“Student success is our reason for being”: CHEA’s New National Quality Dialogue – ACUE Community
ACUE sat down with Judith Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) to discuss the launch of their “National Quality Dialogue.” This effort includes reaching out to colleagues and faculty organizations to explore, reassess, and understand what quality in higher education looks like today and in the future. In this Q&A, Eaton shares her vision for the impact of this dialogue and elaborates on the role accreditation efforts plays in strengthening quality.
CHEA recently launched a major national conversation about quality in higher education. What insights are you hoping to learn and advance?
Our “National Quality Dialogue” is focusing on the future of academic quality in higher education. As part of this effort, we’ll be reaching out to academic colleagues and faculty organizations via Dialogue meetings, interviews and publications. We want to explore how the concept of quality may be changing, what tools we’ll all need for quality in the future, and how we build greater public confidence in our quality. While the longstanding commitments to education for intellectual development, career readiness, and civic engagement remain central to quality, we’re all aware of emerging challenges to current norms about social justice, equity, and free speech. It’s time to take a fresh look at quality in light of both the challenges and our longstanding commitments.