Chair's Corner
By: Olive M. Kimball, NAACLS: Clinical Laboratory Sciences; Chair,ASPA Board of Directors

A Not-So-Secret Special Time

“The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart.”

-H. W. Longfellow

There is much truth in Longfellow’s comment about the secret anniversaries of the heart, for many personal special times are celebrated and cherished in that way. However, in the case of ASPA’s 10th year, we will certainly not keep it only in our hearts. We are going public and celebrating in a very special way. Invitations for the festivities in September have already gone out and the highlights of the meeting have been identified.

The ASPA Board is committed to serving members and to fostering strong but evolving initiatives. Shrinking budgets and escalating responsibilities make it more difficult for members and colleagues to take time off. Therefore, careful planning of programming activities is essential and thoughtful member input is equally so.

After the Spring meeting in April the Board met by teleconference and again face-to-face to plan for additional member input at the fall meeting. An exciting and special Sunday morning session for members and non-members alike has been planned in order to engage in framing an ASPA vision for the next decade.

Beginning at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning we will ask questions and solicit answers.

1. What accomplishments of the association have been the most significant and which provide the most secure foundation for future accomplishments?
2. What should ASPA be in 2013? How should it be different from ASPA in 2003?

• Review our Past
• Celebrate our 10th Year
• Construct our Future

Legal Issues in Accreditation – Navigating the Minefields

The topic for the Fall 2003 ASPA Professional Development session will be presented as an interactive, practical program with guest speaker Lucien "Skip" Capone, University Counsel at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.  Skip, a former public member of CACREP: Counseling, is familiar with accreditation issues from both the accreditors' and institutions' perspectives.

  The session will help us identify legal mine fields and offer tips on how to avoid problems and maintain quality in our agencies' accreditation processes.  Planned topics include an "Overview of Legal Concerns for Accreditors," Sticky Wickets I and II, and a "throw in everything but the kitchen sink" case study. The Monday afternoon - Tuesday morning program has been designed to address topics and concerns raised by ASPA members responding to the committee’s survey.

It’s not to late to contact a member of the committee to suggest a legal issue you’d like to see addressed in this session.

Members of the Fall Professional Development sub-committee are: Chair, Ron Leighton, ASLA: Landscape Architecture; Jenny Gunderman, CACREP: Counseling; Mary Jane Harris, CAPTE: Physical Therapy; DeLon Howell, NAAB: Architecture.  Please note that the session is scheduled to adjourn at noon on Tuesday, September 9.

Fall 2003 Preview & Registration Forms

is an overview schedule for ASPA’s Fall 2003 meeting to be held starting at 10am Sunday and ending at noon on Tuesday, September 7-9, in Scottsdale, AZ. Member and non-member registration forms are enclosed and have also been posted to the MEETINGS section of the ASPA web site: www.aspa-usa.org.

If you need another copy of the schedule, please send an e-mail to Diana at the ASPA Management Office. Her address is: ASPAes@AOL.com.

Spring 2004: HR Issues for Accreditors

Human Resource issues affect every organization, including accrediting bodies. The Spring 2004 Professional Development committee is tentatively planning to develop the Spring 2004 program around those HR issues faced by all accreditors. Some of the topics under discussion include:

• How to negotiate contracts
• How to negotiate salary
• How and when evaluations should be used for:
  • Agency employees
  • Decision-makers
• How to motivate employees
• How to hire and retain good employees
• How to identify problem employees, and what to do about them

The committee has contacted the Society for Human Resource Management, Alexandria, VA regarding a facilitator for the session. If you have suggestions about other HR topics you’d like to see incorporated into the program, please contact any member of the Spring Professional Development committee: Susan Sweet, Lisa Zuber, and

Gretchen Warner. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago next spring.

