Agron & Associates, Inc. exists to empower higher education institutions and to assist in achieving accreditation, goals and standards.

We will walk you though each step of the accreditation process. With our resources materials we will help prepare you for assessments, and accreditation visits.

We can schedule consultation appointments that will keep your institution on schedule as well as help you with timelines and goals.

By working with our experienced associates, a school is more likely to:

• Achieve accreditation
• Achieve accreditation sooner
• Become a stronger school as we help you through the accreditation process

Our task is to enable schools to become worthy of accreditation.  By using accreditation processes to set up organizational systems and to mentor college administrators, the school (and it’s administrators) will become highly effective in many aspects (e.g., curriculum, faculty, fundraising, student recruiting, board and governance, achievement of mission, student services, …. and so much more).

We can work with any accrediting agency that is approved by the US Department of Education and/or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.  With these accrediting agencies, a school is benefited by:

• Attracting more students and donors
• Being able to distribute Federal Student Financial Aid
• Being able to transfer their students to other accredited schools
• Having a stronger reputation for legitimacy

Achieving accreditation is not a matter of submitting the correctly written documents. It is a matter of changing the way your organization operates so that it is, and will continue to be, worthy of accreditation. Thus, you are not hiring a consultant to write your self-study. He or she is using the self-study process to mentor your team. This is where your student dean learns what is expected of a student dean at an accredited college. This is also where your academic dean, business manager, president, faculty members, and others learn the expectations your accrediting agency will have for their job. Similarly, the consultant may meet with your board, registrar, and others who must work together to make the school worthy of accreditation.

If you are working on a section of your compliance document, a committee of your people may meet with your consultant around a conference table. The consultant opens a file on a laptop computer. You then discuss a standard for accreditation. If possible, use a projector so that more people can see the computer screen while the consultant types. As the consultant explains the meaning of the standard and its sub-points (e.g., essential elements, criteria), your team explains what they do that relates to it. Your consultant writes up the description and an analysis. Your team and the consultant than assess whether the school does or does not fully comply with the requirement. If the school does not comply, they must decide on a recommendation for change. Your consultant may help your team see various options on how to comply. In discussing the dozens of issues related to accreditation standards, your consultant will also help your team consider suggestions for improving your school that are not a requirement for accreditation. These later suggestions can be a very important part of improving your school.

The process will be similar if the consulting is done over the Internet instead of across a conference table. For a web-conference, your team would gather around a table with a microphone and a computer screen (again, preferably with a projector and possibly with a conference calling device such as those produced by Polycom – making sure any conference phone is compatible with your current phone system). Whether meeting across a table or across the Internet, between meetings there are also likely to be e-mails, phone calls, homework assignments for team members, and homework assignments for the consultant.

Your consultant is not making the decisions and simply writing a self-study for your school, nor is your consultant leaving your team alone to struggle with how to write it. He or she is the logical editor who writes out the committees’ decisions. He or she is an advisor to the committee and a mentor to your staff. With help from a good consultant, your school is more likely to achieve accreditation, achieve it more quickly, and become a stronger school as a result of your accreditation consultant’s experience.