IEI ACCREDITATION
The International Education Institute is not a federally recognized accrediting body, which is not necessary since Immersion University is a free work-study program. Students don’t need a government-guaranteed loan to enroll in IU’s free program. However, IEI has been convinced by research that the accrediting associations recognized by the federal government are actually standing in the way of important educational innovation. The other accrediting bodies are largely controlled by ivory tower educators from elite universities. The accrediting process is very expensive, their standards very strict, and ultimate approval of non-traditional programs unlikely. That’s why fully online universities are rare, and most internet-based programs are run by universities that first gained their accreditation through traditional curricula.
Elsewhere on this website, we discuss Dr. Ken Harvey’s research into how employers would like their future employees trained, but universities have ignored and sometimes attacked such research. For example, the organization that accredits most of America’s university journalism programs prohibits those universities from requiring more than about 25% of students’ courses to be on journalism topics. The rest should relate to liberal arts, general education, etc. And even within that 25%, students are being taught a lot of history and theory courses that their students’ future employers think are a waste of time. For over 30 years the communication executives have indicated that they would prefer a curriculum with 40% journalism courses, with about 90% of the executives requesting that more practical skills be taught and that an internship be required. That is how long Dr. Harvey has been conducting such research, and the results of the most recent research are almost identical to the results from 30 years earlier.
Dr. Betty Medsger, the former chair of the Journalism Department at San Francisco State University and an experienced newspaper and broadcast journalist, came to similar conclusions in the mid-1990s. Her well-funded, yearlong study included three separate national surveys conducted by professionals at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Her 181-page final report drew a lot of public attention, however, and was significant enough to draw massive opposition and criticism from academics, although in all important respects its results were the same as Dr. Harvey’s research conducted years before and years after hers.
No significant change occurred during those three decades because the accreditors believe that they know better than the students or the students’ future employers. The accrediting association refused to change its requirements, and universities felt compelled to comply even if they disagreed.
Besides demanding their ivory tower approach to higher education, the last thing that accrediting bodies want is increased competition by such educational institutions as Immersion University. If we succeed, other universities will be motivated to introduce programs like ours, and soon the expensive universities will only be teaching rich kids to whom money is no issue. Thus, IEI hopes that it can gain federal recognition and eventually accredit other innovative institutions, as well, based on an employer-dominated rather than ivory tower-dominated accrediting team.
THE ACCREDITING PROCESS
The accrediting process instituted by IEI begins with a preliminary evaluation by IEI staff and by a panel of prospective employers who have expressed willingness to participate in the work-study process. Maintaining accreditation is based on regular evaluations by employers, not by educators. In the case of Immersion University, employers who host IU interns will be asked to fill out such an evaluation.
To maintain their IEI accreditation, based on employer input, Immersion University will need to maintain mostly positive evaluations from the employers or make adjustments recommended by employers and IEI staff to rectify any problems and to improve employer evaluations. Without mostly positive responses, an institution accredited by IEI would agree in advance to recruit no more students until, with those students still enrolled, the employer evaluations improve enough to resume recruitment. In the meanwhile, enrolled students should be allowed to withdraw and immediately receive their deposit back in full.