1. Achieving AACSB Accreditation: Pathway to High Quality Business Education and International Legitimacy by
Prof. Dr. Zafar U. Ahmed
BBA (New York), MBA (Texas), Ph.D., (Texas)
President and CEO
Academy for Global Business Advancement
Fort Worth, Texas, USA

2. My Accreditation Background
Regional accreditation reports on three different continents.
AACSB Peer Review Team member
AACSB accreditation mentor
AACSB accredited program

3. Accreditation
What is accreditation? “Accreditation is a voluntary, non-governmental process that includes an external review of a school’s ability to provide quality programs.”
Process of continuous improvement.
Talk about institutional accreditation and specialized accreditation.

4. Business School Accreditation
AACSB – Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business
EQUIS – European Quality Improvement System
ACBSP – Accreditation Counsel for Business Schools and Programs
AMBA – Association of MBAs

5. Why Accreditation?
95% of accredited schools report that AACSB accreditation improves quality.
Curriculum
Program design
Delivery methods
Recruiting high quality faculty and students (91%)
Opening the door to international partnership (83%)
Enhancing faculty morale (96%)
Thought leadership
91% leads to higher quality faculty and students
83% partnerships
96% faculty morale booster – badge of honor
AACSB conferences and publications help keep us up to speed on what is happening in the field.

6. International Accreditation Signals Legitimacy
Why Accreditation?
Talk about the GMAT, ISO, and other types of standards. AACSB and other accreditations do the same thing.
We will speak about the standards represented by AACSB presently.
Scotland Partnership
International Accreditation Signals Legitimacy

7. How Do We Do It? Submit an Eligibility Application
Enter the Pre-Accreditation Process
Initial Accreditation
Maintenance of Accreditation

8. Eligibility Core Values and Guiding Principles Ethics
Collegiate Environment
Commitment to Corporate and Social Responsibility
A – Ethics: The School must encourage and support ethical behavior by students, faculty, administrators, and professional staff. - Policies in place addressing legal and ethical behavior including how breaches are addressed.
B – Collegiate Environment: The school maintains a collegiate environment in which students, faculty, administrators, professional staff, and practitioners interact and collaborate in support of learning, scholarship, and community engagement - 1) requires learning and scholarship of university caliber, 2) interaction and engagement between students, faculty, administrators, professional staff, and practitioners, 3) faculty involvement in governance.
C – Commitment to Corporate and Social Responsibility: The school must demonstrate a commitment to address, engage, and respond to current and emerging corporate social responsibility issues through its policies, procedures, curricula, research and/or outreach activities. - 1) Diversity as culturally embedded, 2) Sustainable development and other CSR issue, 3) Cultural differences
*Talk about diversity in terms of BYU, Zayed University, and Utah Valley University

9. Eligibility Become a member of AACSB
Offer degree-granting programs in business or management
Programs must be supported by continuing resources
Programs must ensure oversight and accountability
Scoping programs to be included
Scoping 25% of a bachelor’s degree courses in business and 50% at master’s level
Accreditation by other bodies may allow exclusion, specialized degree programs such as hotel and restaurant management, degrees offered on a separate or independent campus – it is a question of branding, external market perception, financial relationships, and autonomy

10. Pre-Accreditation A process of assessment and feedback by: AACSB staff
Initial Accreditation Committee (IAC) chair
Assigned a mentor
Pre-accreditation committee liaison
Create a standards alignment plan to align with AACSB accreditation standards (up to 2 years) with the mentor’s assistance.
Mentor reviews plan and makes a report to the Pre-Accreditation Committee and the Initial Accreditation Committee
IAC reviews plan (objectives, progress checkpoints, measurements of progress, accountability, specific, quantifiable, realistic, comprehensive)
Annual progress reports from school and mentor reviewed by the IAC
Mentor comes – helps to understand standards and processes. Mentor leaves – university team works on standards alignment plan. This is really a strategic plan for the school which also discusses gaps in where the school wants to be.

11. Initial Accreditation
Once Standards Alignment Plan has been implemented, team applies to start the initial accreditation process.
Peer review team appointed
Mentor meets with peer review team chair
Self-evaluation report is sent to peer review team by the university
Chair send letter to IAC recommending visit or no visit
Peer review takes place
Peer review report submitted to IAC
Board ratifies and sends letter to applicant

12. Peer Review Team Visit Three deans from accredited schools.
Two day visit
Meet with all stakeholders including students, faculty, staff, industry representatives, alumni
Seeking to substantiate report content
Make a judgment and present results to dean and university president before departing

13. AACSB Philosophy Innovation Impact Engagement
Innovation – Focused on the quality of education and supporting functions. Supports demanding but realistic thresholds while challenging b-schools to innovate through a process of continuous improvement. Striking a balance between quality and consistency, on the one hand, and creativity and experimentation on the other.
Impact – We live in an era of increasing accountability. We are accountable for demonstrating student learning and the impact of our intellectual contributions/scholarship on business theory, teaching, and practice. We should also demonstrate that we make a difference in business and society.
Engagement – We need both academic and professional engagement. Left up to the mission of the school but consistent with an acceptable definition of quality. Shows up in the people hired (new balance in initial qualification) and their ongoing activities to remain qualified.

14. Standards Strategic Management and Innovation
Participants – Students, Faculty, and Professional Staff
Learning and Teaching
Academic and Professional Engagement
Emphasize that these standards are meant to build enduring but cutting edge quality.

