School Prepares for NEASC Accreditation Process

Faculty and staff met on Monday, Sept. 24 to discuss the Academy’s progress on the two-year process of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) accreditation of the school. The accreditation process will assess the current state of affairs at the school and inform any institutional developments to follow. 

The accreditation is currently in its second phase, in which members of one committee parse through data generated by the Standards Committees last year to create five significant recommendations for an external inspection this spring.

“I think the faculty agrees the students come first, no matter what,” Christoph said. “So, I don’t think it’s going to be very hard for us to reach agreement.”

The accreditation process, which takes place every 10 years, is a way for the school to reevaluate every aspect of its operation. The first part of the process took place from January to June 2018. During this segment, 13 groups of faculty evaluated Exeter on a number of standards including governance, communications, administration and student experiences. Each committee identified ways to improve Exeter’s commitment to the standard that they studied and compiled a report of their findings.

The second phase of the accreditation process, which is currently underway, will last until the beginning of spring term. Chaired by Interim Director of Studies Scott Saltman, the main goal of the Phase Two Committee is to synthesize the newfound information into five major recommendations for the Academy.

Saltman clarified that other recommendations are not disregarded but are instead prioritized less in terms of what will make the largest difference for the school. He further described the stipulations the committee has in mind while determining both a significant and attainable recommendation. “We don’t want them to be too broad because we don’t want to set ourselves an impossible task, but we don’t want them to be so narrow that we are just making one minor change to fix a minor thing,” he said. “We are looking for recommendations that have the biggest impact on the school.”

He also pointed out that even if recommendations do not take precedence, they may be brought up in Strategic Planning, which aims to improve the institution the same way that the accreditation process does. “In one sense, these recommendations will be reaffirming and bolstering the strategic planning process. In other ways, we’ll want to look at other things that are outside strategic planning,” Saltman said.

To further their research, the Phase Two Committee devoted an entire faculty meeting to assess the viewpoints of the faculty and staff. In the meeting, small groups consolidated the 72 recommendations created by the 13 Standards Committees into five core themes they hoped the school would emphasize in the future. By the end of the meeting, similar themes emerged, including diversity, equity and inclusion and campus wellness.

Chemistry Instructor Andrew McTammany’s group narrowed down to four values: “health and wellbeing, accountability, resources, which entailed both human resources and structural resources, and diversity, equity and inclusion,” he said. McTammany’s group, representing sectors of campus, felt as though these themes carried a thread throughout all of the recommendations they had read.

The purpose of this faculty meeting was to produce a clearer picture on the school’s needs, according to faculty members. According to Saltman, the committee is “hoping for a visual picture of what the priorities are. We will find out what themes people find important, but we’re also going to see how people find intersections on certain issues. That’ll be an interesting connection for us to find,” he said.

Chair of the Modern Languages Department Evelyn Christoph explained she thinks that faculty priority will help the meeting reach a consensus. “I think the faculty agrees the students come first, no matter what,” Christoph said. “So, I don’t think it’s going to be very hard for us to reach agreement.”

English Instructor Johnny Griffith described the desire of faculty for identified areas of improvement to be addressed. “I think that’s the fear, I think a lot of people are afraid of ‘where is this going?’” Griffith said. “Is [our work] going anywhere, or is this going to just end up in a file folder somewhere collecting dust? I think most people hope [our work] is going somewhere and that the recommendations that come out of this will help us move forward and improve this community.”

The final part of the accreditation process, Phase Three, will occur in spring term, 2019. An external committee, composed of members from Exeter’s peer schools, will come to campus and evaluate Exeter. “The visiting committee reads the whole report [from the Phase Two Committee], start to finish. They spend a full three days of interviewing as many people on campus as possible, faculty staff and students, and then they write a report,” Dean of Students Melissa Mischke said. “It’s fascinating—it’s really an in-depth scrutiny of everything we do as a school,” she said.

According to Mischke, the accreditation process is a chance for the Academy to acknowledge the institution’s imperfections and work towards a better Exeter. “The reality is that we’re a school like any other…we have areas that we do very well in, and we have areas that we still need to work on,” Mischke said.

Christoph described the faculty’s commitment to accreditation and general improvement of the Academy. “I love what I do, and I think everybody feels that way,” she said. “I think the teachers who are here, who commit themselves to this life and this lifestyle, and their families, sometimes I think it doesn’t seem apparent to students what we want to give because students also give so much to teachers.”

History Instructor Kent McConnell reflected on the importance of the accreditation process. “I think what can happen to any institution over a long period of time is that it can be lulled into believing that what it is doing is exactly what it should be doing. I think accreditation, if you make room for it, gives institutions and the people in them time to actually think about intentionality,” he said. “And [because of this], anyone, from staff member to administration, has to do their job with intention.”