Two Papers,
Sent to You on Request.

Paper 01 · For chief academic officers and accreditation leaders

Don’t Make Them Dig

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Abstract. Accredited institutions work on a cycle. It studies itself against its accreditor’s standards, writes a self-study, and hosts peers who verify it. Between reviews the work goes on, and accreditors expect it to be continuous and to be shown. At many institutions, the record of that work lives in shared drives, inboxes, committee minutes, and the memory of the people who were in the room.

This paper describes two “digs” that recur each cycle: the first by the institution’s own faculty and staff as they rebuild the record for the self-study, and the second by the reviewers who follow the self-study back to its evidence. It draws on the published standards of four accreditors, published studies of accreditation cost, and federal regulations that now test programs one at a time. It closes on program health: the same record that spares a self-study the dig also lets a board and a finance office see where the curriculum stands.

What is inside

• What four accreditors ask the curriculum to show
• The first dig: rebuilding the record inside the institution, and who pays for it
• The second dig: how reviewers read a self-study back to its evidence
• Why evidence gets buried between reviews
• Why program-level evidence now matters to students, states, and federal policy, and what program health tells a leader

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Paper 02 · For presidents, chief academic officers, chief financial officers, and boards

Who Answers for the Program?

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Abstract. Presidents, boards, and chief academic officers are asked who answers for a program and its courses, and AI sharpens the question. This paper starts from a plain position: the institution answers for the program and each course in it, to students, accreditors, the board, employers, and licensing bodies, however the material was produced and whoever supported the work.

It separates developing a course, exercising academic judgment about it, and approving it for delivery, and it reports what published accreditor standards say about the responsibility of faculty and academic leadership. It then follows the course outward: to the program and the credential, to what it costs to keep a program current and which offices carry that cost, and to the course as it was taught when a student moves on or returns. It describes where the record of a course can become incomplete, and sets out five decisions an institution can make about AI in course work through its own governance.

The closing section gives leaders ten questions to ask inside the institution. The questions do not depend on any particular tool.

What is inside

• Developing, judging, and approving a course, and what published standards say about each role
• Why accountability stays with the institution when a tool, a vendor, or a consultant is involved
• The question to ask when a program is approved: what it will cost to keep current, and which offices carry the cost
• Where the record of a course can become incomplete, and why it matters when a student returns
• Five decisions about AI in course work, and ten questions a leader can ask

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