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The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) will visit OHIO’s campus March 24-25 to review the University as part of the ten-year cycle for reaffirmation of accreditation . HLC organizes its review of institutions through five Criteria for Accreditation that cover how the University functions. While HLC’s visit will be based on the Athens campus, reviewers also will visit the Lancaster and Eastern campuses.
Faculty will play an important role in the University’s Comprehensive Evaluation process. Faculty will be invited to meetings with the peer review team to talk about their experiences at OHIO. Peer reviewers may ask questions linked to the five criteria or questions in general about faculty experiences and their work at OHIO. Additionally, the HLC’s peer team will review the documentation OHIO shared with them prior to their visit; their goal will be to validate the evidence we provided about how OHIO is meeting this criteria.
It is important to note that there are no right and wrong answers to any of the questions posed by the peer reviewers, and you’re encouraged to answer their questions honestly and to the best of your ability based on experiences in your department, division, committees or other groups on campus; however, don’t be afraid to say that you do not have all the answers, either – No one is expected to know everything about OHIO. It’s equally okay to list what you feel are OHIO’s ongoing challenges along with its strengths – Peer reviewers don’t expect that we’re perfect.
Here are six areas we encourage OHIO faculty to consider as we prepare for the HLC's comprehensive evaluation on March 24-25, 2025:
1) OHIO’s Mission and Vision
When HLC peer reviewers visit campus, they will be interested in learning more about how Ohio University operates at an institutional level and across your colleges, schools and departments. Even though our day-to-day work is typically focused in one area of the University, HLC expects that employees would be generally familiar with OHIO’s mission and vision
and how it connects to the work of your departments. Typical questions from peer reviewers might include asking what you know about the mission, describing the process we recently completed to review and revise the mission and how your work supports the mission.
2) Dynamic Strategy
OHIO’s Dynamic Strategy sets out to build on our founding purpose and embrace our existing excellence. Beginning in Fall 2023, thousands of faculty, staff, students and alumni engaged in designing goals and strategies to guide our institution’s future and inform a roadmap to guide our work for the next three years. The peer review team will want to know more about this process and how we are implementing Dynamic Strategy and learn more about the ways that faculty provided input, how initiatives were developed and selected, what faculty know about the strategy’s progress and how your department’s work aligns to the goals of the Dynamic Strategy.
3) OHIO’s Quality Initiative (QI) Project
One of the facets of HLC’s Open pathway reaffirmation process features a University-selected quality initiative project meant to enhance or improve a process at OHIO. In the past under the AQIP Pathway, OHIO utilized action projects to support faculty learning communities working on the assessment of OHIO’s general education common goals, to develop the assessment culture and framework, and to develop a process for evaluating operations in academic support units (ASSUR).
A Quality Initiative is expected to be a large, multi-year, institutional effort. Our most recent QI project focused on developing and implementing the Guarantee+ Graduation plans for all Athens and regional campuses and moving to a professional advising model. OHIO’s Quality Initiative report and HLC’s acceptance of the report are available for review on the Accreditation Documents webpage .
During their time on campus, peer reviewers might be interested in learning more about your knowledge of the Guarantee+ Graduation plans effort, how the graduation plans are used by advisors and students, and the ways students can access advising, career services and support for experiential learning.
4) Faculty Input on Curriculum, Academic Policies and Institutional Initiatives
HLC expects faculty to heavily participate in the oversight of the curriculum, the level and quality of instruction, expectations of student performance, establishing qualifications for instructors, and in the analysis of data and action on assessment of student learning and program completion.
As part of their review, the HLC peer committee is expected to want to learn how faculty input is used in decision-making, particularly in academic matters. This may include questions about shared governance, approval processes for new and changed academic courses and programs, faculty qualifications and hiring processes, tenure and promotion processes and the development and review of academic policies. Recently, faculty input was gathered to develop a definition and process for assessing OHIO’s co-curricular learning activities, which had its first reading at the November meeting of the University Curriculum Council.
Additionally, peer reviewers may ask broad questions at an institutional level alongside more granular questions about the policies and procedures within your college, school or department. An example of this might include the ways OHIO is implementing experiential learning opportunities for students across the University.
5) Assuring Quality of Courses and Programs across all locations and modalities
HLC’s review is focused on ensuring that OHIO is delivering quality educational opportunities across the entire institution as a result of its courses and program. As such, faculty are likely to be asked about how OHIO ensures consistency and quality in courses delivered across the spectrum of locations and modalities, including College Credit Plus courses.
Across OHIO, many departments or programs have their own processes, committees or meetings to discuss quality, and there are also commonalities in course syllabi, instructional methodologies or other supports. Sometimes, academic assessments or an academic program review will include comparisons of course and program success across locations or modalities. Regardless, all of these options can help demonstrate the ways that OHIO is maintaining consistent, quality educational experiences.
OHIO has seen significant growth in distance education courses and programs, along with organizational changes occurring through various initiatives, including the creation of OHIO Online, since HLC last visited campus in 2015. Reviewers may also have questions about how these changes have improved our ability to deliver a quality education.
6) Using Student Learning Assessments to Drive Course and Program Improvements
Assessment remains a very important topic to accrediting agencies; it is also one of the most commonly cited areas in which universities are encouraged to make improvements by the HLC. While it is likely that faculty will be asked about their programs’ student learning assessment processes and findings, the ways that programs or departments are utilizing data from learning assessments to make curricular changes that impact program learning outcomes, including resource allocations to improve student learning, will always be of primary interest.
The HLC Peer Review team is only on site two days. During this time, they will be seeking additional evidence that OHIO is meeting the criteria for accreditation. It’s helpful for faculty to be prepared to answer questions and to be ready to share the unique experiences and perspectives that will help the peer team develop a well-rounded overview of OHIO’s processes and commitment to student success.
Learning more and getting involved
Achieving accredited status is a time and resource-intensive process that requires a commitment to institutional effectiveness and the continuous improvement of academic quality. OHIO is committed to providing a quality education wherever, and however, its educational courses and programs are delivered. The reaffirmation process involves everyone – from faculty, staff and students to the valued stakeholders across our OHIO communities.
Interested faculty are encouraged to consider these topics and learn more about the upcoming HLC peer team visit on the Reaffirmation of Accreditation webpage for potential questions. As the HLC visit approaches, practice open forums will also be available for faculty interested in learning more about what they can expect during an HLC open forum session.
As OHIO’s reaffirmation of accreditation moves forward, we will keep you updated on the progress of our reaffirmation efforts and opportunities for the University community to share their voices and feedback via ohio.edu/provost/accreditation/reaffirmation .