Five Dimensions of Quality: A Common Sense Guide to Accreditation and Accountability

Praise for Five Dimensions of Quality “Readers of Linda Suskie’s new book, Five Dimensions of Quality , will embrace assessment and accreditation as creative and forward–looking means for effecting cultural change and improving quality. For Suskie, it is common sense to adopt an organizational discipline that leads to improved quality.” —Lewis Evitts Thayne, president, Lebanon Valley College “Linda’s accreditation and assessment experience, melded with her higher education research, provide readers with guidance, examples, and references relevant not only to accreditation but, more broadly, to effective leadership and management practices. Anyone concerned with strengthening higher education, or seeking to enhance institutional effectiveness, will find Five Dimensions of Quality to be an invaluable resource.” —Elizabeth Ann Whiteman, director of accreditation and strategic initiatives, Carnegie Mellon University “For years, Linda Suskie has been the voice that synthesizes and explains. What she does best is to integrate ideas, strategies, and good practice across research, time, and people and then distill them into a readable, powerful framework that is meaningful for those new to accreditation, for those in leadership seeking to understand how accreditation activities fit into strategic priorities, and for those that want to get back to the basics and see anew what makes accreditation efforts meaningful, useful, reasonable, and workable.” —Lynn Priddy, provost, National American University

LIST OF TABLES AND EXHIBITS ix LIST OF JARGON ALERTS xi LIST OF ACRONYMS xv FOREWORD xix PREFACE xxv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxxi ABOUT THE AUTHOR xxxiii INTRODUCTION: Today’s Quality Context 1 1. Why Is American Higher Education Under Fire? 3 2. Understanding American Accreditation 11 3. Quality: Committing to Excellence 25 4. Why Is This So Hard? 35 DIMENSION I: A Culture of Relevance 49 5. Integrity: Doing the Right Thing 51 6. Stewardship: Ensuring and Deploying Resources Responsibly 59 DIMENSION II: A Culture of Community 75 7. A Community of People 77 8. Leadership Capacity and Commitment 89 DIMENSION III: A Culture of Focus and Aspiration 97 9. Purpose: Who Are You? Why Do You Exist? 99 10. Goals and Plans: Where Are You Going? How Will You Get There? 107 11. Who Is a Successful Student? 119 12. Helping Students Learn and Succeed 129 DIMENSION IV: A Culture of Evidence 145 13. Gauging Success 147 14. Good Evidence Is Useful 161 15. Setting and Justifying Targets for Success 167 16. Transparency: Sharing Evidence Clearly and Readily 177 DIMENSION V: A Culture of Betterment 189 17. Using Evidence to Ensure and Advance Quality and Effectiveness 191 18. Sustaining a Culture of Betterment 197 CONCLUSION: Integrating and Advancing the Five Dimensions of Quality 209 19. Demonstrating Quality to Accreditors 211 20. Program Reviews: Drilling Down into Programs and Services 229 21. Where Do We Go from Here? A Six–Point Agenda for Ensuring and Advancing Quality 239 REFERENCES 249 INDEX 265

LINDA SUSKIE is a bestselling author, speaker, trainer, and consultant on assessment and accreditation in higher education. She has served as vice president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, associate vice president for assessment and institutional research at Towson University, and director of the Assessment Forum of the American Association for Higher Education. She is the author of Assessing Student Learning from Jossey–Bass.