Luther College up for re-accreditation

The Higher Learning Commission, the institution that grants accreditation to colleges and universities in the broad north central region, will visit Luther April 6-8. While on campus, they will evaluate Luther’s strategic plan, offer their suggestions and-in all likelihood- grant Luther a renewal accreditation.

Consisting of faculty and staff from other accredited institutions, a group of five from the HLC will visit Luther, conduct interviews and assess whether Luther meets their criteria for accreditation.

Accreditation from the HLC is vital to an institution’s ability to serve its students and function within the higher education community.

“Without accreditation, schools can’t get federal money for work-study, and their degrees won’t be recognized by public schools or jobs. It’s very important,” Professor of English Mark Muggli said. Muggli worked to help prepare Luther for the committee’s visit. “But there’s practically zero chance we won’t get accredited.”

In view of Luther’s long-standing tradition and reputation, the school was allowed to participate in a special, focused accreditation process called a “special emphasis self-study report.” In this process, Luther prepares a report on one aspect of its institution, and this report becomes the main focus of the HLC committee’s evaluation.

“Because Luther is a mature institution, we were allowed to do a special emphasis report,” President Richard Torgerson said. “The timing of the accreditation followed our need for a new strategic plan, so we decided to focus on that.”

The self-study report is a 186-page document detailing the effectiveness of Luther’s last strategic plan, which coincided with President Torgerson’s inauguration in April 2000, and delineating the specifics of the new strategic plan that Luther has developed.

The report is the product of two years of work done by a committee headed by Jon Christy, director of Assessment and Institutional Research, and Muggli.

“We spent two years sending hundreds of emails, reading curriculum reports, LIS documents and conducting interviews with the staff … With the self-study report there is more burden on the candidate to synthesize information and show that it fulfills the HLC criteria,” said Muggli.

The purpose of HLC’s visit to Luther will be to determine the legitimacy of the self-study report. The committee will conduct interviews with students, meet with faculty, look at Luther’s finances and give the school a fresh perspective on whether or not it is meeting its goals.

“It’s designed to help you as an institution, to bring in five sets of eyes that aren’t so close to the picture, living day to day at Luther,” Christy said. “It’s an externalized eyes and ears that aren’t easy to come by. Some people look at it as they are here to find issues- another way to look at it is that they are here to help us.”

While the process is an important one, and a lot of work has gone into insuring the institution’s accreditation, Torgerson isn’t worried that Luther will receive poor marks from the committee.

“There is little danger we won’t get accredited … but if they find something really seriously wrong with our strategic plan, they might require a follow-up a visit,” said Torgerson.

Even that is doubtful, according to Muggli. The committee is likely to find that the strategic plan that Luther has just completed has been beneficial and the newly established plan will push Luther forward positively.

“Our judgment is that the strategic plan has been very good for Luther College,” Muggli said. “We set goals and accomplished them. The new strategic plan is useful for focusing our goals for the future as an institution.”

While the committee’s visit isn’t likely to impact Luther to a great extent, it will offer the school an opportunity to be evaluated from the outside. The committee will also be visiting with students in an open session at 9:40 a.m. April 7, giving the student body a chance to give their input on the state of the college and the direction it is heading.