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The New England Commission for Higher Education (NECHE) is a voluntary, non-governmental membership association that promotes educational excellence and quality assurance to its member institutions. While it is voluntary, there are many benefits to an institution being accredited, including affirming to the public and prospective families the quality of education; making the transfer of academic credit across institutions easier; assuring the financial stability of the institution; and allowing students to qualify for federal financial aid and federal and state grants. 

As part of UNH and PSU’s NECHE accreditation, there are periodic reviews which include an extensive 10-year review that involves a team of faculty and administrators from peer institutions visiting Plymouth State University (PSU) and the University of New Hampshire (UNH) in the fall of 2023. In preparation for this visit, both universities must submit self-study reports to reaffirm our commitment to NECHE’s nine quality standards covering institutional resources, governance, educational effectiveness, transparency, and public disclosure. 

The Enterprise Technology & Services’ Institutional Research and Assessment (IR&A) team is helping to prepare and finalize the respective self-studies. IR&A began this work in Fall 2021 and will continue through Fall 2023. This effort includes (but is not limited to) providing essential data needed for the self-study narrative and required data forms; soliciting feedback from the communities via community forums, surveys, and narrative reviews; co-leading the self-study steering committee; working with constituents across the Â̾ÞÈËÊÓƵ system to collect and store relevant data/evidence; ensuring accurate and required information/representation on our websites (transparency and public disclosure); building SharePoint/Teams sites and using M365 to automate processes for efficient data collection. Additionally, IR&A staff are key leaders in the logistical planning and preparations for the site visits in Fall 2023. IR&A’s continuous collaboration with academic affairs and stakeholders across both campuses (including others within ET&S) for this project has developed closer relationships and has given departments and administration access to relevant data to inform continuous improvement (and articulate what those improvements are). 

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