Criteria Considered in ACA Accreditation

GOVERNANCE: The chief administrative officer of the Unit should provide the leadership to advance the cause of the Unit. Faculty control over basic educational policy is imperative. The chief administrative officer of the Unit must have the expressed confidence of both the faculty and the higher levels of administration in the institution. Students should be represented in governance within the policy and philosophy of the institution.

CURRICULUM: Students should be well served by the Unit curriculum. A model curriculum should clearly reflect an understanding of both the humanistic and the social science dimensions of the field of communication. At a minimum, students should take coursework in communication history, research, theory, criticism, as well as law and ethics. No student should be graduated without coursework in presentational skills, both written and oral.

INSTRUCTION: Quality instruction is crucial to effective education and should be encouraged in every way possible. A regular program of teaching evaluation should be in place. Teaching loads in the Unit should be consistent with the institutional balance of emphasis on research and service. For tenure track faculty, the presumptive teaching load should not exceed nine credit hours (or equivalent) per semester. In the case of certificate programs in which instruction is focused upon individual areas such as public speaking, public relations, training and development, or interpersonal communication, the curriculum should reflect both the theoretical grounding and the practical applications of the areas taught.

FACULTY: Faculty should be academically qualified for their responsibilities in the Unit. All full-time faculty should hold at least Master's degrees in a communication discipline. Part-time faculty should have not less than 18 graduate hours in a communication discipline. If graduate teaching assistants are used in undergraduate instruction, they should be under the supervision of a full-time faculty member. Full-time faculty must have primary responsibility for teaching, research, and service.

FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT: The Unit must have equipment and facilities of sufficient quality and quantity to complete its mission. Faculty offices should have privacy, ample space, and in-office access to the internet and World Wide Web. Students must have access to the internet and WWW, and have sufficient technical support and available hours for access. Units with courses in technical or scientific areas of the field ( e.g., media production, psycho-physiological measures, etc.) must support these curricula with adequate equipment, studios, and labs.

LIBRARY: Library budget and holdings should be adequate to support the Unit's mission. Journal holdings should reflect the mainstream interests of the discipline as well as the specific expertise of the faculty of the Unit.

FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP, RESEARCH, AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES: Communication educators have a responsibility that extends beyond the limits of the classroom. This obligation includes scholarship and professional activities. These activities should be institutionally supported through such resources as computer facilities, release time, travel support, direct or in-kind support of research costs, laboratory space, and mentoring.

PUBLIC SERVICE: The unit should be able to show evidence of service to the general public and the community. This service should take the form of pro bono faculty contributions to the community in their various fields of expertise.

ALUMNI: The Unit should track its graduates, utilizing their feedback in the assessment process.

FACULTY EVALUATION, TENURE, AND PROMOTION: Detailed standards developed by the faculty should be published and readily available to the evaluation team. Faculty evaluations should occur at regular published intervals, but not less frequently than annually. Appeal processes should be in place.

MENTORING: The ACA strongly supports a program in which senior faculty serve as mentors for their junior colleagues. This is especially important in encouraging women and minorities. Faculty mentoring of students is also strongly encouraged, again particularly in the case of women and minorities as an effective means of increasing the diversity of the applicant pool in the communication disciplines. Peer mentoring of fellow undergraduates by senior communication majors in also encouraged.

DUE PROCESS: The Unit must have procedures in place for dealing with complaints and grievances of students, faculty, staff, and administrators. Such procedures may include, but are not limited to grade appeals committees, tenure and promotion committees, appeals of annual faculty evaluations, etc. Such procedures must comply with the principles of due process.

STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS: Units are encouraged to promote student organizations in the various interest areas reflected by the unit. Examples are Lambda Pi Eta National Undergraduate Communication Honor Society, Pi Kappa Delta Honorary Forensics Society, Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), and Women in Communication, Inc. (WICI).

BUDGET: The Unit's budget should be sufficient to meet its mission, including support for student financial assistance, faculty research and travel, office and lab space, technical and secretarial support, and other such services.

STUDENT ADVISING: Quality of student advising is extremely important and should receive appropriate weight in the faculty evaluation process. All regular tenure-track faculty should be involved in student advising.

For more information on ACA Program Accreditation, email ACA Executive Director, Dr. Rita Kirk: rkirk(at)smu.edu