 Frequently
Asked Questions About the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP)
Reaccreditation Process
What is Accreditation?
What is the value of Accreditation to Moraine Valley
Community College?
What is AQIP?
How did Moraine Valley make the decision to participate
in AQIP?
What are Moraine Valley's AQIP Action Projects?
How does AQIP relate to Moraine Valley's Strategic
Planning Process?
How were the Action Projects selected?
What is the AQIP Systems Portfolio?
How are the AQIP
Action Projects and Systems Portfolio connected?
What other
Illinois Community Colleges have chosen to participate in AQIP?
WHAT IS ACCREDITATION?
Accreditation by nationally recognized agencies provides objective,
public assurance that an institution has been found to meet clearly
stated requirements and criteria and that there are reasonable grounds
for believing that it will continue to meet them. Accreditation results
in an evaluation of the entire institution in terms of its mission. The
accrediting agency establishes standards, or criteria, to assess the
formal educational activities of the institution. Also evaluated are
governance and administration, financial stability, student personnel
services, institutional resources, student academic achievement,
institutional effectiveness, and relationships with internal and
external constituencies. In the United States, accreditation is
voluntarily sought by institutions and
is conferred by non-governmental bodies. Moraine Valley Community
College’s
accrediting body is the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (HLC).
WHAT IS THE VALUE OF ACCREDITATION
TO MORAINE
VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE?
Accreditation provides public certification of acceptable institutional
quality
and defines opportunities and incentives for self-improvement. The
process
of accreditation provides an opportunity for critical self-analysis
leading to improvement in quality, as well as an opportunity for benchmarking,
consultation
and advice from peers at other institutions. Accreditation is also
needed to ensure students are eligible to apply for financial aid and
that the
institution is eligible to apply for certain grants.
WHAT IS AQIP?
AQIP (Academic Quality Improvement Program) is one of the two
reaccreditation
options offered to schools accredited by The Higher Learning
Commission. The AQIP reaccreditation process is structured around
quality improvement principles and processes and involves the following
structured goal-setting, networking, and accountability activities:
- Strategy Forum—This workshop provides
an institution with a supportive,
facilitated peer review process that will stimulate and assist it in
selecting, critically examining, and committing to Action Projects that
will drive quality improvement.
- Action Projects—These projects create a foundation for an
institution’s
improvement initiatives and demonstrate the vitality of its commitment
to quality. AQIP institutions commit to three to four projects that will
move it closer to being the institution it wants to be. At least one
action
project must relate directly to Helping Students Learn.
- Action Project Progress Reports—These annual progress reports,
submitted to the HLC each September, include: 1) progress made, based
on timelines, goals and measures; 2) problems and challenges we
encountered; and 3) outstanding successes and discoveries made.
- Systems Portfolio—This document presents an overview of our
institution
that explains the major systems we use to accomplish our mission.
AQIP institutions assemble a Systems Portfolio every four years and
answer
questions under nine AQIP characteristics.
- Systems Appraisal—A team of trained reviewers who read and produce an
Appraisal Feedback Report that assesses the maturity of, and identifies
strengths and opportunities for improvement within each, of the AQIP
Systems Portfolio’s nine characteristics.
- Quality Check-up—A team of trained evaluators who
conduct a visit to a) affirm the accuracy of the organization’s Systems
Portfolio; b) review Action Projects and strategies identified to
capitalize
on the strengths and opportunities for improvement; c) assure continuing
quality improvement commitment; and d) confirm the institution’s
compliance with accreditation expectations.
HOW DID MORAINE VALLEY MAKE THE
DECISION TO
PARTICIPATE IN AQIP?
When the College’s Strategic Plan was first established in 2001,
strategic
action teams were charged with implementing a number of initiatives to
move the college toward the future. Since these teams were working on
initiatives that were comparable to AQIP Action Projects, we decided to
look
closely at AQIP as a re-accreditation option.
Between April and December 2003, 13
sessions and open forums were held
on campus to explain the AQIP process and solicit input from the college
community. The overwhelming response from the 170 college faculty, staff
and board members who provided feedback was to pursue the AQIP
re-accreditation
option.
WHAT ARE MORAINE VALLEY’S AQIP ACTION
PROJECTS?
The following three action projects, derived from the college’s
Strategic Priorities,
were submitted by Moraine Valley Community College to the Higher
Learning Commission in April 2005.
2005-2009: Moraine Valley
Community College’s first round of action projects included:
- Institutional Effectiveness—To improve our institutional
effectiveness
efforts by integrating the following major college processes at all
levels of
the organization, departmental and college wide: assessment of student
academic achievement, strategic and annual planning, budgeting and
performance evaluation.
- Improving Student Learning, Student Development and Student
Success
a. Maximizing student access to education—To improve access to
educational programs and services by: 1) maximizing utilization of
on- and off-campus facilities and 2) effective scheduling of programs,
services and courses in response to student and community needs.
b. Improving retention and success in online learning—To examine
factors that affect the progress and success of students enrolling in
online and Web-assisted courses and identify components for
successful delivery of online courses, certificate and/or degrees.
c. Improving student success in Developmental Education—To develop
a plan to identify, assess, place and establish support mechanisms for
students in developmental education.
- Diversity and Inclusion
a. Reviewing college practices and processes to better address and
infuse diversity throughout the institution—To improve the college’s
responsiveness to our changing community by integrating
diversity and inclusion into appropriate college processes.
b. Diversity recruitment and retention of faculty and staff—To improve
the college’s responsiveness to our changing community by implementing new faculty and staff recruitment strategies.
c. Infusing diversity into the classroom and curriculum—to improve the
college’s responsiveness to our changing community by integrating
diversity into the curriculum and classroom.
