AQIP

AQIP @ Northwood: Developing ONE

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC, 800.621.7440; higherlearningcommission.org). accredits Northwood and we joined the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) in 2003.

HLC's The Handbook for Accreditation summarizes the program:

"The Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) infuses the principles and benefits of continuous improvement into the culture of colleges and universities by providing an alternative process through which an already-accredited institution can maintain its accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission. AQIP calls for institutions to self-assess, using a quality perspective. Analyzing an institution within a quality framework differs from typical approaches to self-study. Seizing significant improvement opportunities requires a systems perspective, not commonplace concentration on individual operational "silos." Self-assessments that narrowly review single offices, units, programs, or departments, even if they eventually survey everything in an institution, miss the chance to see the relations among things - links that may be missing, weak, or ineffective" (Chapter 6).

Northwood's AQIP efforts have included two broad phases:

  1. Beginning and implementation

    • Attend an AQIP Strategy Forum* - we sent a team in January 2004 to the Strategy Forum and the through prework and discussion at the Forum, the team identified three Action Projects on which the institution would focus. These included institutional strategy, employee development initiative, and student retention.
      • Please note: Northwood attended its second Strategy Forum in November, 2008. Key elements addressed included systems and processes associated with overall institutional improvement and human resources.
    • Identify and work on AQIP Action Projects* - our three current Action Projects identified include:
      • Assessing Student Learning Outcomes
      • Employee Development Initiative
      • Student Retention
        • Northwood submits progress on the projects each September to AQIP and receives feedback about the projects. Project information is available through the Director of Institutional Effectiveness office.
    • Conduct self-assessment and submit AQIP Systems Portfolio*
      • We submitted our Systems Portfolio in October, 2007. The portfolio is written against nine AQIP Categories and includes an organizational overview. A description of the categories and links to PDF files of Northwood's response to the category questions are found below.
    • Receive and address Systems Appraisal*
      • We received our Systems Appraisal - feedback on the Systems Portfolio from appraisers - in March of 2008 and used both the Systems Portfolio and Systems Appraisal in informing our strategic plan and aligned operating plans. We remain diligent in enhancing our identified strengths and in addressing our key and prioritized opportunities for improvement.

*For a description of these events/activities, please visit the AQIP web site.

2.  Infusion in the culture

    • At Northwood, AQIP is not a stand-alone project - it is  the way we lead and conduct business - a focus on processes, results, and ongoing improvement efforts.
    • Program Reviews, Curriculum Reviews, Performance Evaluations are all tied to AQIP principles.
    • Our strategic plan, Northwood Positioning Statement, 2008 and Beyond, maps to our AQIP self-assessment activities and thus our ongoing focus on strategy and operating plans ensures infusion of the AQIP spirit into our ethos.
    • We communicate regularly regarding AQIP-related activities. Examples include President Pretty's One Northwood (weekly message) and the AQIP in Action monthly newsletter.
    • Northwood is a member of Michigan's Total Quality Improvement Project (MiTQIP). The purpose of the MiTQIP is to foster the development and implementation of quality systems to improve student learning.

In preparation for the 2008 AQIP Strategy Forum, we were asked to address two overarching questions:

1. What are our lessons learned on the AQIP journey to this point?

AQIP Lessons Learned Through November 2008

  • AQIP is Everyone's Role

To be effective and transformative, the AQIP ethos must be embedded in the university's culture; not in a person, an office, or a program. AQIP and its focus on continuous assessment, improvement of processes, and use of results is better addressed through making AQIP everyone's responsibility and establishing it as a way of doing business. Structuring strategic and operating plans, ongoing internal and external messaging, plans for student learning endeavors, and Board interactions around AQIP principles have been effective to ensure connectedness and big-picture thinking.

  • The Focus on Process/Results Is a Journey

Improving a process or using results is not a one-time endeavor or even a destination. Rather, instilling a culture of articulating and questioning/improving processes is a daily occurrence - in individual interactions, functional areas, and cross-cultural teams. The same holds true for results. Taking a step back and keeping the end goal in mind, assessing the current measurement system's strengths and gaps, understanding what the system should address (input, output), and ensuring the system takes constant nurturing. Results are not produced via any quick actions. Celebrating wins on process improvements and results is key, as is being up front about gaps in the system. 

