The Middle States Newsbreak is a newsletter to keep you informed about the 2024-2026 Middle States re-accreditation process.

Read current and past issues here.

Middle States Newsbreak

May 2025

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for May 2025. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-accreditation process through this regular newsletter.

What you need to know:

We have been renewing our assessment and reporting processes and building human support infrastructure.

The Working Groups have used the evidence the community has submitted to craft drafts of the chapters of the Self-Study Report.

Fall 2025 will feature multiple opportunities to give feedback on the final draft of the Self-Study Report, including a Town Hall event with President Wu on September 17. Save the date!

In this newsletter, we look to the past and the progress we have made, we share information about the present status of the Self-Study Report, and we look forward to the events of the fall semester.

One of the goals we set forth for the Middle States Re-Accreditation Process was the renewal of our focus towards improving outcomes for our students, faculty, and staff. To this end, we have been implementing assessment and reporting practices that align with the expectations of our accreditors in their Standards for Accreditation. This involves systematic academic assessment (determining if students are learning what we set out for them to learn) and administrative assessment (determining if our processes are effective and efficient) alike.

Administrative and academic units across campus have been engaging in discussions surrounding these ideas of improving outcomes, including discussions about mission statements; goals and program learning objectives; curriculum maps; metrics and key performance indicators (KPI)s that measure desired outcomes; assessment plans that document the methods that will be used to collect data; data collection and analysis; changes that can be implemented to improve outcomes; and determining whether the implemented changes have had their desired effect on improving outcomes. Every unit across campus is documenting their assessment work on a regular basis using standardized Assessment Reporting Templates and Annual Reports.

In addition to a renewed focus on assessment, sustainable human infrastructure has been developed to support assessment practice, including devoted Assessment Coordinators to support academic assessment, an Assessment Council to discuss and develop assessment policy, and a General Education Council to support the development, maintenance, and assessment of Pathways courses. We also saw the first annual event to give administrative and academic units an opportunity to cross-pollinate, discuss best assessment practices, and share the places where assessment has made positive impacts in our community. These structures have been designed for ongoing engagement and support long after the current accreditation cycle has completed.

That brings us to the present. During this Spring 2025 semester, members of our seven Working Groups have been hard at work on drafting chapters of our Self-Study Report. The Working Group members read through all the documents submitted by units across campus and then extracted and synthesized the information to document the ways in which Queens College meets the Standards for Accreditation.

Throughout this process, the Working Group members have gotten a chance to learn about positive things happening all across the campus. We have heard multiple stories of members feeling re-energized and optimistic about the college after learning about these impactful practices. Furthermore, it has been an opportunity to learn how the college’s mission is addressed through activities, initiatives, and investments throughout the college. Lastly, the Working Group meetings have helped to build cross-campus connections and build a common institutional knowledge in many areas.

As the members of the Working Groups wrap up their writing, their service is coming to a close. We thank them for their service over the past three semesters and hope that the experience has been illuminating and rewarding.

We now turn to the future. Over the summer, the chapters that the Working Groups submit will be harmonized and synthesized into a final draft. This draft will be circulated to the campus community at the beginning of the Fall 2025 semester with multiple opportunities to provide constructive feedback. One venue for feedback will be a campuswide Town Hall with President Wu on Wednesday, September 17 at 12:15 pm. Save the date! All are invited to attend. A form collecting RSVPs will be sent out at a later date.

Soon thereafter, most likely in October, we will have a preparatory site visit by the chair of our team of peer evaluators. The full team of peer evaluators will arrive in Spring 2026. Stay tuned for more details about these events as they draw closer. As a reminder, you can stay up to date with the progress of the re-accreditation process on the Middle States 2024-2026 website.

All the best as we head towards the end of the spring semester.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee,

Patricia Price, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Rebekah Chow, Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness
Christopher Hanusa, Faculty Liaison for Evaluation and Assessment

Middle States Newsbreak

February 2025

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for December 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-accreditation process through this newsletter.

