and department autonomy.

The evaluation team reported that these concerns are fostering in the university community “a muted but widespread angst and uncertainty about whether the principles and practices that have made the university great can continue to keep it great in a changing local, state and global competitive environment.”

Chancellor David Ward says the evaluation team’s report is an instructive reflection of the current state of affairs at the university, and will serve as an important document for future planning.

“We are grateful for the evaluation team’s acknowledgement of our efforts to improve undergraduate education, attract private support and plan for the future, along with other key areas at UW–Madison, over the past 10 years,” Ward says. “At the same time, we are extremely mindful of the concerns raised by the evaluation team, and we want to work with state officials, faculty, staff and students to address those concerns.”

After outlining the university’s strengths and concerns in its report, the evaluation team suggests several ways to strengthen UW–Madison, none of which are a requirement for reaccreditation:

• Improve state funding. The evaluation team says the state must redouble its effort to support its flagship university, as other states have done in recent years. “Wisconsin’s leaders may not fully appreciate and understand that their university has made their state a luminous feature on the global map of academic excellence, that is to say, the state’s premier asset in the new and very competitive global knowledge-based economy.”
• Explore the possibility of increasing tuition. Suggestions include differential tuitions for high-cost programs or increases in tuition coupled with more financial aid for needy students. Any tuition proposal should be designed to bring university tuition to a level close to the median of its peers, Ward says.
• Increase management flexibility. Work to eliminate bureaucratic and policy constraints “wholesale,” consistent with national deregulation trends in public and private sectors.
• Expand current levels of strategic leadership and planning.
• Involve academic staff more in the university’s shared governance system.
• Remove UW–Madison from the state civil service system, and institute a campuswide initiative to revitalize human resources with staff development.
• Implement more interdisciplinary programs and foster more collaboration among faculty, similar to the university’s cluster hiring program. The Graduate School plays a key role in this, but should not bear the total responsibility, the report says.
• Pursue a reinvigorated graduate student council.
• Expand the residential learning communities, reduce class sizes for freshmen and sophomores, and more fully coordinate and organize student services to further strengthen undergraduate education.
• Keep diversity high on the university’s priority list.
• Develop a strategic plan for the campus’s information technology infrastructure.
• Collaborate with the City of Madison to enhance the new $100 million arts district.
• Continue to partner with the state on international initiatives.

The evaluation team concludes its report by stating that UW–Madison is “one of the nation’s finest land-grant research universities,” but at the same time, along with most great universities, “is also an institution at risk.”