Your future, our focus
POWELL, Wyo. - A review committee for the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) made only a few changes to its findings on Northwest College’s continuing accreditation.
NWC asked the HLC for a review of the recommendations made by the team that visited campus in November 2010. The outcome was a mixed bag.
The original HLC report called for a monitoring report due by August 2012 on student learning assessment. The review committee changed this to be included among other topics in a focused campus visit in 2013.
The original HLC report also recommended a focused visit in spring 2013 for governance, planning and budget that would include a review of the NWC Board of Trustees. The review committee dropped the NWC Board of Trustees topic from the focused visit.
While not the outcome Northwest had hoped for, NWC President Paul Prestwich said the final recommendations are acceptable.
“When an institution appears before the HLC Review Committee,” Prestwich said, “the committee has several options: It can keep the visiting team’s recommendations, remove them or alter them. Our outcome was a little of each.”
The HLC is one of six accrediting agencies in the U.S. that provide institutional accreditation on a regional basis. It accredits approximately 1,100 institutions of higher education in a 19-state region and is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
More about NWC’s self-study for continuing accreditation can be found online.