CSWE Accreditation Update Webinar

Katie:

Hello everyone. Thank you for listening in today as we discuss the CSWE accreditation process for the online MSW program at Regis College. The purpose of this presentation is to share some information about the CSWE accreditation process, and to give an update on where Regis is in the process right now. So let’s start by meeting the team. Dr. Considine and Dr. Kronner, thank you very much for joining us today. Could you tell us a little bit about yourselves and what you do at Regis, and as well as your experience with CSWE?

Dr. Considine:

Well, thank you, Katie. Yes, I’m Donette Considine. So on the administrative side of what I do for Regis College with the MSW program, I think about that, in an administrative role, is that there’s all these different balls in the air. And my job is to make sure that they get down the court to the basketball hoop and make it through the hoop. And that’s really what accreditation is. It’s those balls in the air, moving them down the court, and making sure that they make it through the basketball hoop. And we’re right on track with where we should be and I know we’re going to talk about that a little bit more in a few minutes.

Dr. Considine:

My experience, I have over 20 years of experience in social work education and practice. I have a small clinical practice where I see adults, adolescents, and couples, and I think that really kind of adds a lot to the depth of courses that I teach, because you’re able to bring in case studies into the course. And you understand what’s happening in the world, which also then I think makes our curriculum stronger.

Dr. Considine:

My experience with CSWE, this is probably, I want to say my fourth accreditation that I’ve been through with a program, so I’m used to this. Some people get anxious about accreditation. I actually really welcome the experience. I think it’s a really helpful experience with other professionals and peers in the field that really help you build and develop your program to be the best it can be. So I’m pretty comfortable with the process, and just really excited that we are in year two of year three of the process. So that’s a little bit about me.

Dr. Kronner:

Hi, I’m Henry Kronner, and I am an associate professor at Regis College. And I have also 20 years of experience working in higher education, specifically in social work. And I have also a private practice where I primarily see individuals and some couples, and help clients address depression, anxiety, and relationship challenges primarily. One of the things that I’ve done is I’ve been mostly an academic, I teach classes such as clinical research, human behavior. The areas that I love the most are practice and research because I think the two of those inform each other really well. And I agree with you Dr. Considine, I really like the idea of taking what’s happening in my practice and bringing that into the classroom, and then being able to show how those pieces of practice relate to research, or maybe how research relates to doing my practice better. And so I really think all of that just makes me a better instructor.

Dr. Kronner:

A part of what I’ve also done has been a site visitor. So what we’re going to find out in a minute a bit more about council of social work education. But what they do is they have site visitors go to the different schools and we review with schools their self-studies that they’ve written. And part of the process is to learn more about those universities and those programs, and making sure that everyone is achieving the standards set by CSWE. And I started that in 2010, and I’ve conducted over 12 site visits so far. So that information really helps me to become much more aware of what is being asked of us in this program.

Katie:

So let’s talk now about accreditation. Dr Kronner, could you tell us or explain to us what is the CSWE?

Dr. Kronner:

So when one’s in school, different programs are accredited by different organizations or agencies. And so most students aren’t even aware that programs have accreditation. But when you were in your undergraduate program, the higher learning commission was most likely making sure that your schools or universities were accredited. Well, the same process goes for social work. We have the Council of Social Work Education, and they develop a set of standards that we are asked to make sure that all students meet by the time they graduate. And so we have nine competencies, and then we have different behaviors that go with those competencies. And so the whole goal is to make sure that when students leave a social work program, that they all have a certain level of knowledge, skills, and abilities. And so the Council of Social Work Education, with the commission and accreditation, work jointly to make sure that all schools are providing a really good education for the students.

Katie:

So Dr. Considine, could you explain to us then the typical processes to become accredited?

Dr. Considine:

Sure. So every school that develops a new program for a master’s of social work program, it’s a three year process. And so that’s the case for every school in the country that wants to do this. So it’s a three year process. The reason that it’s a three year process is CSWE has a commissioner who comes to campus once each year for those three years and looks at what we call benchmarks. You had benchmark one, two, and three. There are certain things you should have accomplished at each year. And so they look at initially kind of how the program is … the foundation of it, how it’s developing and building. The second year they look more, excuse me, at your student body. And then in the third year they’re looking at your outcomes, the competencies that Dr. Kronner mentioned. They look at are students achieving those competencies? And so this is a typical process that every school goes through.

Dr. Considine:

They also look at things in the accreditation. They look at things like your budget to make sure that the school has enough budget to support having students, having faculty, having events for students. They look at your faculty development. The diversity that you have in your students and in your faculty, and what you do to encourage diversity in the program, and also diverse viewpoints. They also look at your curriculum to see how that all fits together. Curriculum is like a puzzle, you want everything to kind of build on each other. So they look at that. And then like I mentioned, they look at the outcomes.

