Upcoming accreditation "essential," says President Samuelson

During his Annual University Conference Address Aug. 23, President Cecil O. Samuelson gave faculty and staff the following update of activities related to BYU's accreditation review scheduled for this spring:

During this next year, we face our once-each-decade examination for institutional accreditation. Our BYU Accreditation Executive Committee chairs, committee members and others have worked long, hard, and smart, under the leadership of Gerrit Gong, to draft the BYU Accreditation Self-Study.

I invite you to read and comment on our BYU Accreditation Self-Study-both so we will receive your input and so you will be knowledgeable about its contents if a visiting site team should ask you about it! (To view the document, visit http://accredit.byu.edu, vist the HBLL Reserve or contact your dean, director or department chair.)

In addition, we will also be testing, validating and refining our Self-Study institutional and unit strengths, challenges, opportunities and recommendations in upcoming President Leadership Retreats, college visits, Dean’s’ Councils, Faculty Advisory Committee meetings and other campus visits. You recognize, of course, that this is all a natural part of our continuing focus on how and where we work together to make “BYU the best we can be.”

In many ways, especially coming now, this BYU accreditation process provides a road map for where we have been, where we are and where we plan to be inasmuch as we are asked to evaluate ourselves on such important areas as institutional mission, planning and effectiveness, educational program, students, faculty, library and information services, governance and administration, finance, physical resources and institutional integrity.

Also, as part of accreditation preparation, this past February a majority of faculty and staff responded to the campus email survey regarding BYU’s Mission, Aims and Objectives. Your thoughtful responses are both heartening and instructive.

You say you understand the BYU Mission, Aims and Objectives and integrate aspects of spirituality, service and character-building into courses and into building character in your students.

At the same time, some respondents perceive a gap between what we say is important as an institution and what we sometimes reward or emphasize. Several responses ask, “Are we a research institution or an undergraduate teaching institution?” While the answer is “both,” I want us to continue discussing how we best define each.

Some responses feel a tension between student evaluations and the need to teach skills and discipline. A representative response notes, “I worry that working my students beyond their comfort zone will adversely affect my course evaluations” though to be well-prepared, students “need to be pushed, and pushed hard.”

University-wide accreditation is important and essential for a number of reasons. Of course our reputation and standing in the academic universe generally depend on it. There are a number of practical reasons as well. About half of our students receive various government loans and grants that would not be possible if BYU were not a fully accredited institution. As many of our students look to go on for graduate work at other institutions or to enter the work force, they are judged in a significant way by the reputation and credentials of Brigham Young University.

Again, many have been working hard and effectively on this project for some time. I express our gratitude to them and to our entire university community for what has been done—and for what must and will be done—in the few months before next April.