In recent years, regional accrediting agencies have recognized that academic staffing is a key element of educational quality. They all have included language in their guidelines concerning contingent faculty and (in some cases) graduate employees. However, many observers believe that the agencies have sat by idly as the overuse and exploitation of contingent faculty and graduate employees has become a critical problem in higher education. These observers--AFT among them--have advocated for more explicit, tightened guidelines--and institutional enforcement of these guidelines--with regard to the working conditions and compensation of contingent instructors in higher education as well as with regard to the percentage of faculty that are full-time, tenure-track.

AFT has called upon accreditation agencies and institutions to have more rigorous standards in these areas. Over the last decade, AFT's leaders and higher education members have established a set of standards that we believe unions should advance, institutions should adopt and accreditation agencies should work to promote. These standards govern practices in compensation, employment practices, professional responsibility and support and the role of contingent faculty in their unions. Here are links to the complete standards:

• Standards for the Employment of Part-time/adjunct Faculty
• Standards for the Employment of Full-time Nontenure-track Faculty
• Standards for the Employment of Graduate Employees

Guided by our standards and the goals of the FACE Campaign, we have examined and summarized the standards held by the six regional accrediting agencies. Below are links to these summaries, which cover appropriate levels of full-time, tenure-track faculty and the working conditions and professional support for contingent faculty and graduate employees.

• Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools
• New England Association of Schools and Colleges: Commission on Institutions of Higher Education
• North Central Association of Colleges and Schools: The Higher Learning Commission
• Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities
• Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
• Western Association of Schools and Colleges: ACSCU & ACCJC

Recently for-profit institutions have come under scrutiny for their academic practices and so we have also examined the standards of the main accreditor of the carrer colleges.

• The Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC)
  

We intend to keep building these resources here on accreditation as it relates to academic staffing and to that end your input is important.  We want your feedback on:

• how effective you think these your regional accreditor's standards are;
• what your experience is with how well your institution has implemented these standards;
• how the accreditation process has worked at your institution regarding these issues; and,
• what you, your institution or organization has done to communicate your thoughts directly with the accreditation agencies.