Early Bird

HLC assurance argument available for review, comments

The Higher Learning Commission team will visit MSU Denver on April 26-27 and will use the document as a tool in crafting its review of the University.

By Shaun Schafer, Ph.D.

March 8, 2021

A draft of the University’s assurance argument for the Higher Learning Commission, Metropolitan State University of Denver’s accrediting agency, is available for review and comments from faculty, staff and students.

As a part of the standard pathway of accreditation, the University prepares a document that answers questions from the HLC about subjects such as ethics, learning assessment and financial planning. The HLC team that will be visiting MSU Denver on April 26-27 uses this document as one of the tools in crafting its review of the University. The most recent review was in 2017, and the next major review is scheduled for 2027.

Part of preparing the University community for the review team’s visit is making sure that as many people at MSU Denver as possible are aware of the responses to the HLC’s questions. It also strengthens the assurance argument when members of the community comment.

To encourage commentary, a draft of the assurance argument, along with a description of the approximately 80 questions asked by the HLC, has been placed on a SharePoint site. Anyone with an @msudenver.edu email address can view the assurance argument, which is titled “2021 Assurance Argument.”

Comments on the draft, including suggested edits, can be made by emailing Shaun Schafer at sschafe5@msudenver.edu and Paul Hitchcock at hitchcoc@msudenver.edu. Every effort will be made to update the assurance document between now and March 17. The final version of the assurance argument is due to the commission by March 22.

MSU Denver is scheduled to receive a final report from the peer-review team in early June. Following that report, the plan is to use the SharePoint site to continue communicating with the University community about issues related to university accreditation.