Re: Another reason for needing accreditation

[Joan Mullin <jmullin@uoft02.utoledo.edu>]

We discussed this somewhat at the executive board meeting in PArk City:

>Accreditation by a writing center organization would not have impressed those
>people who were accrediting the English department.  Accreditation is only as
>good as the organization which does it, and only as accepted as the
organization
>is.  

WPA is not familar to those outside Engish dept. circles and yet
administrrators look to them because they are a national organization.
Believe or not, Kevin, our national association, with the number of
constiuents, the journals and now the press, does constitute a group that
will be listened to if an assessment by NWCA is done professionally. 

People who conduct program reviews or North Central Evlautions use
everything  available to them because they know they can't be experts in
every field at which they've been asked to look. If you've been on these
review committees then you know that besides looking at documents presented
by the "unit," the review team draws on other campus sources; accredidation
is a __piece__ of program review, but, again, if conducted fairly and
professionally, one which will be considered. Maybe it's just in my
exprience on various review teams in the parts of the country I've been in
that this is so. However, I don't think we should be too quick to dismiss
the credibility of our own organization.

joan