This past week, Brandeis released its Fifth-Year report to the New England Association for Schools and Colleges to the Brandeis community, which "provided an excellent opportunity to take stock of Brandeis's progress toward institutional goals, to assess areas needing further attention, and to chart a set of priorities for the future," according to the official NEASC Fifth-Year report.

The Fifth-Year report acts as a halfway point between each full university reaccreditation, which occurs once every 10 years.

The report especially focuses on "any issues of special concern raised in the 10-year report," wrote Associate Vice President for University Affairs and University Liaison to NEASC John Hose in an email to the Justice. Brandeis' last assessment for reaccreditation by NEASC occurred in 2006.

The Fifth-Year report is essentially a "progress report," explained Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Michaele Whelan in an interview with the Justice. "Each school assesses how it's doing [according to NEASC's 11 standards]; it is meant to be transparent to the community."

A Steering Committee, consisting of the Provost, the Senior Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer, the Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and the Vice President for Planning and Institutional Research, and 12 subcommittees, spent the academic year discussing content for the report, collecting evidence, producing draft documents and offering possible projections by area, according to the report.

The 11 NEASC standards evaluate everything from an institution's mission and purposes to its faculty and students to its financial resources.

The elements of focus for the Fifth-Year report were "implementing the integrated plan, expanding and improving facilities including reducing deferred maintenance, and developing and implementing a comprehensive approach to the assessment of student learning," said Whelan.

The report details how the University dealt with these areas of emphasis. In terms of integrated planning, the report explains how Brandeis handled the "global financial crisis, which included a hiring freeze … and the controversial vote by the Board of Trustees to allow the University to sell art from the Rose [Art] Museum permanent collection."

The report notes that "eight new buildings … have been added to the campus," in reference to the facilities and resources element, and that the University has "set eight goals for the assessment of student learning, following its reaccreditation in 2006."

For each of the 11 standards, the report includes an overview, description, appraisal and projection, which provide a general idea of what has changed in the past 5 years, a detailed explanation of how that element is broken down, Brandeis' own assessment of the current structure and a general outline of what Brandeis plans to do in the future, respectively.

For example, in reference to the sixth standard, Students, the report states that there has been an increase in both international and minority students, which is bolstered by the creation of the Gateway Scholars Program in 2009 and a second Posse group drawing students from Atlanta.

Some of the standards, such as Faculty, Students, and Financial Resources, acknowledge the economic turmoil that began in 2008 and explain both how the University has coped with the economic problems and what is planned for the future. The fifth standard details the creation of the faculty affiliation program, which was established in 2010 to "better utilize the full talents of the faculty and to increase the teaching resources available for maintaining the curriculum" in light of economic difficulties, while the third standard—Organization and Governance—states that the crisis resulted in a more involved Faculty Senate.

The Fifth-Year report requires much less community involvement than the full reaccreditation, during which an evaluation team visits the institution and meets with administrators, faculty and staff.

Preparation for the Fifth-Year report began in September 2010, according to Brandeis' official NEASC Fifth-Year report.

NEASC provides accreditation services for more than 2000 public and private institutions from pre-K through university, using "self-reflection, peer review and best practices as integral components of its assessment process," according to its website. Additionally, "NEASC consists of six Commissions, each of which sets the standards for a particular segment of the educational community," accorrdint to its website.

NEASC "assures the quality of programs and degrees," Whelan added. "It's meant to protect the integrity of education and to foster institutional improvement."