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14 Standards

The “Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education” are a set of 14 standards with which UMB must demonstrate compliance to maintain accreditation with MSCHE. The standards focus on two fundamental questions:

  1. Are we, as an institutional community, achieving what we want to achieve?
  2. What should we do to improve our effectiveness in achieving our fundamental aims?

  1. Standard 1: Mission and Goals
    The institution’s mission clearly defines its purpose within the context of higher education and indicates who the institution serves and what it intends to accomplish. The institution’s stated goals, consistent with the aspirations and expectations of higher education, clearly specify how the institution will fulfill its mission. The mission and goals are developed and recognized by the institution with the participation of its members and its governing body and are used to develop and shape its programs and practices and to evaluate its effectiveness.
       
  2. Standard 2: Planning, Resource Allocation, and Institutional Renewal
    An institution conducts ongoing planning and resource allocation based on its mission and goals, develops objectives to achieve them, and utilizes the results of its assessment activities for institutional renewal. Implementation and subsequent evaluation of the success of the strategic plan and resource allocation support the development and change necessary to improve and to maintain institutional quality.
      
  3. Standard 3: Institutional Resources
    The human, financial, technical, physical facilities, and other resources necessary to achieve an institution’s mission and goals are available and accessible. In the context of the institution’s mission, the effective and efficient uses of the institution’s resources are analyzed as part of ongoing outcomes assessment.
       
  4. Standard 4: Leadership and Governance
    The institution’s system of governance clearly defines the roles of institutional constituencies in policy development and decision-making. The governance structure includes an active governing body with sufficient autonomy to assure institutional integrity and to fulfill its responsibilities of policy and resource development, consistent with the mission of the institution.
       
  5. Standard 5: Administration
    The institution’s administrative structure and services facilitate learning and research/scholarship, foster quality improvement, and support the institution’s organization and governance.
       
  6. Standard 6: Integrity
    In the conduct of its programs and activities involving the public and the constituencies it serves, the institution demonstrates adherence to ethical standards and its own stated policies, providing support for academic and intellectual freedom.
       
  7. Standard 7: Institutional Assessment
    The institution has developed and implemented an assessment process that evaluates its overall effectiveness in achieving its mission and goals and its compliance with accreditation standards.

  1. Standard 8: Student Admissions and Retention
    The institution seeks to admit students whose interests, goals, and abilities are congruent with its mission and seeks to retain them through the pursuit of the students’ educational goals.
      
  2. Standard 9: Student Support Services
    The institution provides student support services reasonably necessary to enable each student to achieve the institution’s goals for students.
       
  3. Standard 10: Faculty
    The institution’s instructional, research, and service programs are devised, developed, monitored, and supported by qualified professionals.
      
  4. Standard 11: Educational Offerings
    The institution’s educational offerings display academic content, rigor, and coherence appropriate to its higher education mission. The institution identifies student learning goals and objectives, including knowledge and skills, for its educational offerings. 
       
  5. Standard 12: General Education
    The institution’s curricula are designed so that students acquire and demonstrate college-level proficiency in general education and essential skills, including at least oral and written communication, scientific and quantitative reasoning, critical analysis and reasoning, and technological competency.
      
  6. Standard 13: Related Educational Activities
    The institution’s programs or activities that are characterized by particular content, focus, location, mode of delivery, or sponsorship meet appropriate standards.
      
  7. Standard 14: Assessment of Student Learning
    Assessment of student learning demonstrates that, at graduation, or other appropriate points, the institution’s students have knowledge, skills, and competencies consistent with institutional and appropriate higher education goals.

Roger J. Ward, EdD, JD, MSL, MPA

Contact

410-706-1850 middlestates2025@umaryland.edu

RELATED TO MIDDLE STATES

Institutional Effectiveness, Strategic Planning, and Assessment

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