Middle States Newsbreak

September 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for September 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-accreditation process through this monthly newsletter.

What you need to know:

It has been an active few months in the college-wide re-accreditation process since our last Middle States Newsbreak (read the Newsbreak archive here). When we last communicated, the 80 community members who form the Executive Steering Committee, the Working Groups, and the Operational Excellence Team had contributed to a draft of the Self-Study Design document which was submitted to our accreditor, colloquially referred to as Middle States. After feedback from the Queens College community and our accreditor’s vice president liaison, Dr. Ryan Hartnett, we revised the document. We are glad to report that the final version was officially approved by Middle States in July. You can read the final Self-Study Design document here.

Also in July, Queens College welcomed our new associate provost for Institutional Effectiveness, Rebekah Chow. She has taken on our campus’s role of accreditation liaison officer and will be joining the Executive Steering Committee. With the addition of Associate Provost Chow, Associate Provost for Innovation and Student Success Nathalia Holtzman will be transitioning off the Executive Steering Committee. We thank Nathalia for the many hours of dedicated work she has put in to help make this process run smoothly and successfully.

Two events took place at the beginning of the semester to support the re-accreditation process. At the first event, community members involved in re-accreditation assembled for a kick-off luncheon to reinvigorate spirits and prepare for the work in the semester ahead.

The second event was Assessment Fest, two days full of learning about assessment from Keston Fulcher, an assessment specialist from James Madison University. At a workshop on academic assessment on Monday, August 26, representatives from all QC academic departments learned about the academic assessment cycle, writing student learning outcomes, mapping the curriculum, and determining assessment instruments. At a workshop about administrative assessment on Tuesday, August 27, representatives from administrative units across campus learned about the assessment process and practiced developing assessment plans for their units. Assessment knowledge and capability are essential because assessment and a culture of continual improvement are one of the criteria that our Middle States peer evaluators will be looking for in our final Self-Study Report and during our site visit. We will be building on this momentum for assessment with multiple events and workshops throughout the year, including an Assessment Showcase on Friday, December 6, 2024. Save the date! More information about this event will be forthcoming. 

The Working Groups are finalizing lists of evidence that they need to collect from the campus community to be able to answer their research questions thoughtfully and thoroughly (for example, evidence of assessment practice in academic departments and administrative units). The Working Groups will spend Fall 2024 collecting evidence and turn to synthesizing what they learn into drafts of our Self-Study Report in Spring 2025. The types of evidence that are requested will touch all aspects of Queens College operations; many people on campus will be called upon to collect and submit documents based on these requests. Please do your best to respond to these requests expeditiously. Coordinating this effort is a monumental task and your colleagues are relying on your responses.

The dates for the Working Group meetings in Spring 2025 have been determined: February 10, March 12, and April 30. Department chairs and administrative unit heads are kindly requested to avoid scheduling meetings that affect faculty and staff on those dates during free hour (12:15-1:30 pm). We thank you for helping to ensure that this essential effort of the Working Groups can proceed without conflicts.

You can stay up to date with the progress of the re-accreditation process on the Middle States 2024-2026 website.

We look forward to working with the entire community throughout this academic year.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee

Patricia Price, Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Rebekah Chow, Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness
Christopher Hanusa, Faculty Liaison for Evaluation and Assessment

Middle States Newsbreak

April 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for April 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-accreditation process through this monthly newsletter.

What you need to know:

Much has been happening behind the scenes of the 2024-2026 re-accreditation cycle. The process for how the self-study will take place at Queens College has been assembled into a document by the executive steering committee with contributions from the 70 community members serving on the working groups. This document, called the Self-Study Design, is available to read here. Note that the Self-Study Design’s content and organization follows a template specified by Middle States. 

The Self-Study Design includes an overview of the college, our institutional priorities and intended outcomes of the self-study process, and other administrative aspects of the final self-study report. It also describes the organizational structure of the self-study and the research questions that the working groups have developed to investigate over the coming two years. Community members are encouraged to read the document and provide feedback through this web form, which will be used to revise the document in the coming weeks.

An important milestone for the accreditation cycle is the self-study preparation visit of our Middle States Vice President Liaison Ryan Hartnett. Dr. Hartnett will be visiting the Queens College campus on Monday, May 6 and will be meeting with President Frank H. Wu, Interim Provost Patricia Price, CUNY representative Anne Lopes, members of the steering committee, and members of the Queens College community.

This visit is an opportunity for Queens College to put its best foot forward and show that our self-study is organized and on track. Furthermore, it is a chance for Dr. Hartnett to meet with and provide information to a wide range of community members. We are excited to welcome Dr. Hartnett to campus next Monday.

