Accreditation Process

• NEASC Final Letter (PDF)
• Response to Visiting Team Report (PDF)
• Visiting Team Report (PDF)
• Self Study for Accreditation
  

Self Study Process

• Background
• Three Steps in the Review
• Assessment of Student Learning
• Committee Members
• Important Dates
• Statement of Mission and Purposes
• NEASC Standards Document




• President's Office
• Williams home

Williams College
Self-Study for Accreditation

Appendix: Groups Involved in Planning and Evaluation

1. Board of Trustees. Described in Organization and Governance section.
   
   
2. President and Senior Staff. Described in Planning and Evaluation and Organization and Governance sections.
   
   
3. The Faculty. It must approve all changes in the curriculum, including new programs and new courses, degree requirements, and requirements in majors and concentrations. Senior administrators also give reports in faculty meetings on many other matters, and the discussion in those meetings is an important part of planning and evaluation at Williams. In addition, faculty in departments and programs necessarily engage in evaluation and both short-term and long-term planning of their own operations, especially in making decisions on faculty recruitment, curriculum, and budgets.
   
   
4. Committee on Educational Policy (CEP). It brings to the faculty evaluations of the curriculum and proposals for changes to it, functions as the clearinghouse for new proposals, and solicits systematically curricular plans and ideas from departments, programs, and individual faculty members and students. It conducts formal internal reviews of programs offering concentrations. It also reviews academic initiatives funded by grants or discretionary funds. Members are seven faculty members (six elected by the faculty and one appointed by the President with the advice of the Faculty Steering Committee), six students elected by the student body, and four academic administrators (President, Dean of the Faculty, Dean of the College, and Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Registrar). A faculty member is the chair.
   
   
5. Committee on Priorities and Resources (CPR). It meets very frequently to review spending priorities, including both long-term priorities such as capital projects and short-term priorities in operations. Members are three Senior Staff members (Provost, Vice President for Operations, and Vice President for Alumni Relations and Development), four faculty members, three students, and other administrators (Associate Provost, Budget Director, and Associate Vice President for Facilities and Auxiliary Services). A faculty member is the chair.
   
   
6. Committee on Appointments and Promotions (CAP). It considers all major faculty personnel decisions from authorization of positions and offers to candidates to promotion and tenure. It helps set policies on the size and faculty composition of departments and programs. It works with the Dean of the Faculty in arranging external reviews of departments and programs. Members are the President, Dean of the Faculty, Provost, and three full professors elected by the faculty. It has no formal chair.
   
   
7. Advisory Group on Admission and Financial Aid (AGAFA). It advises the Provost on the planning and evaluation of admission and financial aid policies and reviews on a regular basis data on admissions, financial aid, and academic performance and extracurricular activities of students, to ensure the College enrolls and retains a talented and diverse student body. It also evaluates the experiences students have while enrolled to insure access to all opportunities regardless of economic or social differences. Members are the Provost, Vice President for Strategic Planning and Institutional Diversity, Vice President for Alumni Relations and Development, Director of Admission, Director of Financial Aid, Director of Institutional Research, other staff members, and four faculty members appointed by the Provost with the advice of the Faculty Steering Committee. The Provost is the chair.
   
   
8. Committee on Undergraduate Life (CUL). It evaluates and plans residential and co-curricular opportunities. Members are faculty, students, and student life administrators. A faculty member is the chair.
   
   
9. Science Executive Committee. It is the representative body that discusses issues of policy and planning that concern Division III and Psychology faculty. It makes recommendations to the Senior Staff, the CAP, and other College committees, and it plans and evaluates programs and resources in areas of specific interest. It oversees the allocation of space in the Science Center. Members are the Director of the Science Center (a faculty member), Coordinator of Science Facilities (a staff member), chairs of the science departments (including Psychology), the Division III member of the CAP, two non-tenured faculty members in the sciences, Science Librarian, Associate Provost, and Director of Instructional Technology. The Director of the Science Center is the chair.
   
   
10. Almost every student-faculty committee gets involved in planning and evaluation in one way or another. Some notable examples are the committees on faculty compensation, information technology, Library, and community and diversity. All but the first of these include students. In addition, there are ad hoc committees such as the one that will participate in the evaluation of the Williams in New York program this year.
    
    

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