  • AQIP Learnings should be subsumed within Strategic and Operating Plans. 

An institution learns a great deal from AQIP Action Projects, self-assessment from the Systems Portfolio, external feedback from appraisers via the Systems Portfolio Appraisal, and the like. It is easy to take these in piecemeal fashion or work on them somewhat independently. However, our goal is to avoid suboptimization and distilling/aggregating the learnings. Feeding them into a planning process can be effective, especially if the focus on plan execution is broad and ongoing.

  • Systems Portfolio can and should be updated constantly. 

The importance of keeping processes updated and tracking results via the likes of dashboards/scorecards is exacerbated in organizations that tend to err on the side of being person-dependent rather than process dependent. This is true for small and large organizations, those that are dispersed like Northwood with varying Operating Units and locations, and those that have a potentially large proportion of employees who may be exiting the workforce in the coming years. Thus, the goal is to ensure processes are articulated and results are used; the subsidiary effect is that of keeping the Systems Portfolio de facto up-to-date. This is true for "big picture" processes/results and those that apply within Operating Units.

  • The goal is continuous adaptation and communication and transparency within such is key. 

Culture change begins with leadership and leadership comes from varying employees throughout the organization. Culture change includes constant, reinforcing communication and transparency. AQIP's value is allowing for Operating Units to be under the microscope constantly, focusing on accountability and the ability to constantly adapt to changing external and internal environments. Strengths must be applauded and opportunities/gaps should be viewed/managed as simply areas for action.
 

2. If we projected through November 2011, how would our AQIP efforts be viewed?

  • Current Understanding

    • Northwood's employees and stakeholders understand AQIP to be our way of ensuring continued improvement and excellence - pressing us for ongoing breakthrough improvements and innovations.
    • We do not espouse what AQIP's categories or principles are because they are part and parcel of our work within strategic execution, process improvement and overall ways of doing business.
    • We have solidified of key processes and collect and USE meaningful data/information regularly. The data and information create a line of sight from strategy to operating units/functional areas to individual work.
    • Our revised strategic plan addresses AQIP categories and principles, though not explicitly.
    • Overall, the term AQIP evokes the understanding of continued analysis, adaptation, updating, and improvement.

  • Effort/Involvement/Infrastructure

    • AQIP is branded as being part of everyone's role and as such, process and results foci are part of operating unit and functional area expectations.
    • Scorecards and dashboards create energy around effort and understanding of organizational performance.
    • Involvement comes in the way of ongoing academic program and curriculum reviews, operational reviews, and venues for knowledge sharing.
    • Infrastructure involves new hires (faculty and staff) possessing improvement-based practices, orientation focused on the culture of performance excellence, and employee performance reviews being tied to AQIP methodologies; it does not include an AQIP-designated office.

  • Overall Approach and Feelings About AQIP

    • We approach AQIP as a way we do things - not a program, not an accrediting hoop through which to jump, and not a mere compliance process.
    • AQIP causes us to have higher expectations of ourselves, ever-escalating expectations of being the best we can be, systematically benchmarking performance and driving toward global excellence as part of our Big, Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG).
    • Feelings toward "AQIP" are transferred to the One Northwood concept and our mission and BHAG. Thus, many folks will not recognize AQIP as the accrediting methods, but rather, our improvement philosophy.

Systems Portfolio

AQIP requires institutions to undergo a Systems Appraisal every four years. The appraisal provides expert, objective, third-party feedback on its strengths and opportunities for improvement and helps the institution determine the next targets for advancing quality through Action Projects and other plans. The Systems Appraisal is based on the Systems Portfolio. The Portfolio presents an overview of the institution and answers explicitly all of the questions under each of the nine AQIP Categories.