What you need to know:

The Working Groups are writing their chapters of the Self-Study Report this semester.

Queens College is one year away from the visit of our Middle States peer evaluators.

The accreditation process strengthens connections across CUNY and in our broader networks.

This Spring 2025 semester is an important part of our college-wide re-accreditation process. After developing the research questions for our Self-Study Report in Spring 2024 and identifying the documents that Middle States requires in Fall 2024, this semester our Working Groups will be writing their chapters for the Self-Study Report to exhibit how Queens College satisfies the Standards of Accreditation. We are very appreciative of the extensive effort that colleagues across the campus have put into collecting and submitting documents. These documents are what the Working Groups will use to strengthen their arguments about why Queens College deserves a re-affirmation of accreditation. The writing of the Self-Study Report will take all semester. The campus community will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the final draft of the report in multiple ways in Fall 2025; stay tuned for more details.

Once the Self-Study Report is finalized, it is shared with a team of peer evaluators, who will be visiting campus in just over one year’s time, in Spring 2026. Peer evaluators play a crucial role during accreditation site visits by providing an independent, objective assessment of an institution’s compliance with accreditation standards. The peer evaluation team is comprised of experienced faculty and administrators from other accredited institutions. They are charged with conducting thorough reviews of institutional documentation, facilities, and operations and engaging in substantive discussions with faculty, staff, students, and administrators. They gather evidence to verify the claims we make in our Self-Study Report, they identify institutional strengths and areas for improvement, and they make a final recommendation to Middle States about the re-affirmation of accreditation. The peer evaluator team is led by a team chair, who will visit our campus in Fall 2025 in advance of the team visit the following spring.

The accreditation process fosters valuable cross-institutional collaboration and knowledge sharing, as exemplified by Queens College’s active participation in the Middle States Commission on Higher Education community. President Frank H. Wu’s service as a team chair for the University of the District of Columbia’s reaccreditation, along with other Queens College colleagues serving as peer evaluators, brings valuable insights and best practices back to campus. The college strengthened these connections through its delegation to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education conference in December 2024, where Rebekah Chow, Maria DeLongoria, Jerima Dewese, Theresa Gurl, and Frank Wu engaged with peer institutions nationwide.

Additionally, Queens College benefits from close collaboration with fellow CUNY institutions City Tech and Medgar Evers College, which share the same accreditation cycle, allowing for regular communication and shared learning experiences supported by CUNY’s cross-campus infrastructure. While our individual work can seem isolating at times, we are not alone.

Middle States Newsbreak

December 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for December 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-accreditation process through this newsletter.

What you need to know:

Evidence Request Letters have arrived. Thank you for all the work you are doing to collect the documents requested by the Working Groups.

For help with Evidence Collection, visit the dedicated Evidence Guidance website.

The Assessment Showcase on Friday, December 6 was a success, bringing together faculty and administrative staff for an informative and entertaining event.

The college-wide re-accreditation process has made great strides forward this semester. New in this re-accreditation cycle is that our accreditor, colloquially referred to as Middle States, has provided an extremely comprehensive list of evidence that it is requesting that each campus provide. The Working Groups worked their way through this document and helped to route these requests to the appropriate people on campus. In October and November, this information was assembled into a collection of Evidence Request Letters which were sent out to academic department chairs and administrative unit heads. These campus leaders have been busy working with colleagues in their units to identify and submit the documents to the best of their ability.

Our collective re-accreditation efforts are tasked with collecting information from all parts of campus, so it’s important that your department or office is represented in the body of documents that we provide to our Working Groups and to our Peer Evaluators. This is a monumental effort, and we appreciate your help in providing the requested documents in a prompt manner.

