Programmatic Accreditations

Accreditation is highly valued at Texas State University. The university as a whole is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges. In addition, many academic and service units hold programmatic accreditation or certification from specialized or professional agencies, especially those recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). The university supports the many and varied accreditation and/or certification processes that apply to its academic units or specialized service providers who are seeking to gain or maintain recognition from specialized or professional agencies. This support is focused through the associate vice president of Institutional Effectiveness.

All accreditation is valued by Texas State not only as evidence of integrity and quality but also as a stimulus to improvement in academic program delivery, student learning, service delivery, and overall achievement. For that reason, Institutional Effectiveness maintains a system of outcomes assessment and also of internal Academic Program Reviews (APR’s) even for those units who do not have a source for external accreditation. APR’s are dealt with elsewhere in this website.

For units that are externally accredited or certified, the Academic Program Review process is dovetailed as seamlessly as possible with the external process to eliminate duplicated effort. The purpose of this website is to provide support, advice, data, and information to units undergoing external accreditation.

Though external accreditation processes vary considerably in timelines and requirements, there are some common elements and those are what frame the structure of the Process section. Included also is an Accreditation and Certifications List that displays all accredited units with their accrediting organization, degree level, date of most recent accreditation/certification, and scheduled year for their next accreditation/certification.