Dr. Considine:

So we have successfully achieved our second year candidacy, which means CSWE has come to campus, to Regis. They were there the first time in fall of ’18, and we successfully achieved the standards for benchmark one. They were on campus again in fall ’19 to look at benchmark two and we successfully achieved the standards for benchmark two. And we are now working on benchmark three, and we’ll have our final visit in fall of ’20, where they will come and look to make sure that we’re on track with that. And then hopefully what we anticipate is we will receive our initial accreditation in spring 2021. So the commission comes in fall of ’20. Then the commissioner will go back and report to a committee who then reviews our entire document. And then they have a meeting in February of 2021, and that’s where the decision is made. And we expect, since we are on track, that we expect that we should have our initial accreditation in spring 2021. Did I miss anything with that Dr. Kronner?

Dr. Kronner:

No, actually I thought that was extremely well stated. And as a site visitor I often get to see what is done at the different schools. And I want students to know that the council of social education wants to accredit programs. That’s what they’re hoping for. And so they work with us to make that happen. And so if a program is not doing whatever they expect it to do they might say, “We need some more information here,” or, “Could you clarify this point here?” And based on what I’ve seen at Regis, the program has done an amazing job of being very clear, being very detailed, and making sure that the information provided to CSWE is exactly what they’re looking for. And that’s why both benchmarks have been passed very well and it’s expected that will continue.

Katie:

So would you both say that is Regis … Is this a typical process? Is Regis following this typical process? Do other schools have to abide by the same path to accreditation?

Dr. Considine:

We are definitely right on track. We are definitely following … This is very normal process that a newer program goes through. And we are excelling at it. I mean if I can brag a little bit, we are excelling at this process in that we’ve successfully, we’ve received our year two. And like Dr. Kronner said, CSWE wants us to succeed. They want to help us. They want to see us accredited. And so it’s very much a collaborative process when CSWE, when the commissioner comes to campus. And it’s been a very positive experience. And I feel really confident with the faculty, the experience that we all have in being able to march right through our benchmark three to our initial accreditation in spring 21.

Dr. Kronner:

And that’s a really great point Dr. Considine. The faculty have been part of accreditation visits at previous institutions. So they know what is expected. They’ve helped create self studies. They’ve been through when the visitors have come. So it’s not as if the faculty is unaware, they’re extremely knowledgeable about this process. And so the difference between a new program is that you have a certain select group of visitors or commissioners who come and meet with the program each year. Whereas after we will get accredited, then what will happen is that every seven years we will go and give them a revised self study, a revised document, and then they look at it again and making sure that everyone’s continuing. So that’s the only difference after one gets accredited is that the program is still reviewed every seven years, again to make sure that everyone is having the best program possible.

Katie:

Great. That’s great information. Thank you so much for explaining that. So can you tell us what this means for students? So a student that’s interested in taking this program, what does candidacy for accreditation mean for them?

Dr. Considine:

So any student who started our program fall 2018 and after. So if someone were to start in summer of ’20 or fall of ’20, they will be recognized as being in a program right now that’s in candidacy. But when they graduate we will have our initial accreditation and they will be recognized as graduating from an accredited program.

Dr. Kronner:

And that’s extremely important because in order to receive a license in any of the states, one has to graduate from an accredited program in order to sit for licensure. And so the students will be able to sit wherever they are living, whichever state that is, they’ll be able to sit for licensure within that state.

Katie:

So if I wanted to start my MSW in the fall of 2020 with Regis, would I then graduate from an accredited program?

Dr. Considine:

That is our goal, yes. I can’t say definitively that we will receive accreditation in spring 2021, but we are well on our way to that. We’ve successfully achieved benchmarks one and two. And I mean I’m 99% confident that we will achieve benchmark three and have our initial accreditation in spring 2021. So as long as that happens, yes absolutely, students will graduate from an accredited program.

Dr. Kronner:

And Dr Considine has already started us with this process. She has moved us forward in terms of, she mentioned this is about outcomes to make sure that we know that students are achieving those nine competencies. And we have already gathered data from our courses. We are meeting and discussing that data. And so we already have begun that process before the visit even happens in the fall.

Dr. Considine:

And I think it’s important too to look at when the CSWE commissioner … We’ve had two different commissioners, one came fall ’18, and then a different commissioner came fall ’19. And I took a few minutes to reflect on what were some of the things that we’ve accomplished that they really gave us kind of kudos or told us that we had done really well. I think things that we have done really well in the program thus far is that we have a very diverse student body, which I think is sometimes a little surprising for commissioners to see just how diverse our student body is. We have a very diverse faculty. A lot of schools really struggle to have a lot of diversity in their faculty. We have in both of those, students and faculty. And I think they were surprised by the sense of community that we have with our online students. And they really looked at and appreciated that our courses are challenging, that they really do teach you practice skills. And so they looked at all of those things and I think we’re pleased with that.

