Middle States Reaccreditation and Special Report

July 10, 2008

Members of the Rutgers Community:

I am pleased to inform you that we have received word from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education that Rutgers has earned reaccreditation for the next ten years.

This official confirmation follows the highly complimentary evaluation report we received from the site visit team, which stated, “The Team was impressed by the overall quality of Rutgers,” and “Rutgers has focused on priorities in the face of substantial budgetary challenges.” As I have mentioned in prior communications, accreditation is both essential to our success and required for gaining research grants and student aid, so this is very good news for Rutgers.

During reaccreditation, Rutgers conducted an institutional self-study focused on undergraduate education and touching on important areas such as assessment of learning outcomes. We intend to take full advantage of this work by acting on the findings and recommendations set forth in the self-study report in the coming years. You will soon receive by email a special report that puts our reaccreditation in a national context and describes some of the next steps that Rutgers will be taking to maximize the benefits of the self-study and further enhance the undergraduate experience.

All those who have contributed to the Middle States process over the past two years deserve our community’s thanks and admiration for a job exceedingly well done.

Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey