Accreditation Follow-Up
A message from: Robert Mack, Vice Provost for Student Success and Engagement
Maggie Koozer, Senior Vice Provost for Curriculum, Learning, and Academic Affairs
Michael Schober, Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
Dear Students,
We are writing today to follow up on the message to students that Vice Provost Mack sent on December 5 about The New School’s accreditation. As he wrote, our accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, issued a Non-Compliance Warning to the university regarding our work in program assessment. We want to reassure you that this is a routine step and does not mean that our accreditation is currently at risk.
Institutional accreditation ensures consistent quality across different universities. Each university accredited by Middle States does a self evaluation every eight years and must demonstrate that it meets seven standards of quality. The New School’s warning was received in response to that self evaluation.
We want to be very clear:
- A warning does not affect faculty, staff, current or prospective students in their academic journeys at The New School’s undergraduate and graduate schools.
- A warning does not affect the degrees already earned by New School alumni.
- A warning does not mean that the university is losing its accreditation. It is a routine, procedural step that allows us to provide more information about our assessment of program success.
This warning simply means that staff, working closely with faculty, must show more evidence that The New School is successfully assessing how students learn through our programs and majors. We have until August 2025 to do this and will continue to work over the Spring semester to meet all the necessary requirements.
We encourage you to share this message with your parents, guardians, or other support community members as you see fit.
We hope you have a restful Winter Break and look forward to seeing you on campus in January!