What is Accreditation?
Accreditation is a process of peer review that the educational community has adopted for its self-regulation since early in the 20th century. It is a voluntary process intended to strengthen and sustain the quality and integrity of higher education, making it worthy of public confidence. Institutions choose to apply for accredited status, and once accredited, they agree to abide by the standards of their accrediting organization and to regulate themselves by taking responsibility for their own improvement.
State University of New York at Fredonia has been a member of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) since 1952. Since that time, every ten years, the University participates in a comprehensive institutional review with representatives of MSCHE. State University of New York at Fredonia's most recent re-accreditation visit took place in March 2010. During the visit an evaluation team comprised of administrators and faculty from other institutions were on campus to determine the extent to which our campus met the standards for accreditation, using MSCHE's "Characteristics of Excellence" as the guidelines. The commission re-affirmed our accreditation and our next review will take place in 2015 in the form of a Periodic Review Report (PRR).
In addition to our institutional accreditation through Middle States, several academic programs also have program-specific accreditation from the following organizations:
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
- Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)
- Council on Social Work Education (CSWE)
- National Association of Schools of Music (NASM)
- National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST)
- Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP)
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD)
Departments and schools that are working toward accreditation from discipline-specific accreditors include:
- Theatre & Dance: National Association of Schools of Dance NASD