Re: Another reason for needing accreditation

[Jon Olson <jeo3@psu.edu>]

Kevin, I've slowly warmed to the idea of NWCA getting into the accreditation bidness for the reasons that Joan and Joan and Paula and others have expressed.  My thinking changed after I let go of the conventional definition of accreditation which you articulated so well, when was it, a year ago?  Everything you say is true if the NWCA wants to try to do what the agency does that accredits nursing institutions.  But something different might take place during an NWCA process of accreditation, and I think that difference might be a good thing.  

When I listened to Marcia Silver tell the board at Park City about the work she and the others on the accreditation subcommittee have done (and then heard her again later during a panel), I said to myself, "This isn't what Kevin would call accreditation."  I got excited, though, by how different these teams could be.  There's the possibility that they could be forces for educating both the writing center and the administration that hired them--tutoring at its best.  These NWCA teams could be activists (promoting active learning) in ways that traditional accreditation teams might not be.  

Kevin, I think you're right to hold the organization accountable for the way it uses terminology.  You're right to think it's dangerous to buy into a well-established tradition, to use the terms of that tradition, but not to use the definitions of that tradition.  But what if the NWCA explicitly defines what it means by accreditation and how that is different from what the nursing industry means by accreditation?  There doesn't seem to be any argument that what these NWCA teams would do could be valuable.  Maybe we just need to make sure we don't fool ourselves or others about what we're trying to do.

At any rate, Kevin, my sense is that no one cares too much about the fine points of terminology right now.  They are more concerned about how much good can be done.  Maybe that's an appropriate order of priorities when a program is just getting started.  --Jon  

At 01:18 PM 11/4/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Joan, 
>You suggest that " 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" How do we know
>this?  Have any examples of departments calling NWCA for advice on, say, how to
>kill a "bad" writing center?  Or how to fire a director?  A respected, impartial
>group will be called upon for that type of advice.  Or are the calls coming from
>people interested in WCs wanting info on starting/supporting one?  Last I
>checked--and it's been a while--grad schools in our OWN areas were unwilling to
>consider WCs as a field in and to themselves, in part because of the nature of
>the publications and the fact that our organization is a "constituent"
>organization, not a free standing one.
>
>You also suggest the value of accreditation to groups like North Central. 
>Again, have any examples?  I do not know of any field where the people in the
>field chose themselves to accredit themselves and then were taken seriously.  Do
>you?  Things like education and nursing are accredited by outside organizations
>appointed by government agencies, not self-selected.  
>
>Joan, I am not at all opposed to accreditation.  But I have yet to see any
>salient argument showing that any administrator or larger accrediting
>organization will take anything we do to ourselves seriously. 
>
>kevin
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