For the past three years the school has been implementing a plan to achieve accreditation by AACSB International -- the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The plan, developed during school year 1999-2000, outlined a series of objectives to be met and a timeline for meeting them. As soon as the AACSB Candidacy Committee reviewed and approved the plan in fall 2000, the school entered the candidacy phase of the accreditation process.

Dean Robert Ullrich (left) and associate dean Hugh Rowland (right) with accreditation team members Hormoz Movassaghi, Patricia Libby, Wendy Fonder, Bill Tastle, Fahri Unsal, Eileen Kelly, and Granger Macy

The faculty spent the next three years implementing the plan and reporting progress annually. To gauge its readiness for accreditation review, the school wrote a draft of a self-evaluation report based on school year 2001-2. Two consultants reviewed and critiqued the draft and conducted a mock site visit in July 2002. The following year was spent updating the draft document and revising it to reflect the consultants' suggestions. The consultants' subsequent opinion, reflected in a written document, was that the school was "good to go." The final self-evaluation report, based on academic year 2002-3, was submitted this August, and a team of accreditation specialists will visit the school February 15-18. "If all goes according to plan," reports Dean Robert Ullrich, "the school will announce its accreditation in April."

The accreditation process has changed dramatically since the early 1990s, when the school made an unsuccessful bid for accreditation. At that time the school was reviewed under a "one size fits all" policy that essentially required Ithaca College to meet the same standards used to evaluate major research universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago. Yet many schools of business, such as those in comprehensive colleges, do not pursue research as their primary mission -- they achieve excellence in other ways. Recognizing this, in 1991 AACSB abandoned the old approach in favor of mission-based standards, which was phased in over several years. Accordingly, the standards against which a school is judged in the process of accreditation review are those that are appropriate to its mission. A second, equally fundamental change in the accreditation process was the adoption of the requirement that all schools, regardless of mission, demonstrate continuous quality improvement.

"Our school's present mission statement gives highest priority to the education of undergraduate and M.B.A. students for careers in business administration and accounting," says Dean Ullrich. "Research and scholarly activities are second in priority and are undertaken in part to inform our educational programs. What makes Ithaca's baccalaureate programs unique, however, is the extent to which the school provides students with venues in which to practice what they have learned in the classroom and to develop managerial and professional skills in the process. Developing students' performance skills has always been the hallmark of quality at Ithaca College."

The school is a candidate for accreditation for both baccalaureate majors and the M.B.A. program. AACSB will not accredit a school unless all programs in business can meet accreditation standards. Students' placement experiences and academic achievements are important criteria; during the preparatory process, student participation in surveys and focus groups provided measures of quality as well as benchmarks against which year-to-year improvements have been demonstrated. Faculty members have been creating processes with which to monitor performance vis-à-vis the mission in areas such as curriculum, faculty development, student performance, and instructional resources. And they've created processes to ensure continuous quality improvement in each of the areas of concern to the school.

AACSB originally stood for the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business. Today the organization provides accreditation for business and accounting programs overseas as well in the United States. Reflecting the recent global role of the organization is its new name, AACSB International.

Of some 1,240 institutions in the United States that offer postsecondary education in business or accounting, 647, including Ithaca College, are members of AACSB, as are an additional 173 business schools abroad. A total of 405 schools have achieved accreditation -- 382 in the United States, 7 in Canada, and 16 in other countries.

Photo by Tom Hoebbel