To: Accredited Programs and Visitors

Memorandum

From: Mike Blazey Chair, Council on Accreditation for Recreation, Park Resources and Leisure Services

Re: Winter COAPRT Memo 2012

Date: February 28, 2012

Greetings Colleagues.

The Council on Accreditation for Parks, Recreation, Tourism, and Related Professions held its fall meeting and hearings at the 2011 NRPA Congress in Atlanta, GA on October 30 through November 1, 2011. Information on the status of Council, accredited programs, the new learning outcomes-based standards to be adopted in 2013, and other information of interest to accredited programs and visitors are provided below.

Since our last communication, Council appointed Susan Baptist, Recreation Superintendent at the Jacksonville Recreation and Parks Department (North Carolina), as Practitioner Representative. She replaces Jay Ellington. Rick Harwell was reappointed to a second three-year term as the Public Representative. Nominations are now being accepted for two Educators and one Practitioner Representative. The new appointments will replace Gary Ellis, Deb Jordan, and Chris Nunes, whose two terms are drawing to a close. Council thanks Jay, Gary, Deb, and Chris for the significant contributions they have made during this period of transition to outcome-based standards.

Council Officers for 2011-2012 are Michael Blazey, Chair, Gary Ellis, Vice-Chair, and Mike Peterson, Second Vice-Chair.

There are 82 accredited programs and one preliminary applicant, down from the historical high of 112 accredited programs reflecting the dissolution of some programs and current financial exigency. Nevertheless, Council remains viable and committed to the academic integrity of member programs.

The 2013 standards have been or will be pilot tested by five programs, following the beta test conducted with Texas A&M University. The five schools with hearing dates in parentheses are:

1. SUNY – Cortland (fall 2010) 2. Ithaca College (spring 2011) 3. University of Illinois (fall 2012) 4. Arkansas Tech (fall 2012) 5. CSU Chico (fall 2012)

A number of other programs have opted for a review under the 2013 standards. These include California Poly Technic at San Luis Obispo, East Carolina University, and Slippery Rock University (fall 2011). In addition to Arkansas Tech, the University of Illinois, and CSU Chico, the following programs will be assessed under the new standards in the coming months; Kent State University, Longwood University, Appalachian State University, Central Michigan University, State University of New York-Brockport, and Bowling Green State University

Council has required its members to serve as visitors during the pilot process in order to gain familiarity with implementation of the new standards, establish visitation procedures, and develop visitor training. Now that a number of Council members have participated in visitations employing the 2013 standards, the educator Council members are qualified to lead pilot visitations with senior visitors. Many senior visitors are participating in the visitations listed above. Pilot programs also agreed to assign a faculty member who has been trained as a visitor under the 2013 standards for service as a “shadow” visitor, thereby further adding to the pool of visitors familiar with the new standards.

As many are aware, Council has begun to partner with other professional organizations in parks, recreation, tourism, and related professions to develop Specialty Accreditation Committees (SAC) and draft profession-specific learning outcome standards. These specialty standards will take the place of the current option standards, which will be in place until the end of 2012. (NOTE: Programs undergoing reaccreditation prior to visitations during the 2012-2013 academic year may seek reaccreditation for the current options and will retain option accreditation for five years from the date of reaccreditation.) We are pleased to report that a specialization in recreation and park administration is available through our partnership with the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration. Council is currently working with the National Association of Recreation Resource Planners (NARRP) on a second Specialty Accreditation. We hope to have that program available by 2013.

Council had established an affiliation agreement with the National Therapeutic Recreation Society (NTRS) for the development of specialty standards in Therapeutic Recreation prior to NRPA’s reorganization and the dissolution of branches, including NTRS. Consequently, development of specialty standards in Therapeutic Recreation was undertaken by a group of former NTRS members. Their approach has been to draft standards that are fully compliant with COAPRT 7.00 series. This approach is consistent with Council’s desire to work with any related profession seeking accreditation. To be clear, Council does not endorse the standards for any specialty, rather our role is to accredit programs meeting all standards including the 7.00 series as addressed by the program. The former NTRS members have developed a strategy for this approach and will be conducting a webinar on its application. COAPRT has agreed to post their materials on our website.

Council adopted significant changes to the hearing procedures, which were implemented during the fall 2011 hearings. Council convened two sub-Councils, consisting of five Council members each for the purpose of conducting concurrent hearings. By-laws require that reaccreditation decisions must be made by the full Council, so Council reconvened at the conclusion of no more than four hours of hearings to hear reports and recommendations from the sub-Councils. Following deliberations, the full Council rendered decisions, with Programs learning the status of their accreditation at the conclusion of the deliberations.

The move to one set of hearings per year also affected the scheduling of visitations, which now occur between November and April of each year. In an effort to align the payment schedule with the new hearing structure, all programs are invoiced annually by NRPA in January, with a due date of March 1st. Programs are assessed the application fee of $1,750 for the calendar year in which they have a hearing and the annual fee of $700 each of the other years. Your program will receive a communication from COAPRT accreditation staff identifying your program's next visit, hearing and payment schedule. Please contact Danielle Price at [email protected] for further information.

