A visiting team of evaluators from the New England Commission of Higher Education will visit the BU campus from October 27 to October 30. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Accreditation

BU Pursues Renewal of Accreditation

A look at the last 10 years shows progress on many fronts

A lot can happen in 10 years, and at BU, a lot did happen. So when a team of evaluators from the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) comes to the Charles River Campus next week to consider the University’s reaccreditation, they will see an institution that has made impressive gains on many fronts since its last full review 10 years ago. In addition to several new and renovated buildings, there are dozens of less-conspicuous improvements. Those include BU’s joining the Association of American Universities in 2012, a merger with Wheelock College in 2018, and a fundraising campaign whose success exceeded all expectations, raising $1.85 billion by the time it ended in 2019. BU’s research funding continues to grow, and its students are increasingly diverse, academically accomplished, and ambitious. For the fall 2018 entering freshman class, the University received more than 64,000 applications for 3,300 positions, and in 2017, the undergraduate six-year graduation rate was the highest in BU’s history.

Over the past 18 months, that progress has been carefully researched, described, and documented in a required 100-page self-study, which also includes a few things that BU would like to do better—efforts to diversify the campus, for example, while robust and various, are a work in progress. The document has been sent to NECHE, whose review team, which is chaired by Barbara Snyder, president of Case Western Reserve University, and consists of professors and administrators from nine other highly regarded universities, will spend four days, from October 27 to 30, on campus, meeting with BU administrators, faculty, and students. If those evaluators determine that what they see and hear on campus backs up what they have read in the self-study, they will recommend that the commission grant BU a continuing status. Following a review process, the commission will take the final action. 

Jean Morrison, University provost and chief academic officer, says NECHE’s required look in the mirror has been an extremely informative process for the many people who took part in it. “Accreditation represents an important opportunity for a university to take a highly introspective look at the advances it’s made over the last 10 years, to identify key areas for improvement and future growth, and to affirm public trust in the institution,” she says. “Boston University has made considerable progress since our last review across so many areas, from digital learning and general education to the way we assess academic quality, the growth of our research enterprise, and our long-term commitments to diversity and inclusion. There is a lot more work ahead, to be sure, but we are excited about the direction in which we’re headed and for the opportunity to welcome the NECHE team to campus in October and tell BU’s story.”

A NECHE accreditation, first earned by BU in 1929, is much more than window dressing. It is necessary for institutions of higher education to conduct their business as usual. For students, for example, it means eligibility for federal and state grants and loans. And for the University, it means eligibility for federal grants and loans, including those for research. 

The New England Commission of Higher Education—previously the New England Association of Schools and Colleges—is one of seven accrediting commissions in the United States that provide institutional accreditation on a regional basis. As is the case with all NECHE site visits, next week’s event will offer opportunities for students, staff, and faculty to participate in forum discussions about the state of Boston University. The student forum will be held on Monday, October 28, at 3 pm, at the Rajen Kilachand Center for Life Sciences & Engineering, Room 101, 610 Commonwealth Avenue. The faculty forum with follow, at 4:15 pm the same day and at the same location, and the staff forum will be on Tuesday, October 29, at 3 pm, in the Metcalf Trustee Ballroom, One Silber Way, ninth floor.