Brookdale president chairs accreditation commission Regional panel's job is to evaluate higher education institutions BY BARI FAYE SIEGEL Correspondent When he's not tinkering with his beloved classic car collection, or running one of the state's most prestigious community colleges, Peter Burnham is responsible for evaluating every college and university in the Mid-Atlantic region. Peter Burnham Burnham, the president of Brookdale Community College, Lincroft, was recently appointed as chairman of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education - an organization that evaluates and determines accreditation for 520 higher education institutions in six states and two territories. The Middle States region includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and several locations internationally. "I believe my role as chair of the commission, and my responsibility in overseeing its work, has an influence on every institution from Cornell to Princeton to Brookdale to DeVry," said Burnham, a resident of Colts Neck. The various commissions, including the Mid-Atlantic body, are charged with the duty of evaluating and accrediting the schools in their respective regions. The commissions must certify that the institutions are complying with certain standards - essentially living up to the mission they put forth to students, parents, faculty and community. Burnham, who has been with Brookdale for 17 years, said he is "extremely flattered" to be appointed as chair because, "I'm only the third community college president in the 80 years of the commission and the first in 20 years." He has been known among his peers for speaking out about the critical need for rigorous assessments of higher education, but says the process needs to be managed and implemented by "those of us who understand what education is and needs to be." That being said, Burnham believes strongly in peer review. "When government tries to regulate independent educational institutions, there is the danger of creating too much sterilization of the learning experience and this would rob American higher education of its greatest asset - its freedom and independence to inquire," he said. "America's higher educational system is the envy of the world. Every country looks to us for how higher education should be managed. "In many respects, regional accreditation is the most wonderful example of maintaining both a concern for quality and accountability, but also recognition of the importance of dealing with each institution individually - not some arbitrary set of regulations formulated in a regulatory environment." However, not everyone agrees with Burnham. The issue of regional accreditation for institutions of higher learning has become quite a political hot button in Washington, D.C. The Higher Education Amendments Act, more commonly known as the Reauthorization Act, dictates the way federal dollars are spent on higher education. This act is reviewed by Congress every six years and many have said recently that commissions like the one Burnham chairs is simply a peer review without high enough standards. In fact, a 2007 report issued by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings seriously criticized regional accrediting bodies for not being strict enough in their assessment of accountability. The report called for a greater degree of transparency to make sure the public understands exactly how each school intends to, and does, live up to its mission and goals. "If your son or daughter is going to Rutgers, how do you know that the money you spend on tuition is being spent on educational programs? How can you be sure that the institution is providing students with the appropriate education and they are doing what they say they are doing on their Web site and in their brochures?," Burnham asked. For example, a school might call itself "the leading institution in the development of business majors" or "the very best communications school in the state." How does the public know if, and why, those marketing self-accolades are true? During the most recent reauthorization discussions, questions were raised by members of Congress and the public as to the extent to which the six regional accreditation bodies are performing their gate-keeping duties. Among other issues, he said, is that Congress is questioning, "with $93 billion in U.S. federal aid having gone to institutions of higher education in 2007, are the people who serve on these regional bodies the appropriate gatekeepers in the first place?" Burnham himself asked, "The public is raising serious questions about the cost of higher education. Are we getting value added return for the dollars invested? Is an expensive school really differentiated from a less expensive school?" Burnham, unequivocally, believes the members of the Middle States Commission, and the other similar five bodies, are most certainly the right people for the job - the people who can ask the tough questions and keep schools living up to their missions. Burnham and his colleagues on the Middle States Commission know they must face the challenge of demonstrating that "regional accreditation has high standards, does hold institutions rigorously to those standards and is demanding a culture of evidence to be present in each institution that validates the assumption that its students really are learning." He said the commission is committed to making sure schools are building strong data bases of evidence of student performance and follow-up assessments that prove students possess skills assumed of a college graduate. "And then we test the hypotheses of each institution. There is a uniform set of standards but the standards are defined in the context of the mission of each institution," Burnham said. "For a medical school, for example, they need to show us how students understand anatomy. For a business school - can the students issue a marketing plan?" For more information about the 14 standards used by the Middle States Commission, visit www.msche.org.