The Executive Steering Committee met with each of the College Vice Presidents to go over the types of documents that are expected to be collected. At the same time, we recognize that some additional guidance might be appreciated. We have created an Evidence Guidance website on the re-accreditation hub. The password to access the site is [redacted]. This page has a video that explains how to upload evidence, the times when drop-in help is available, the links to submit evidence, and the people to contact if you have questions about a particular type of evidence.You may recognize that there is a significant overlap between the evidence requested by Middle States and the ongoing Assessment Initiative on campus, in which we are collecting information about student learning outcomes and office effectiveness and efficiency, with the goal of continual improvement of all our processes and of student outcomes. Middle States wants to see that every academic department and administrative unit on campus is making and implementing assessment plans and using the results of the assessment to enact change to improve outcomes.

The progress our campus has made on these fronts was on display at last Friday’s first annual Assessment Showcase. Over 70 campus community members attended this informative and entertaining event in the Student Union Ballroom.

After an introduction by President Wu and Provost Price, we had presentations by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, and about the impact of tutoring in the Learning Commons, Writing Outcomes in English 110, Alumni Outcomes, and student learning outcomes in the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, interspersed with plenty of fun activities and giveaways.

The exit surveys from the Assessment Showcase will be used to determine assessment workshops to be held during the Spring 2025 semester; feel free to add your own suggestions here. We hope to see a presentation from your assessment results at next year’s Assessment Showcase.

You can stay up to date with the progress of the re-accreditation process on the Middle States 2024-2026 website.

All the best for the end of the year.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee,

Middle States Newsbreak

September 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for September 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-accreditation process through this monthly newsletter.

What you need to know:

Our Self-Study process has resumed; this fall working groups will gather the evidence required by Middle States to demonstrate we meet their Standards of Accreditation.

Evidence gathering requests will be coming from the Working Groups soon; please respond to their requests promptly and diligently.

Spring 2025 Working Group meetings will occur during free hour on February 10, March 12, and April 30. Please do not schedule meetings affecting faculty and staff at those times.

It has been an active few months in the college-wide re-accreditation process since our last Middle States Newsbreak (read the Newsbreak archive here). When we last communicated, the 80 community members who form the Executive Steering Committee, the Working Groups, and the Operational Excellence Team had contributed to a draft of the Self-Study Design document which was submitted to our accreditor, colloquially referred to as Middle States. After feedback from the Queens College community and our accreditor’s vice president liaison, Dr. Ryan Hartnett, we revised the document. We are glad to report that the final version was officially approved by Middle States in July. You can read the final Self-Study Design document here.

Also in July, Queens College welcomed our new associate provost for Institutional Effectiveness, Rebekah Chow. She has taken on our campus’s role of accreditation liaison officer and will be joining the Executive Steering Committee. With the addition of Associate Provost Chow, Associate Provost for Innovation and Student Success Nathalia Holtzman will be transitioning off the Executive Steering Committee. We thank Nathalia for the many hours of dedicated work she has put in to help make this process run smoothly and successfully.

Two events took place at the beginning of the semester to support the re-accreditation process. At the first event, community members involved in re-accreditation assembled for a kick-off luncheon to reinvigorate spirits and prepare for the work in the semester ahead.

The second event was Assessment Fest, two days full of learning about assessment from Keston Fulcher, an assessment specialist from James Madison University. At a workshop on academic assessment on Monday, August 26, representatives from all QC academic departments learned about the academic assessment cycle, writing student learning outcomes, mapping the curriculum, and determining assessment instruments. At a workshop about administrative assessment on Tuesday, August 27, representatives from administrative units across campus learned about the assessment process and practiced developing assessment plans for their units. Assessment knowledge and capability are essential because assessment and a culture of continual improvement are one of the criteria that our Middle States peer evaluators will be looking for in our final Self-Study Report and during our site visit. We will be building on this momentum for assessment with multiple events and workshops throughout the year, including an Assessment Showcase on Friday, December 6, 2024. Save the date! More information about this event will be forthcoming.

