“We have no additional reporting requirements beyond the baseline Open Pathway process – a major accomplishment,” said Dr. Heidi Ries, AFIT chief academic officer. “Getting to this point was a significant undertaking, including our quality initiative, completion of our assurance argument and, most importantly, ongoing excellence by all faculty, staff and students in the execution of our mission.”
AFIT followed HLC’s Open Pathway option for reaccreditation, which focuses on quality assurance and institutional improvement. An institution demonstrates it meets the criteria for accreditation by preparing an assurance argument and completing a quality-initiative project.
“After years of preparation and months of execution actions, we are delighted about AFIT’s HLC accreditation reaffirmation, and we are celebrating it as a campus team achievement,” said Dr. Adedeji Badiru, dean of AFIT’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management.
There are five criterion for accreditation: 1) mission; 2) integrity: ethical and responsible conduct; 3) teaching and learning: quality, resources and support; 4) teaching and learning: evaluation and improvement; 5) resources, planning and institutional effectiveness.
AFIT’s quality-initiative project focused on modernizing instructional capabilities across the institute and addressed five thrust areas: 1) classroom and teaching laboratory design, functionality and utilization; 2) e‐learning technologies for resident and distance delivery; 3) faculty and staff development programs and support infrastructure; 4) infrastructure to support advanced instructional-technology capabilities; 5) organizational structures, policies, processes, procedures and strategic vision to support effective teaching.
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