As part of the continuing reaccreditation process for Amherst College, a team of evaluators consisting of top administrators from peer schools in the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) arrived at the College Sunday and stayed through this Wednesday. Over the last few days, the peer evaluation team has talked with administrators, different faculty committees and students, having meeting after meeting, and working through some 400 documents in order to develop a comprehensive report summarizing the overall strengths of the College and concerns that should be addressed in time for the NEASC’s interim report in 2013.
The visiting team convened on Sunday and for a dinner with faculty, administrators and students on central governing committees. On Monday, the team broke into subcommittees to address each of the 11 major dimensions of higher-level educational institutions as established by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education (CIHE). As part of this process, the team met with over 200 faculty, students, staff and administrators.
At the student forum on Monday, students expressed a wide array of opinions. The two evaluators at the forum, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Pomona College Gary Kates and Dean of the Undergraduate College at Bryn Mawr College Karen Tidmarsh asked for students’ thoughts and feelings about all aspects of college life.
The forum primarily focused on evaluating the job the College has done at integrating everyone into the College community. With respect to this idea of community, one student felt that there was a great deal of apathy at the College although it was not necessarily the College’s fault. She surmised that because students are involved with so many different activities, they are only committed to what they are doing and are apathetic about the endeavors of other students.
Students also praised the Open Curriculum at the forum, noting that distribution requirements give a negative connotation to classes outside of one’s comfort zone. Many agreed that the Open Curriculum exemplifies that the College treats students as adults, while also praising the academic advising system for encouraging exploration across departments. One student stated that the College needed something more than just a first-year seminar to introduce students to life at the College. “I think a common intellectual experience might help us be on the same page,” he said.
A major issue raised was the amount of discretion that professors have with respect to class and grading policy. One student said that the authority of professors can “be a blessing or a nightmare.” Another student claimed that there are some professors who do not like athletes and in the event of a schedule conflict, they will force athletes to make up things on their own time or possibly not give them credit for what they missed. Many students expressed a desire for some sort of uniform policy to address missed class time and conflicts, even if such policy was only by department.
Overall, students in attendance expressed their belief that the College is still a very tight-knit community despite the issues that might exist. When asked by the evaluators about any significant division between “athletes” and “students,” most students expressed the belief that the College was by and large a united community on the social level. There was a consensus that a student can start by hanging out with his athletic team and then go hang out with closer friends later at night.
With respect to student-faculty relationships, students explained that many professors earnestly attempt to learn everyone’s name, even in classes with upwards of 90 students, and praised the administration for its prompt responses to e-mails.
After the open forums, the evaluation team spent Monday evening deliberating and working through documents about the College in a work room in Alumni House. On Tuesday, the evaluation team had follow-up meetings about any topics they thought merited further review and spent much of the day writing a rough version of the 25-page report on the College that they will submit within six weeks to the CIHE. Today, they will report their findings to the president and senior administration. In the fall, the CIHE will review that report and issue an evaluation indicating the overall strengths of the College, as well as the concerns that need to be addressed in the interim report in 2013.
Associate Dean of Faculty and coordinator of the self-study Rick Griffiths discussed the importance of the visit in conjunction with the College’s self-study report. “The power of the process lies in the amount of expert knowledge and information that is concentrated on one moment, during which the evaluation team can cross-check claims and opinions with all groups on campus,” said Griffiths. Griffiths explained that the visit allowed the peer evaluators to confirm the accounts given in the self-study report and uncover other concerns that might not be on the College’s radar. The peer reviewers, as professors, deans and administrators themselves of a variety of colleges, can use their own varying expertise to present a balanced view of College’s strengths and weeknesses.
“[The evaluators] also have to judge how well we can explain ourselves to the outside world,” said Griffiths. “Amherst students arrive smart and go on to successful lives; can we demonstrate how we foster learning and personal growth in the four years?”
Griffiths also said that members of the College community seemed to enjoy the relaxed, straightforward and honest conversations they had with the evaluators. The team was not concerned with regulations but with the more important question of how the College is fulfilling its mission. “The eight team members have collectively been graduated from, taught at, sent their children to, or administered more than a score of institutions like Amherst,” mentioned Griffiths, “and that experience provides a uniquely powerful comparative perspective.