Please join me and members of our UMKC campus community for our upcoming Mock Open Forums on Thursday, September 26 and Friday, September 27 as part of our Reaccreditation Process with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC).

UMKC needs your engagement in this process.

This fall, UMKC will be participating in HLC’s decennial review. This is part of our commitment to building and maintaining public trust and promoting best practices in higher education. The UMKC site visit with our external peer review team has been scheduled for Monday, December 2 and Tuesday, December 3. Please hold these important dates on your calendar.

Central to the December site visit and the HLC review processes are a series of open forums focused on HLC’s core criteria. The review will focus on student learning; education as a public purpose; promoting a culture of continuous improvement; encouraging transparency and ethical behavior and practice; and conducting planning and management of resources to ensure institutional sustainability and efficiency (among other things).

In order to prepare for our site visit, we will be conducting Mock Open Forums. We have invited two consultants to facilitate these sessions. They have provided the university with guidance and recommendations throughout our planning process, and we feel this will provide the university community with a good sense of what we can expect in December.

Each of us has a part to play in ensuring we are complying with the standards we have set in place. Your participation is critical to ensuring we are putting our best foot forward.

More information can be found at https://info.umkc.edu/accreditation/hlc/

Thank you for considering this request, and thanks again to the co-chairs, the steering committee members and university leaders who have been working so hard on this initiative. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Ken Novak, UMKC HLC Accreditation co-chair, at novakk@umkc.edu.

Respectfully,

Barbara A. Bichelmeyer, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Professor of Management

Thursday, September 26

Criterion 1 – Mission
Criterion 2 – Integrity: Ethical and Responsible Conduct
10-11 a.m. Mock Open Forum for Criterion 1 and Criterion 2
Bloch Executive Hall, Room 413

Criterion 3 – Teaching & Learning: Quality, Resources & Support
Criterion 4 – Teaching & Learning: Evaluation & Improvement
1-2:30 p.m. Mock Open Forum for Criterion 3 and Criterion 4
Bloch Executive Hall, Room 413

Friday, September 27

8-9 a.m. Mock Open Forum for Student Learning Outcome Assessment
Student Union, Room 401BC

Criterion 5 – Resources, Planning & Institutional Effectiveness
10-11 a.m. Mock Open Forum for Criterion 5
Student Union, Room 401BC