The Working Groups are finalizing lists of evidence that they need to collect from the campus community to be able to answer their research questions thoughtfully and thoroughly (for example, evidence of assessment practice in academic departments and administrative units). The Working Groups will spend Fall 2024 collecting evidence and turn to synthesizing what they learn into drafts of our Self-Study Report in Spring 2025. The types of evidence that are requested will touch all aspects of Queens College operations; many people on campus will be called upon to collect and submit documents based on these requests. Please do your best to respond to these requests expeditiously. Coordinating this effort is a monumental task and your colleagues are relying on your responses.

The dates for the Working Group meetings in Spring 2025 have been determined: February 10, March 12, and April 30. Department chairs and administrative unit heads are kindly requested to avoid scheduling meetings that affect faculty and staff on those dates during free hour (12:15-1:30 pm). We thank you for helping to ensure that this essential effort of the Working Groups can proceed without conflicts.

You can stay up to date with the progress of the re-accreditation process on the Middle States 2024-2026 website.

We look forward to working with the entire community throughout this academic year.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee

Patricia Price, Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Rebekah Chow, Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness
Christopher Hanusa, Faculty Liaison for Evaluation and Assessment

Middle States Newsbreak

April 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for April 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-accreditation process through this monthly newsletter.

What you need to know:

The Self-Study Design is now complete. Community members are encouraged to read the document and provide feedback. 

Queens College is hosting an official visit of our Middle States vice president liaison on Monday, May 6, 2024.

Working groups will be reaching out to departments and offices in Fall 2024 to begin gathering evidence for their standards.

Much has been happening behind the scenes of the 2024-2026 re-accreditation cycle. The process for how the self-study will take place at Queens College has been assembled into a document by the executive steering committee with contributions from the 70 community members serving on the working groups. This document, called the Self-Study Design, is available to read here. Note that the Self-Study Design’s content and organization follows a template specified by Middle States.

The Self-Study Design includes an overview of the college, our institutional priorities and intended outcomes of the self-study process, and other administrative aspects of the final self-study report. It also describes the organizational structure of the self-study and the research questions that the working groups have developed to investigate over the coming two years. Community members are encouraged to read the document and provide feedback through this web form, which will be used to revise the document in the coming weeks.

An important milestone for the accreditation cycle is the self-study preparation visit of our Middle States Vice President Liaison Ryan Hartnett. Dr. Hartnett will be visiting the Queens College campus on Monday, May 6 and will be meeting with President Frank H. Wu, Interim Provost Patricia Price, CUNY representative Anne Lopes, members of the steering committee, and members of the Queens College community.

This visit is an opportunity for Queens College to put its best foot forward and show that our self-study is organized and on track. Furthermore, it is a chance for Dr. Hartnett to meet with and provide information to a wide range of community members. We are excited to welcome Dr. Hartnett to campus next Monday.

As we wrap up Spring 2024, the working groups have been laying the foundation for the inquiry that will be taking place in Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. Each working group has finalized a collection of five or six research questions that help to determine how well Queens College is meeting Middle States’ standards of accreditation. The working groups have started developing lists of evidence that they would like to collect from the campus community to be able to answer their research questions thoughtfully and thoroughly.

Requests for evidence will be sent to departments and administrative units beginning in early Fall 2024. Some more straightforward data collection may happen over the summer. The types of evidence that are requested will touch all aspects of Queens College operations, so don’t be surprised when you see a request for information coming your way.

Stay up to date with the progress of the re-accreditation process on the Middle States 2024-2026 website.

Have a wonderful summer.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee

Patricia Price, Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Nathalia Holtzman, Associate Provost for Innovation and Student Success
Christopher Hanusa, Faculty Liaison for Evaluation and Assessment

Middle States Newsbreak

March 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for March 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-Accreditation process through this monthly newsletter.

What you need to know:

Working Groups have been formed and represent the voices of faculty and staff across campus. 

