5 independent colleges join as founding members of new US accreditor

Five independent colleges announced Tuesday that they have joined as founding members of the National Association for Academic Excellence (NAAE), a new U.S. institutional accreditor for colleges and universities that aims to provide an affirming place for faith-based institutions.

“Higher education accreditation is responsible to the Department of Education for the quality of institutions, and as a new accreditor, we hope to dramatically improve the quality of accreditation and the quality of higher education as a result,” Rob Manzer, president and CEO of NAAE, told The Christian Post.

Founded in 2023 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, NAAE Inc. began in response to shifts in higher education policy, including the U.S. Department of Education eliminating the distinction between regional and national accreditors by removing geographic scope from the federal recognition criteria in 2020.

Among the schools joining NAAE are Merrimack College, an Augustinian school in North Andover, Massachusetts; Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas; the University of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City; Bellevue University in Bellevue, Nebraska; and Houston Christian University in Texas.

Manzer, who was appointed as NAAE’s first president and CEO in March, told CP that throughout his more than 30-year career in higher education, the accreditation process invariably seemed like “box-checking compliance,” instead of something that leads to institutional improvement. NAAE’s accreditation offers something “structurally different,” he said.

“We are not building a region-based accreditor or a territory-based accreditor. That’s probably more important than anything else, I would say,” he said. “We are building something that is not based on a region, but that is consequentially collective. We are only going to work with independent colleges that meet our standards.”

The founding members will hold seats on NAAE’s Board of Directors and its Commission on Accreditation, which will make decisions about accreditation and help refine standards, procedures, training, technology, evidence requirements and terminology.

Manzer explained that NAAE's four standards, which are designed for independent colleges, cover ethics and integrity; organizational efficiency; academic excellence, including curriculum, faculty, learning outcomes and intellectual diversity; and service to students. He noted the foundation of their standards is the ideal that education ought to help students become better human beings.

“There are four standards, that’s it,” he said. “So schools are, through a process of self-reflection, having to show that they meet those standards. Now, here’s the most important point: for us, academic excellence is in service of the formation of the whole human person.”

“So, in our standards, there is a very clear requirement that institutions have the most important, broadest understanding — moral understanding — of the purpose of education, which is the formation of the whole human person. All of the schools that we accredit will adhere to that standard. They won’t be interested in working with us unless we have that standard,” he said.

“I think we will be an incredibly attractive accreditor for authentically Christian institutions, for faith-based institutions, Newman Guide institutions, a whole range of institutions that take seriously the purpose of education as the formation of the whole human person. So, with that in mind, I do think that we offer something of a corrective to the state of play in higher education,” he continued.

Manzer said NAAE will be pursuing recognition by the U.S. Department of Education over the next 18 to 24 months.

“Once we are recognized by the department, our accreditation holds the potential to dramatically improve higher education accreditation and thereby higher education quality, and also provide a welcoming and affirming place for faith-based institutions,” he added.

Until that process is complete, the five founding institutions will remain accredited by their current federally recognized accrediting agencies, NAAE said in a press release.

Sandra Mooney, who has served as acting president of Houston Christian University since July, told CP that her school of approximately 5,000 students has a strong Christian mission, but that such a vocation is often overlooked by regular accreditation. Originally founded in 1960 as Houston Baptist College, the university remains affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and offers degrees up to the doctoral level.

“We just really feel that this new accreditation opportunity gives us the opportunity to do the things that we really care about, which is intellectual growth, developing character and faith within our students, and preparing them for really meaningful lives of not just work, but also service,” she said.

“So I think that we’re just really looking for an accreditation avenue that is focused more on student outcomes and learning, and how we help them succeed, and less on the compliance part that accreditation has become so focused on,” she continued.

Mooney echoed Manzer’s emphasis on the “formation of the whole person rather than just specific skills,” which she said “is something that Christian universities really can provide to students in the long term, because they are sometimes missing that in their formation up until the point they go to college.”

“We feel that what students learn in the classroom is important, but also what they learn in character formation and faith formation, and a whole Christian worldview perspective of how they’re going to enter the workforce, is something that’s really important,” she added.

David Dockery, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, told CP that he believes NAAE’s work is important because of changes taking place in higher education at large. He noted regional accreditors are not necessarily regionally bound anymore, and that many are asking questions about the future of higher education, particularly in the private sector.

“I believe that NAAE is committed to academic excellence, academic seriousness, freedom of thought and doing so as a full institutional accreditor. I think it’ll be a good alignment for many private institutions, but particularly Christian institutions that take their academic mission seriously,” said Dockery, who also serves as president of the International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE), a global network of Evangelical educational institutions.

Dockery said he believes the future of higher education “is being re-examined in light of changes in technology, a desire to rethink the importance of core curriculum, ensuring mission alignment and trying to understand the place of higher education in the middle of the 21st century; not only in a changing national context, but a changing global context.”

“So I think organizations like IACE and accreditors like NAAE can come alongside as partners in the work of advancing quality education. That will be good for students, families and society in the days ahead,” he added.

Richard Land, executive editor of The Christian Post and president emeritus of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Rock Hill, South Carolina, said he believes NAAE’s efforts to provide accreditation standards based on educational effectiveness and student service are a positive development, especially for Christian education.

“It’s an important story, because it’s an attempt by impressive Christian educators to address a real problem: which is that the accreditation standards — for those who’ve been through it and have led their institutions through it — seem to be secondarily aimed at asking and answering the question: How well do you educate? How well do you do what you say you do, as opposed to arbitrary standards that may or may not have much to do with education?” he said.

Land, who served as vice president of Criswell College in Dallas in the 1980s and as president of Southern Evangelical Seminary from 2013 to 2021, when it was located in Charlotte, North Carolina, remembered that the accreditation process during his years as an academic administrator had developed a reputation for being onerous.

“The standards seemed to be given over to the impression of being sort of a trade union for faculty,” he said. “It seemed, at times, more concerned with the faculty than it was with how well the students were served. Now that may be harsh, but if people were happy with the accreditation standards as they are now, they wouldn’t be forming this new group.”