15. Strategic Management and Innovation
Standard 1: Mission, Impact and Innovation
Standard 2: Intellectual Contributions, Impact, and Alignment with Mission
Standard 3: Financial Strategies and Allocation of Resources
These are the standards by which the school will be evaluated in the initial accreditation

16. Participants
Standard 4: Student Admissions, Progression and Career Development
Standard 5: Faculty Sufficiency and Deployment
Standard 6: Faculty Management and Support
Standard 7: Professional Staff Sufficiency and Support

17. Learning and Teaching
Standard 8: Curricula Management and Assurance of Learning
Standard 9: Curriculum Content
Standard 10: Student-Faculty Interactions
Standard 11: Degree Program Educational Level, Structure, and Equivalence
Standard 12: Teaching Effectiveness
Evaluate progress, early identification on retention, intervention, separate help programs
Faculty understand expectations of time investments in coursework – review of syllabi, lecture notes, etc..

18. Academic & Professional Engagement
Standard 13: Student Academic and Professional Engagement
Standard 14: Executive Education
Standard 15: Faculty Qualifications and Engagement
15 90% SA, SP, PA, or IP with at least 40% AQ and 60% SA, PA, or SP

19. Maintenance of Accreditation
Accreditation is an ongoing process of continuous improvement
5-year review
Largely the same steps as Initial Accreditation
Greater focus on consultation by peer review team

20. Keys to AACSB Accreditation
Mission Driven Process
Continuous Improvement
Strategic Planning
Faculty Qualifications
Sufficiency of Faculty
Assurance of Learning Outcomes
Stakeholder Involvement
Impact

21. Keys: Mission
Through exceptional business education, we help students become successful professionals who build our community.
The key here is that AACSB’s evaluation of your school depends on your mission. While all schools must provide some kind of scholarship, a heavy research school will be evaluated differently than a more teaching focused school.
We are meant to be doing community outreach. How do we do this? How do we show that we are doing this? (Doing Business with China, tracking student engagement projects, work of our boards, participation on external boards, market research center…
Again, the key is that we are checking our performance against our mission in an effort to make sure we are delivering what we promise and improving how we deliver on those promises.
By the new standards, this mission is probably too generic in a way. There is a desire to to differentiate much more here.

22. Core Themes
Delta: Maximize student improvement through engaged learning.
Placement: Help students obtain and succeed in careers aligned with their goals.
Scholarship with Impact: Produce and promote research that improves business education and practice.
Reach: Serve as many people in our community as we can.

23. Keys: Continuous Improvement
The key to obtaining AACSB accreditation is to demonstrate that the school is engaged in a continuous process of self-examination that leads to improvement on relevant outcomes.
Set this up as a lens by which we will explore all facets of accreditation.
Writing lab example

24. Keys: Strategic Planning
Ongoing process
Clearly tied to mission
Involves major stakeholders
Faculty
Staff
Students
External constituencies
Specific

25. Sample Strategic Objectives
Scholarship: Produce and promote research that improves business education and practice.
Measures
Number of Peer reviewed publications: _______
Number of students researching with faculty: _______
Number of students published: _______
Number of professionals contacted: _______
Number of practitioner publications: _______
Number of organizations involved in research: _______
Number of faculty externships: _______
Dollars raised for endowment: _______
Highlight how these tie to the mission.

26. Keys: Faculty Qualifications
Others are less than 10%
SA>40%
SA+PA+SP>60

27. Keys: Faculty Sufficiency
Participating faculty
Supporting faculty
75% of faculty must be participating
Curriculum development, course development, course delivery, academic assistance, academic advising, career advising, committee service, assessment of learning, clubs, etc…
Recognizes that there exists a body of work that is to be carried out that goes beyond the classroom. A real key here is the interaction between students and faculty and the interaction between faculty to create a coherent approach. This cannot be done by a small group. It requires the vast majority of the faculty to be involved.

28. Keys: Assurance of Learning
Providing evidence that students are learning what you say they are learning
Direct vs indirect measures
Closing the loop
This is the area that probably gives schools the greatest challenge.
Direct vs indirect – measuring the learning outcome itself vs asking someone how well they learned it. Both are acceptable but you must have direct measures.
Writing Initiative

29. Our Essential Learning Outcomes
Graduates will have a functional and integrated knowledge of basic general business concepts and disciplines.
Graduates will be able to express their knowledge and ideas appropriately in writing and through verbal presentation.
Graduates will be able to demonstrate effectiveness in the use of quantitative business tools.
Graduates will be able to utilize appropriate procedures, frameworks, models, and experience to gain knowledge, solve problems, and make appropriate decisions based on various informational sources.
Talk about how we measure the first one.
We were coming up short.
Tell them how we are closing the loop.
Absolute level of student performance does not matter as much as direction – closing the loop.

30. Key: Stakeholders
Accreditation is not a process that resides in the dean’s office. It is about creating a process and culture of continuous improvement that involves all key stakeholders in improving student learning outcomes and the overall quality of the school.

31. Key: Impact Mission alignment Academic Instructional
Practice/community
Student Success
I am calling this a key as it is one of three pillars and new

32. What questions do you have? How may I be of help to you?
AACSB Accreditation
What questions do you have? How may I be of help to you?