The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) accredits degree-granting higher education institutions in the Southern states and some international sites. Accreditation demonstrates that the University is successful in achieving its mission with the appropriate resources, programs, and services needed to support its specific educational goals.

The QEP requirement “affirms the commitment of SACSCOC to enhancing the quality of higher education in the region and to focusing attention on student learning (SACSCOC, Handbook for Institutions Seeking Reaffirmation, 2020, www.sacscoc.org).” As a part of the reaffirmation process, the development of a QEP demonstrates the university’s commitment to continuous improvement of student learning and/or student success.

A QEP must:

• Be derived from institutional planning and evaluation processes.
• Have broad-based support.
• Focus on improving or enhancing specific student learning outcomes or student success.
• Demonstrate university commitment to resources needed for the QEP to have a good chance of success.
• Include a plan to assess the level of that success.

Every ten years, colleges and universities accredited by SACSCOC must demonstrate their compliance with the standards in the Principles of Accreditation. This process is called reaffirmation of accreditation. It is a process of institutional self-evaluation that culminates in two stages of peer review conducted by senior level faculty and administrators (Peer Evaluators) from other institutions accredited by SACSCOC.

No. Because the project should arise from existing institutional planning processes, it may be an existing project. Proposals for new initiatives should also arise from UA’s mission and planning processes.

A QEP centered on a current, on-going initiative should be able to explain how the project as QEP is an expansion of the initiative upon which it is being built and to identify resources needed for the expansion.

The existing project should not be so far along that it will not benefit from input provided during the development of the QEP and the subsequent review by the On-Site Reaffirmation Committee, February 24-27, 2025.

The QEP is a five-year action plan. While the initiative may extend beyond the five years, the university is expected to submit a summary of the impact (assessment) of the QEP with its Fifth-Year Interim Report, due in 2031.

The QEP is not expected to touch the life of every student, but it is expected to be significant to UA and a major enhancement to student learning or student success. Another consideration for smaller initiatives is the ability to scale the intervention up for a larger population of students later in the project or the ability to use the intervention in other areas of need after success is demonstrated. Another consideration for a project that may be too large is a focus on a population of students who might benefit more from the intervention. For example, it may be too resource intensive to require all students participate in a certain high impact practice to increase student retention. However, there may be a smaller group of students who are less likely to be retained that would benefit from the intervention.

A pilot is not required, but it is a good practice for new initiatives. The QEP review process builds in a pilot in Spring 2024.

SACSCOC defines student learning as changes in knowledge, skills, behaviors, or values. Student learning outcomes define UA’s expectations of what students will be able to do as a result of the actions outlined in the QEP. Student learning outcomes must be realistic and measurable. Examples of student learning outcomes are:

• Students will describe the fundamental elements of the social, political, and economic reality of a country or region other than their own.
• Students will generate respectful communications that have a clear purpose and are well organized, grammatically correct, and appropriate to the audience and mode of communication.
• Students will critically interpret numerical and graphical data to solve problems.

Student success is defined as improvements in key student outcomes such as student retention, completion, time-to-degree, placement in field, or performance in “gatekeeper” courses. Student success measures are often included in institutional strategic plans. Example of student success goals are:

• First generation students who participate in two or more high impact practices are expected to graduate at a rate that equals or exceeds UA’s average graduation rate.
• DFW rates in select gatekeeper courses that utilize active learning strategies will decrease over the next three years.