Additional significant changes to the 2013 Standards, self-study review, visitation, and hearing processes also were adopted.

 At its spring 2011 meeting, Council revised standards 7.01-7.03 by moving statements that had been substandards into the body of the standard. Following each of these new standards are the criteria used to assess compliance. Visitors and Council will determine whether:

1. The program demonstrates that students are provided with sufficient opportunity to achieve this learning outcome. 2. The program demonstrates that quality assessment measures were used to assess learning outcomes associated with this standard. 3. The program demonstrates that results of its assessment program indicate that graduates of the program are achieving this Learning Outcome. 4. The program demonstrates that it uses data from assessment of Learning Outcome 7.01 for continuous program improvement.

 During the fall 2011 meeting, Council approved changes in standards 7.03 and 7.04.

7.03: Students graduating from the program shall be able to demonstrate entry- level knowledge about operations and strategic management/administration in parks, recreation, tourism and/or related professions. This revision establishes expectations for learning outcomes in both strategic and operations management. The prior version required readers read the definition of “management” in the standard carefully to note that the term embraces both operations management and strategic management.

7.04: Students graduating from the Program shall demonstrate, through a comprehensive internship of not less than 400 clock hours and no fewer than 10 weeks, the potential to succeed as professionals at supervisory or higher levels in park, recreation, tourism, or related organizations.

This revision brought the standard into compliance with the previous three, adopting the same evaluative criteria noted above.

 Programs utilizing the 2004 Standards will be reviewed on the current five-year cycle. Upon successful accreditation/reaccreditation utilizing the 2013 Standards, the standard review cycle will be seven years. Although a standard, seven-year cycle will be observed, Council may shorten the cycle at its discretion if a program experiences significant disruptions in its ability to maintain accreditation. Such disruptions typically arise in the program eligibility standards (1.00 Series).

Programs with extensions will continue as currently scheduled. Programs with 2013 hearings without extensions will be placed on the standard review cycle immediately, with the result that their next accreditation hearing will occur in fall 2015.

 In an effort to bring greater clarity to hearing outcomes, Council approved the following actions which it may take.

1. Council may approve accreditation/re-Accreditation with: commendation(s), recommendation(s), and/or a requirement that additional information be provided and/or minor revisions in the self-study and/or appendices. 2. Council may extend current accreditation and defer re-accreditation with conditions and/or warnings. 3. Deny Accreditation

These changes were adopted in order to allow Council requests for information or revisions to various materials without placing the program in conditional status. Under the former hearing outcomes, placing conditions on programs for relatively minor or easily-resolved issues gave the perception among some University administrators that a program was in jeopardy of losing accredited status. Most professional accrediting bodies assign “conditions” to indicate circumstances that are far more serious than those on which Council has been acting by assigning conditions. As noted in item 2., Council retains the right to issue conditions and/or warnings for especially serious problems. A failure to comply with eligibility standards (1.00 Series) is one example of an issue that would result in conditional or warning status; however, Council has the option of extending a program’s current accreditation for a specified time period, deferring action on reaccreditation until the conditions and/or warnings are resolved.

 As the 2013 Standards continue to evolve, programs have requested clarification as to which version applies at the time of their re-accreditation. Programs now have the option of addressing the standards in force at the time they began their self-study or adopting the newest version. These instructions will be posted on the website, along with all prior versions of the 2013 Standards.

 Council has discontinued the extension policy. As a consequence of adopting a standard-review cycle of seven years, Council considers the addition of two years as adequate time to prepare a self-study and make visitation arrangements. In taking this action, Council removed language regarding extensions from the handbook and replaced it with the following.

Extensions to the standard review cycle are not available; however, Programs always have the option of requesting an exception to policy. All such requests must be accompanied by fees to be determined by Council.

Programs filing an initial application for accreditation continue to have an opportunity for an extension of 12 months, with an option for an additional 12 months from the date of initial application.

In other news, COAPRT itself will be undergoing Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) reaccreditation over the next nine months. An RFP has been issued for an individual to guide and facilitate the re‐accreditation process. A CHEA visitation will coincide with Council’s business meeting and hearings at the 2012 NRPA Congress in Anaheim, CA.

Council co-sponsored the second annual academic Quiz Bowl with NRPA at the 2011 NRPA Congress. Teams of students from accredited programs competed in the competition with the winning team from Brigham Young University recognized as the national quiz bowl champion. Enthusiasm is building for the Quiz Bowl and a record number of programs are expected to participate in 2012.

Council will continue to update the FAQ’s on the 2013 standards as revisions to the standards and procedures are adopted. Please check back frequently. In addition to the FAQs and other information can be found on the Council website, http://www.nrpa.org/COAPRT/. The COAPRT Accreditation Handbook is an especially valuable resource. This document, which routinely undergoes revisions, reflects changes in policies and procedures enacted by Council at its most recent meeting.