2009-2013: Moraine Valley
Community College’s second round of action projects include:
- Counseling and Advising Project
Team Charge: To investigate cooperative student learning,
development and success models that address early intrusive
interventions that embrace and utilize developmental, psychological,
sociological and systematic theories to influence student learning
experiences and achievements. Using the investigation results,
develop a holistic and cooperative college-wide student success
model with intentional, effective, and early intrusive intervention
learning experiences and services that take place in-class and
out-of-class for at-risk students.
- Developmental Education Project
Team Charge: To develop a plan that identifies the needs and
barriers to success for our growing developmental education student
population. The goal for years one and two will be to develop a plan
of intentional/intrusive strategies to increase the success and
retention of developmental education students. The third year goal
will be to implement and pilot the strategies with developmental
education students and to expand the strategies to serve the needs
of all underprepared students.
- General Education Assessment
Project Team Charge: Consider all relevant questions, purposes
and challenges surrounding the implementation of a permanent system
of General Education assessment at the college. Recommend an
assessment plan and a timeline for its implementation.
HOW DOES AQIP RELATE TO MORAINE
VALLEY’S STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS?
In 2007, Moraine Valley Community College developed a five-year
Strategic Plan that sets the framework for annual planning, goals and
objectives, and how the college carries out its Mission, Vision and Core Values. This
Strategic Plan, resulting from an in-depth process of external and
internal analysis, is built on the college’s 2002-2007 Plan.
The 2007-2012 Strategic Plan includes five broad priorities and
within these priority areas, specific strategic goals. The
Strategic
Plan was written in the spirit of continuous improvement; some of these
goals incorporate work that is already underway while others will
require new investments of time and effort.
-
Emphasize and promote student success
-
Enhance community awareness,
connections and partnerships
-
Embrace diversity
-
Plan, achieve and manage growth
-
Build organizational capability
through continuous improvement
Moraine Valley forms teams to work on
specific projects related to these strategic priorities. For example,
each of the AQIP Action Project teams are charged with working on
initiatives based on strategic goals identified under one or more of
these strategic priorities.
HOW WERE THE ACTION PROJECTS SELECTED?
In October 2004, Moraine Valley held a Strategic Planning Retreat to
review and update the 2001 strategic priorities. At that time, the
following three major areas of focus were identified as potential action
projects: student learning, student development, student success;
diversity and inclusion; and institutional effectiveness. In January
2005, a team from Moraine Valley participated in the HLC’s AQIP
Strategic Forum. The Strategy Forum provided peer review from other
institutions to assist us in selecting, critically examining, and
committing to our Action Projects. By April 2005, we submitted the final
version of our first round of three action projects.
In October 2008, Moraine Valley received its Systems Appraisal Feedback
Report identifying strengths and opportunities for improvement. In
addition, the first round of action projects resulted in
institutionalization of a number of initiatives, as well as
identification of further opportunities for improvement. The portfolio
feedback and the opportunities identified from our first round of action
projects resulted in selection of the following three new
Action Projects
to be pursued from 2009-2013.
-
Counseling and Advising
-
Developmental Education
- General Education Assessment
WHAT IS THE AQIP SYSTEMS PORTFOLIO?
The Systems Portfolio presents an overview of our institution that
explains the major processes, programs and services we use to accomplish
our
mission. The Higher Learning Commission requires that we assemble a
Systems Portfolio every four years and answer questions under nine AQIP
characteristics that deal with a) how we do things, b) what results we
get,
and c) how we can improve. Those nine characteristics are:
1. Helping Students Learn
2. Accomplishing Other Distinctive Objectives
3. Understanding Students’ and Other Stakeholders’ Needs
4. Valuing People
5. Leading and Communicating
6. Supporting Institutional Operations
7. Measuring Effectiveness
8. Planning Continuous Improvement
9. Building Collaborative Relationships
HOW ARE THE AQIP ACTION PROJECTS AND
SYSTEMS PORTFOLIO CONNECTED?
See diagram
The Action Projects and the Systems Portfolio are the two major
components in the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP)
re-accreditation
process.
- The Action Projects are major initiatives that move the college forward in our efforts to improve upon student success. We are required to have three to four projects going on at any given time.
- The Systems Portfolio is a document that provides an overview of how our institution accomplishes our mission. This description is focused on our processes, what measurement we conduct as to the effectiveness of these processes, and how we use these results to make improvements. We are required to submit a Systems Portfolio every four years.
The AQIP Action Projects and the Systems Portfolio are related in the following ways:
- Both are required in order to be reaccredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
- Both are focused on continuously improving our programs, services and processes
- Since the Action Projects are major projects focused on improving processes, they should be included in the Systems Portfolio narrative as examples of how we are working to continuously improve.
- The Systems Portfolio includes a comprehensive overview of our institutional processes/systems, including topics over and above those included in the Action Projects. Once submitted, the Systems Portfolio is reviewed by outside reviewers, and we receive feedback in a Systems Appraisal Report. Information in the Systems Appraisal Report may well serve to identify future Action Projects for ongoing participation in the AQIP re-accreditation process.
WHAT OTHER ILLINOIS COMMUNITY COLLEGES HAVE
CHOSEN TO PARTICIPATE IN AQIP?
(as of 11/09)
1. Blackhawk College
2. City College of Chicago – Wilbur Wright
3. College of DuPage
4. College of Lake County
5. Heartland Community College
6. Highland Community College
7. Illinois Central College
8. Illinois Valley Community College
9. Joliet Junior College
10. Kankakee Community College
11. Kaskaskia College
12. Kishwaukee College
13. Lincoln Land College
14. McHenry County College
15. Moraine Valley Community College
16. Richland Community College
17. Southwestern Illinois College
18. Waubonsee Community College
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