Highlights: Spring 2003 Meeting
by Cynthia A. Davenport

• JRCNMT: Nuclear Medicine Technology submitted a membership application which was reviewed by the ASPA Membership Committee prior to the Spring 2003 ASPA meeting. The committee forwarded a positive recommendation to the ASPA Board of Directors and JRCNMT was accepted into membership by the Board. Contact information has been added to the MEMBER section of the ASPA web site. Also see: www.jrcnmt.org.
• “Ensuring Consistency Without Being Rigid” was a full day facilitated professional development program planned by ASPA’s Professional Development Committee. The program addressed accreditation consistency from three perspectives: Staff; Reviewers / Evaluators; and Decision-makers. Katy E. Marre, Associate Vice President for Graduate Studies and Research, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio served as program facilitator. Her remarks, “Consistency in Accrediting Team Recommendations” have been posted to the RESOURCES section of the ASPA web site: www.aspa-usa.org/resources/marre.html. I encourage you to review the paper and share your observations or comments with Dr. Marre at: marre@udayton.edu.
• Nils Hasselmo, president, AAU: The Association of American Universities, spoke on “Accreditation and Accountability: the Roles of Accreditors and Universities.” ASPA’s invitation was issued following an AAU invitation to ASPA’s Executive Director to meet with a small group of AAU provosts / chief academic officers with special interest in accreditation. These two sessions started an important conversation that both ASPA and AAU intend to pursue.
• Judith Eaton, president, CHEA: The Council for Higher Education Accreditation, presented a revised draft document: Principles for Student Learning Outcomes in Accreditation: Evidence and Judgments. The draft was revised following comments received at CHEA’s January 2003 conference and was circulated prior to the ASPA meeting. Copies of the statement are available from the CHEA office.
  • “Getting to Know Robert, Or, Finding Yourself in Meetings that are Positive and Productive” was a refresher session on parliamentary procedure. Board member, Paul Gaston, provost, Kent State University, presented a session that was both informative and entertaining. The root values reflected by Robert are courtesy, clarity and common sense. Congratulations to those of you who won prizes for the most correct answers on his quiz.
  • Accreditors at the spring meeting expressed concern about web sites and for-profit organizations that purport to maintain lists of “the best” accredited programs in a given field or discipline. Following the meeting, template language was developed and circulated by ASPA to all member accreditors to review and, if appropriate for their own circumstances, add to their web sites. In addition, ASPA added a note to its web site stating that: “each [ASPA] member accreditor maintains the only official list or directory of programs accredited by that agency. Schools, programs, degrees or other information listed on the accreditor's web site (or published in hard copy) is included only after satisfactory completion of that agency's accreditation process. The members of ASPA are not responsible for the accuracy or timeliness of any accredited status representations on any website(s) other than their own. ASPA is not responsible for the accuracy or timeliness of any accredited status representation on the individual member web sites.”

Do you speak “Acronym”?

Many fields have their own language, which often includes an “Alphabet Soup” of letters that represent a common short-hand for ideas or names of organizations important to the field. The world of accreditation is no different. Over the years, people – especially those new to ASPA – have mentioned how handy it would be to have a searchable glossary of accreditation acronyms. The beginnings of what we hope will be a user-friendly glossary will be added to the ASPA website over the next months. If you have certain accreditation-related acronyms that you’ve looked up repeatedly in order to be absolutely sure what they stand for, please nominate them for inclusion in the ASPA glossary.

Save the Dates: March 28-30, 2004

The DoubleTree Guest Suites, Chicago, will be the site of ASPA’s Spring 2004 meeting. The meeting will be held on Sunday - Tuesday, March 28-30. The DoubleTree Guest Suites is located at 198 E. Delaware Place, just east of North Michigan Avenue and near the John Hancock Center. ASPA was able to negotiate a single / double sleeping room rate of $109 plus tax which is good two days before and after the meeting if the hotel has rooms available.

This meeting will be an important next step in planning ASPA’s future. Additional information will be mailed and posted to the MEETINGS section of the ASPA web site during January 2004. Information about the hotel is available at www.doubletree.com. Enter Chicago, IL and then select: Doubletree Guest Suites Chicago-Downtown. The hotel’s pool and fitness center are available to hotel guests at no charge.

Membership Information

The following information is included in the MEMBERSHIP INFO section of the ASPA web site:

• Membership Eligibility Criteria
• Definitions: Specialized & Professional
• ASPA Member Code of Good Practice
• Application Process
• Definition: Member in Good Standing
• Policy: Reinstatement of Lapsed Membership
• Membership Procedures
• Form: Membership Application Check List (pdf format)
• Form: Code of Good Practice Endorsement (pdf format)

How to Contact ASPA:

Cynthia A. Davenport
Executive Director, ASPA
1020 W. Byron Street; Ste 8G
Chicago, IL 60613-2987
Phone: (773) 525-2160
Fax: (773) 525-2162
E-mail: aspa@aspa-usa.org
Web: www.aspa-usa.org

Diana Castaneda
ASPA Management Office
20 North Wacker Drive, Suite 2262
Chicago, IL 60606
Phone: (312) 630-9660
Fax: (312) 630-9882
E-mail: aspaes@aol.com

ASPA News is not copyrighted. With a courtesy acknowledgement to ASPA, it may be reproduced in whole or in part in the interest of education or good accreditation practice. Current and back issues are posted to the ASPA web site. A few additional copies may be available upon request.

ASPA News is Edited/Produced in January and July
by: Cynthia A. Davenport
and Diana Castaneda