Team members from the Higher Learning Commission met with students during an open interview session Tuesday to talk about any problems or issues they had as part of Iowa State’s accreditation process.

Every 10 years, a team made up of faculty and administrators from peer institutions across the country visits Iowa State to ensure that the university is adhering to the standards put forth in the university’s mission statement.

“If you say you do that, do you really do it?” said Ralph Katerberg, head of the management department at the University of Cincinnati and member of the accreditation team.

During the accreditation process, the university puts together a report that covers everything the university offers to its students and faculty. It is the job of the accrediting team to judge whether the institution is meeting the standards that it has set for itself.

While normal departmental level accreditations usually are very detail-oriented and involve lots of ground-level information, the process at the institutional level has a much wider scope.

“We’re the 30,000-foot view,” said Lynne Olson, professor emeritus of veterinary biosciences at Ohio State University.

Just like ISU writing classes, the university had a word limit for its report to the commission. Using only 35,000 words, the university had to prove to the commission that it did indeed meet the five criteria that it would be judged on.

According to the Higher Learning Commission’s website, the five criteria are: the institution’s mission is clear and articulated publicly; the institution acts with integrity; the institution provides high-quality education; the institution demonstrates responsibility for the quality of its educational programs; and the institution’s resources, structures and processes are sufficient to fulfill its mission.

Katerberg said the report the university puts together is a way for the institution to prove that it can do what it promises. 

“It’s a way to assure that the resources are there to carry out the mission,” Katerberg said. “Do you have the resources to do what you do?” 

Even though the accreditation committee is mostly concerned with the wide view, it still met with students to listen to their input and concerns.

Three students met with Katerberg and Olson on Tuesday to voice their concerns about how some minority students and staff believe they are being treated on campus.

Juan Duchimaza, gradate assistant in chemistry, brought up his concerns about the lack of information from President Steven Leath on what more he was doing to make campus a more welcoming environment for minorities.

“We haven’t heard anything from him since the forum,” Duchimaza said.

Maria Alcivar, graduate assistant in human development and family studies, echoed Duchimaza sentiments.

“At what point do we see a response from the administration?” Alcivar asked. “We’ve seen multiple campuses having the same issues.”

Besides the issues brought up in the meeting, accreditation team members said they were also aware that the high enrollment was causing issues, but they weren’t overly concerned because they said the university was already aware that it was a “stress point.”

According to the Higher Learning Commission, Iowa State received its first accreditation in 1916 and is one of the nearly 10,000 institutions in the 19 states that the commission oversees.