Links to PDF Files

Overview | Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Category 4 | Category 5 | Category 6 | Category 7 | Category 8 | Category 9 | Glossary | Index

AQIP Categories

Category 1 : Helping Students Learn

Category One identifies the shared purpose of all higher education organizations and is accordingly the pivot of any institutional analysis. This Category focuses on the teaching-learning processes within a formal instructional context, yet also addresses how the entire organization contributes to student learning and overall student development. It examines processes and systems related to: learning objectives, mission-driven student learning and development intellectual climate academic programs and courses.

Category 2 : Accomplishing Other Distinctive Objectives

Category Two addresses the processes that contribute to the achievement of the major objectives that complement student learning and fulfill other portions of the mission. Depending on the organization's character, the Category examines processes and systems related to: identification of other distinctive objectives, alignment of other distinctive objectives, faculty and staff roles, assessment and review of objectives, measures, and analysis of results.

Category 3 : Understanding Students' and Other Stakeholders' Needs

 Category Three examines how the organization works actively to understand student and other stakeholder needs. It examines processes and systems related to: Student and stakeholder identification, student and stakeholder requirements, analysis of student and stakeholder needs, relationship building with students and stakeholders, complaint collection, analysis, and resolution, determining satisfaction of students and stakeholders.

Category 4 : Valuing People

Category Four explores commitment to the development of faculty, staff, and administrators, since the efforts of all are required for success. It examines processes and systems related to: work and job environment, workforce needs, training initiatives, job competencies and characteristics, recruitment, hiring, and retention practices, work processes and activities, training and development, personnel evaluation, recognition, reward, compensation, and benefits, motivation factors, satisfaction, health and safety, and well-being.

Category 5 : Leading and Communicating

Category Five addresses how the leadership and communication structures, networks, and processes guide the organization in setting directions, making decisions, seeking future opportunities, and building and sustaining a learning environment. It examines processes and systems related to: leading activities, communicating activities, alignment of leadership system practices, institutional values and expectations, direction setting, future opportunity seeking, decision making, use of data, leadership development and sharing, and succession planning.

Category 6 : Supporting Institutional Operations

Category Six addresses the support processes that help provide an environment in which learning can thrive. It examines processes and systems related to: student support, administrative support, identification of needs, and contribution to student learning and accomplishing other distinctive objectives, day-to-day operations, and use of data.

Category 7 : Measuring Effectiveness

Category Seven examines how the organization collects, analyzes, and uses information to manage itself and to drive performance improvement. It examines processes and systems related to: collection, storage, management, and use of information and data at the institutional and departmental/unit levels.

Category 8 : Planning Continuous Improvement

Category Eight examines the planning processes and how strategies and action plans are helping achieve the mission and vision. It examines processes and systems related to: institutional vision, planning strategies and action plans, coordination and alignment of strategies and action plans, measures and performance projections, resource needs, faculty, staff, and administrator capabilities.

Category 9 : Building Collaborative Relationships

Category Nine examines the organization's relationships-current and potential-to analyze how they contribute to accomplishing the mission. It examines processes and systems related to: identification of key internal and external collaborative relationships, alignment of key collaborative relationships, relationship creation, prioritization, and building, and needs identification.

Innovation Exchange

AQIP, through its mission, is obligated to helping participating quality-focused colleges and universities share the successful innovations, initiatives, and improvements that they have developed with each other - and with the higher education community, nationally and internationally. The achievements of AQIP institutions committed to continuous improvement represent the "best of the best" in higher education, and sharing these innovative practices celebrates the outstanding colleges and universities responsible for them while stimulating overall improvement in the quality of higher education. Based on self-assessment, feedback, and discussion among Dean's Council and the Officer Team, Northwood has submitted the following Innovation Showcases (descriptions can be found at AQIP's Innovation Exchange pages.)

  • Northwood Strategic Planning Process
  • Program Review Process
  • Excel Program

Contact Information
Northwood University
Stacy Smith, Director of Institutional Effectiveness
4000 Whiting Drive
Midland, MI 48640

Contact Information
Northwood University
800.457.7878