The Other 85 Percent

Earning trust through accountability in higher education

September 8, 2008 | Filed under: Capella, Capella University, Mike Offerman, The Other 85 Percent, Transparency by Design, distance learning, elearning, online education, online learning, online university

In his recent publication, U.S. Accreditation and the Future of Quality Assurance, published by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), Peter Ewell devotes a chapter examining the relationship of accreditation and “the academy.”  Indeed, one of the original reasons that higher education institutions created accreditation was to “define the academy,” to draw boundaries that would define what constituted “higher learning.”  Understandably such boundary setting was based in the values of the institutions that described themselves at that time as the academy.  And those values persist in current accreditation efforts.

Ewell does a nice job of exploring these values and how they have and have not adapted to contemporary issues.  He discusses five core values:

•    institutional autonomy
•    institutional diversification
•    academic freedom and shared governance
•    sound scholarship and professional practice
•    general education

I would like to consider some of these values from the perspective of current work being done by higher education institutions to become more accountable and transparent.  I draw upon my experience in working with learning and career outcomes transparency at Capella University and the collaboration of a number of institutions, including Capella, that serve adults students at a distance, called Transparency by Design.   The writing that Ewell has done provides a good base for considering how these values play out in times of increased demands for greater educational accountability.

Institutional Autonomy
Ewell very clearly lays out the history of American higher education and the fact that the early colleges in America were “freestanding organizations outside government authority.”  These were autonomous institutions in that there was no government involvement.  That changed with the advent of public colleges and universities, but the principle, even for public institutions, was that there was fiscal oversight but autonomy for the institution “with respect to scholarship and curriculum.”

But, Ewell effectively points out that institutional autonomy “has always had its obligation.”  He cites the work of Martin Trow in identifying three social forces that impact higher education institutions:  trust, formal accountability, and markets.  Ewell accurately points out that formal accountability is the force least preferred by institutions but that calls for more accountability increase when trust is decreased.  He points to two critical conditions that limit autonomy:  (1) institutions are subject to rules and regulations with regard to “financial probity and public safety” and (2) they must maintain trust through transparency, self-regulation, and self-correcting actions.

I find Ewell’s points to be right on target with why Capella University decided to become more transparent about its program outcomes and the career impact realized by its graduates.  And it is why institutions joining together in Transparency by Design committed to principles of good practice and to reports that include detail on student learning at the program level.  We believe that the most important thing we can do to earn the trust of our students and other constituencies is to be clear about what we promise to teach our students, to measure how well they are learning what was intended, and to share the results of those measures.  We are prepared that we may need to engage in improvement if the data are not as good as we would like.  But, we think that we will be rewarded if we engage in transparency, self-regulation and self-correction.

Does that make sense?

Mike

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