This month they have been developing the research questions that will be addressed in the Self-Study Report.

Fall 2024 Working Group meetings will occur during free hour on September 18, October 23, and November 20. Please do not schedule meetings affecting faculty and staff at those times.

In February 2024, President Wu kicked off the 2024-2026 re-accreditation cycle. Many people will contribute to this two-year process by providing information about the work we do at Queens College and how it helps us meet the seven Standards of Accreditation. The biggest contributions will be made by the approximately 80 people who make up the seven Working Groups and the Operational Excellence Team. These groups have been assembled to ensure representation of voices from all parts of campus. Participants include faculty from every Academic School, staff supporting all aspects of the student experience, and distinguished community members; students will be joining the Working Groups during the 2024-25 Academic Year as well.

Examination of Academic Foundation: Examine our strengths and weaknesses in the provision of a solid foundation for teaching, learning, and scholarship.
Finding Meaning in Our Motto: Reflect on our motto, Discimus ut Serviamos (We Learn so that We May Serve), and how it guides Queens College today.
Alignment and Cultivation of Resources: Explore opportunities to align and cultivate our resources¾programming, enrollment, human capital, budgetary, space allocation, among others¾to be responsive to a changing landscape.

These research questions will form the basis for the investigation, data collection, and synthesis that will be completed in Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. The timeline for these actions is shared on the Middle States 2024-2026 website. The campus community celebrates the work of these dedicated colleagues. We appreciate that they have volunteered for this essential service role and for the effort they are putting in to lay the foundation for a strong future for Queens College.

Because it is complicated to coordinate the schedules of 80+ people, three dates have been reserved in Fall 2024 for Working Group Meetings: September 18, October 23, and November 20. Department Chairs and Administrative Unit Heads are kindly requested to avoid scheduling meetings that affect faculty and staff on those dates during free hour (12:15-1:30pm). We thank you for helping to ensure that this essential effort of the Working Groups can proceed without conflicts.

Stay up to date with the progress of the re-accreditation process on the Middle States 2024-2026 website.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee

Middle States Newsbreak

February 2024

Welcome to the Middle States Newsbreak for February 2024. We’ll be sharing information about the Middle States re-Accreditation process through this monthly newsletter.

What you need to know:

President Wu has officially launched the 2024-2026 re-Accreditation process.

Accreditation is extremely important—it gives value to a QC degree and ensures QC can participate in the federal financial aid program.

You can follow our progress on the Middle States 2024-2026 website.

Queens College is an accredited institution of higher education. Our accreditor is the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). To maintain our institutional accreditation, MSCHE requires that Queens College meets rigorous and comprehensive standards for accreditation. To demonstrate that, we submit a college-wide Self-Study Report and build a corresponding evidence inventory. This happens every eight years. Queens College’s institutional accreditation was last re-affirmed by MSCHE in 2017. Our current re-accreditation cycle was launched on Monday, February 5, 2024 by President Frank H. Wu.

Over the next two years, a broad collection of faculty, staff, students, and community members will be developing the Self-Study Report to demonstrate how Queens College is meeting the standards for accreditation. This report and the substantiating evidence will be used by an external evaluation team during their site visit in Spring 2026 to determine their recommendation for continued accreditation.

MSCHE accreditation is extremely important to Queens College. It assures our students, their families, and the public of the high quality of a Queens College education. Institutional accreditation is also a requirement for the college to participate in the Department of Education’s Title IV federal financial aid program and for academic credits earned at our institution to be transferable to other accredited institutions of higher education.

As this multi-year process unfolds, you will receive regular updates by way of this newsletter. You can learn more about the timeline of this process and check in on its progress on our Middle States 2024-2026 website. This is your hub for all information related to the re-accreditation process. It features this informational video starring President Wu and Interim Provost Price that was produced and edited by the Queens College Office of Communications and Marketing.

All the best for the semester to come.

The Middle States Self-Study Executive Steering Committee