Frequently Asked Questions about IUP's Middle States Periodic Review Report

The PRR is a required fifty-page summary of IUP's progress toward meeting the recommended goals of the 2005 Middle States Accreditation Report. This is mainly a retrospective survey of accomplishments we have made over the past five years (since our last review by Middle States), plus a prospective summary of our strategic plans for the next five years (leading up to our next review by Middle States).

The current Provost Fellow, Dr. Karen Rose Cercone, is tasked with organizing the data and writing the report under the leadership and oversight of Dr. Inno Onwueme, IUP's accreditation liaison officer for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. A PRR Advisory Workgroup will assist Dr. Cercone at various stages.

Data for the PRR will be taken from existing public documents, such as Academic Records and Institutional Research reports; college and department websites; past accreditation reports; and five-year academic program reviews. We also hope to highlight "best practice" case studies, which would be concrete examples of divisions and programs that have done an outstanding job of using assessment to shape their strategic or academic planning. These specific examples will be solicited on a voluntary basis via the Council of Deans and Council of Chairs.

A pilot project using TracDat software will be instituted in Fall 2010 to collate IUP's academic mission statements and connect them to our strategic planning goals. TracDat is a database tool which will be used for managing the strategic information we already have; no new data will be collected or generated for this pilot project. The work of inputting the mission statements and goals into TracDat will be done by the Provost Fellow, Dr. Karen Rose Cercone.

The initial draft of the report will be reviewed in early 2011 by an advisory workgroup made up of administrators and faculty members, including representatives from the Council of Deans and Council of Chairs. A final draft of the report will be placed on a community discussion board of the IUP website for public inspection and comment gathering in Spring 2011. Following this period of community feedback, a revised draft will be submitted to Middle States by the required deadline of June 1, 2011.

Please feel free to contact Dr. Karen Rose Cercone at kcercone@iup.edu with any questions you have about the Periodic Review Report or about the pilot TracDat project.