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Accreditation
Committee and Accreditation Decision
The Accreditation Committee, comprised of five
members of TEAC's Board of Directors, makes the final accreditation
decision. Its role is similar to a university board of trustees
when it adopts, or rejects, the recommendations of a faculty senate
or a promotion and tenure committee, or to the board of directors
of a philanthropic foundation when it decides to fund, or not fund,
projects that have been recommended by the foundation’s professional
staff.
TEAC has made an analogy between accreditation
and scholarly inquiry as follows:
1. The program faculty’s Inquiry Brief
is a scholarly monograph or research article that makes the case
for the hypothesis that the program has accomplished its and TEAC’s
goals,
2. The TEAC audit is a third-party’s verification
of the accuracy of the evidence supporting the claims the faculty
has made in the Brief,
3. The TEAC Panel’s recommendation is equivalent
to the editorial board’s judgment that the evidence, as
verified, is sufficiently meaningful to support the scholar’s
claims and that the findings constitute a contribution to the
literature, and
4. The Accreditation Committee’s decision
is similar to the decision made by the executive officers of an
academic press to publish the monograph because it meets the distinctive
editorial and publication standards set out by the sponsors or
owners of the press.
After the Accreditation
Panel makes its accreditation recommendations, the TEAC staff
sends the Panel’s Accreditation Report to the program head,
who has two weeks in which to respond in writing to the recommendations
in the report. In anticipation of the next meeting of the Accreditation
Committee, the President of TEAC collects, reviews, and distributes
the appropriate documents from the accreditation process. At its
next scheduled meeting, the Accreditation Committee reviews the
final Audit Report, any reports from consulting reviewers, the Accreditation
Report, the Inquiry Brief, any information provided by
TEAC's president, and any responses from the program under review.
After deliberation, the Accreditation Committee either accepts or
rejects by a majority vote the recommendation of the Accreditation
Panel. (See Table 8)
In the unlikely event that the Accreditation Committee
fails to accept the Panel’s recommendation, the Committee
gives written reasons for its own decision to reject the recommendations
in the Accreditation Report and to formulate new ones. The program
may appeal the Accreditation Committee’s decision and an Appeals
Panel, appointed by the chair of the Board of Directors, hears the
appeal in accordance with TEAC’s policy on appeals.
Accreditation
Committee Members
Order
of Business for the Accreditation Committee Meeting
Method
of the Accreditation Committee
Return to TEAC Accreditation
Process Overview
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