As we wrap up Spring 2024, the working groups have been laying the foundation for the inquiry that will be taking place in Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. Each working group has finalized a collection of five or six research questions that help to determine how well Queens College is meeting Middle States’ standards of accreditation. The working groups have started developing lists of evidence that they would like to collect from the campus community to be able to answer their research questions thoughtfully and thoroughly.

Requests for evidence will be sent to departments and administrative units beginning in early Fall 2024. Some more straightforward data collection may happen over the summer. The types of evidence that are requested will touch all aspects of Queens College operations, so don’t be surprised when you see a request for information coming your way.

Stay up to date with the progress of the re-accreditation process on the Middle States 2024-2026 website.

Have a wonderful summer.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee

Patricia Price, Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Nathalia Holtzman, Associate Provost for Innovation and Student Success
Christopher Hanusa, Faculty Liaison for Evaluation and Assessment 

Middle States Newsbreak

March 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for March 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-Accreditation process through this monthly newsletter.

What you need to know:

In February 2024, President Wu kicked off the 2024-2026 re-accreditation cycle. Many people will contribute to this two-year process by providing information about the work we do at Queens College and how it helps us meet the seven Standards of Accreditation. The biggest contributions will be made by the approximately 80 people who make up the seven Working Groups and the Operational Excellence Team. These groups have been assembled to ensure representation of voices from all parts of campus. Participants include faculty from every Academic School, staff supporting all aspects of the student experience, and distinguished community members; students will be joining the Working Groups during the 2024-25 Academic Year as well.  

1. Examination of Academic Foundation: Examine our strengths and weaknesses in the provision of a solid foundation for teaching, learning, and scholarship.  
2. Finding Meaning in Our Motto: Reflect on our motto, Discimus ut Serviamos (We Learn so that We May Serve), and how it guides Queens College today.  
3. Alignment and Cultivation of Resources: Explore opportunities to align and cultivate our resources¾programming, enrollment, human capital, budgetary, space allocation, among others¾to be responsive to a changing landscape. 

These research questions will form the basis for the investigation, data collection, and synthesis that will be completed in Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. The timeline for these actions is shared on the Middle States 2024-2026 website. The campus community celebrates the work of these dedicated colleagues. We appreciate that they have volunteered for this essential service role and for the effort they are putting in to lay the foundation for a strong future for Queens College.  

Because it is complicated to coordinate the schedules of 80+ people, three dates have been reserved in Fall 2024 for Working Group Meetings: September 18, October 23, and November 20. Department Chairs and Administrative Unit Heads are kindly requested to avoid scheduling meetings that affect faculty and staff on those dates during free hour (12:15-1:30pm). We thank you for helping to ensure that this essential effort of the Working Groups can proceed without conflicts.  

Stay up to date with the progress of the re-accreditation process on the Middle States 2024-2026 website. 

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee

Patricia Price, Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Nathalia Holtzman, Associate Provost for Innovation and Student Success
Christopher Hanusa, Faculty Liaison for Evaluation and Assessment

Middle States Newsbreak

February 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for February 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-Accreditation process through this monthly newsletter.

What you need to know:

Queens College is an accredited institution of higher education. Our accreditor is the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). To maintain our institutional accreditation, MSCHE requires that Queens College meets rigorous and comprehensive standards for accreditation. To demonstrate that, we submit a college-wide Self-Study Report and build a corresponding evidence inventory. This happens every eight years. Queens College’s institutional accreditation was last re-affirmed by MSCHE in 2017. Our current re-accreditation cycle was launched on Monday, February 5, 2024 by President Frank H. Wu. 

Over the next two years, a broad collection of faculty, staff, students, and community members will be developing the Self-Study Report to demonstrate how Queens College is meeting the standards for accreditation. This report and the substantiating evidence will be used by an external evaluation team during their site visit in Spring 2026 to determine their recommendation for continued accreditation.

MSCHE accreditation is extremely important to Queens College. It assures our students, their families, and the public of the high quality of a Queens College education. Institutional accreditation is also a requirement for the college to participate in the Department of Education’s Title IV federal financial aid program and for academic credits earned at our institution to be transferable to other accredited institutions of higher education.

As this multi-year process unfolds, you will receive regular updates by way of this newsletter. You can learn more about the timeline of this process and check in on its progress on our Middle States 2024-2026 website. This is your hub for all information related to the re-accreditation process. It features this informational video starring President Wu and Interim Provost Price that was produced and edited by the Queens College Office of Communications and Marketing.

All the best for the semester to come.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee

Patricia Price, Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Nathalia Holtzman, Associate Provost for Innovation and Student Success
Christopher Hanusa, Faculty Liaison for Evaluation and Assessment