Dr. Considine:

Then also just the experience of our faculty. We have every faculty member is a licensed clinical social worker. So every faculty member has clinical experience, which is important because we are a clinical program. Our specialization is in clinical social work. So we want faculty that have that clinical experience. And so we have faculty with military experience, global, working with trauma. You heard Dr. Kronner and my experience. So we have a lot of really talented faculty with the program. And so I think that’s also very important as you look at what speaks for our program.

Katie:

That’s great. And I think, so if we get into this next part, could you tell us a little bit about why you think students should choose Regis? Why do you think the MSW program is so great?

Dr. Kronner:

Well, I think there are numerous reasons that I hear from students as to why they’ve chosen Regis. I think a lot of it is they wanted to go to a program that is clinical, which we definitely provide. They wanted to have a program that they were really going to learn quite a bit. And as Dr. Considine said, our program does have a really well done curriculum. Students are going to learn about all the different aspects of social work. And I think that they’re going to do that because of the support that they received from the faculty and the students. One of the things that I’ve heard from students and one of the things that I’ve loved about teaching at Regis, is that we all get to know each other very well. The class sizes are very manageable, and students within each class become friends. And a lot of times I think it’s that cohort model that most students are sort of in classes with each other. And they develop this level of connection, and they support each other as they’re going through an assignment. Or if they’re confused, they reach out to each other.

Dr. Kronner:

I have met with students numerous times. Whether that’s via phone, sometimes it’s a quick text message, but often it’s via video where we are talking to each other. And when they realize that the faculty are truly there for them, I think students just walk away going, “Oh my gosh.” You say you are, but I think they’re always some that are a little apprehensive. And then when they keep seeing that we reach out and we’re available, and we talk to them on the weekends if necessary, and sometimes in the evenings, they’re just like, “This is a program where faculty truly care about our education, and they want us to be successful.” And so I think students are just really very happy to be a part of this program. Dr. Considine, do you have other examples to share?

Dr. Considine:

I think something that really speaks to our program is from the beginning when we were developing and designing this program, we knew that we really wanted to have that relationship with a student be something that really stood out. We are not your average online program. When you come to Regis, you don’t get lost as a number, or you don’t get lost in the shuffle. The faculty, like Dr. Kronner said, the faculty really take time to get to know the students. We are really committed to once a student starts our program, we’re really committed to helping make sure that that student succeeds. To the best of our ability, doing everything that we can on our side to help a student to succeed. So I think that makes us really stand out and makes us really different.

Dr. Considine:

I think another piece that makes us different is that all of our courses, 100% of our curriculum, has been designed and developed by full time faculty. We look at what’s happening out there in the real world, what’s happening in social work practice right now. We look to our own clinical experience. Three of us are still involved in clinical practice right now. So we look at that and we see what’s happening. And we’ve been a part of developing these courses, all 100% faculty developed, which is also unique for online programs. We have a lot of support from Regis College, from the president all the way down, to really developing a strong program. So I think that sense of community, because when we were on campus in the fall, in 2019 for our CSWE visit, all of the faculty were there for that visit. And we thought, “We’re going to try and have a meet and greet. We’re an online program, not sure how many students. But let’s invite them and see who comes.”

Dr. Considine:

We were so pleased and so surprised that we had, I think … Dr. Kronner it was probably 25 to 30 students I think?

Dr. Kronner:

I agree.

Dr. Considine:

And that came just to meet the faculty and to meet each other. And it was just like such a little mini celebration of just here we all are, and everyone was talking. Talking about their classes, and talking about us. I think they were surprised. They thought, from what they see of us on the screen, we looked a little bit different I think. And so it was really a lot of fun to see the students. And we knew them, we knew all of them when they were there and we met with them, because that’s just who we are. We know our students. Our students are really important to us.

Katie:

Great. That’s great to hear. So just as we wrap up here, do you have any final thoughts maybe you’d like to share with students who might be wondering about the program and the accreditation process?

Dr. Considine:

I think this is what it’s all about. These four people who you see on the slide right here, those are four of our students. Dr. Kronner and I, and if I had the other faculty here too, we know these students very well. And I think that just reiterates what I said about what makes us unique. This was at the meet and greet when we were on campus with the students in the fall. And these students are not all … The interesting thing about the slide, these students are not all in the same cohort. They’ve met each other online through their other classes, and these four have really developed a friendship, which I think is so wonderful and so unique to our program.

Dr. Considine:

But about accreditation, this is what it’s all about. It’s really all about our students. And it’s making sure that we’re meeting the standards of CSWE to position our students with the best possible education to go out and do incredible things in the social work profession, and as Regis alumni. I mean fulfilling that commitment to achieve our initial accreditation in spring 2021, that is so important to the MSW faculty and to the Regis administration, and we’re committed to achieving that accreditation in 2021. We are right on target for that, and we are really confident that we’re moving that direction. And it’ll be a relief once we have it.

Katie:

Great. That’s great to hear. Well, thank you so much. Thank you Dr. Considine and Dr. Kronner for taking the time today to explain to us a little bit more about accreditation.