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I want to start with a shout out to my wife, who at this moment is ensuring that I have a house to go home to by preventing my 10-year old son from accidentally burning it down while he’s on spring break (note: she graciously took on this responsibility because her place of work ALSO is on spring break right now, whereas I am participating in the “going to meetings” version of running a marathon). With that duly noted, here’s what’s new:
NWCCU News & Notes
Of all the things I get asked about most often, and that simultaneously inspire the highest levels of interest and curiosity, the NWCCU is not one of them. Known in full as the Northwest Commission on Colleges & Universities, the NWCCU is our accrediting body, and although it doesn’t generate the most excitement among campus constituents, it IS a part of some of our most interesting – and important – endeavors. To wit:
- You probably haven’t heard, but now that the Board of Regents has approved our request to rename the institution as “Nevada State University,” we are undergoing the process to garner approval from the NWCCU. I’ve already filled out the first few lines of the proposal (the contact information, but still) and I have a conversation with our accreditation liaison this week to discuss the details.
- Our proposal to launch an Education Specialist (Ed.S.) degree in School Psychology has been submitted to the NWCCU. It’s a rather “involved” proposal, given that the commission sees this as a “new degree level” for the college – one resting above a master’s and below a doctorate – but we are off and running with the last leg of the approval process.
Tales of Transfer
As noted previously, transfer students are a key enrollment driver for the college, and their success is an integral part of our institutional purpose. Our relationship with the College of Southern Nevada is a critical part of this effort, and to strengthen that partnership we are working on a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CSN leadership. This MOU defines key aspects of this partnership (e.g., articulation agreements, data sharing, collaborative efforts) and will be the object of discussion when I meet with CSN leaders on Wednesday of this week. It's scheduled for four hours (four!), so I suspect and hope that we’ll make a lot of progress (otherwise great sadness will ensue).
Prior Learning Assessment
I’ve been engaged in a few very preliminary conversations about Prior Learning Assessment (and its companion, Credit for Prior Learning). I couldn’t advise on the best path forward at this point, but it’s a question we want to examine given that 1) there’s a very large number of adults out there who have some college experience and no degree or credential (39 million, but one estimation) and 2) we want to know more about the emerging best practices in this area.
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