Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-1999

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education

Major Professor

E. Grady Bogue

Committee Members

Lee Humphreys, John Prados, James Spencer

Abstract

Recently regional accreditation survived a major crisis during the fight over reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The crisis revealed an apparent gulf between how political leaders and the academy perceive regional accreditation. Thisstudy, which utilized a Likert-scale questionnaire analyzed with SPSS and three open ended questions, asked:1) Do the perceptions of regional accreditation effectiveness and reform by college presidents reveal significant variances when examined by: mission and classification of institution, experience level of the president,involvement of the president in accreditation, or by field in which the president earned his/her terminal degree? 2) Do the perceptions of regional accreditation effectiveness and reform by political leaders (executive and legislative) reveal significant differences when examined by: political party affiliation; experience level; involvement in accreditation; and profession/employment? 3) Do the perceptions of regional accreditation effectiveness and reform by college presidents reveal a significant variance from the perceptions of political leaders? 4) What themes emerge when presidents and legislators are given an opportunity to offer open-ended comments on regional accreditation strengths, weaknesses, and improvements?This study focuses on the perceptions of governors, state legislators and presidents of higher education institutions in the eleven-state region of the SouthernAssociation of Colleges and Schools (SACS). One of the six regional accreditation agencies, and the second oldest, SACS includes 772 accredited higher education institutions. The eleven states in the SACS region have a total of 379 legislators that serve as members of House and Senate education committees in their state.The results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the responses of 438 college and university presidents, 83 state legislators, and five governors show that regional accreditation has the support of both presidents arid political leaders.However, the political leaders are less supportive of the existing process than the presidents are, somewhat more cynical about its effectiveness, and more supportive of potential reforms. It is recommended that regional accreditation agencies increase their efforts to inform and involve political leaders and the general public, and to consider some reforms that might increase public support and trust in the process.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS