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Burck Smith on Innovation and the Future of Higher Ed

StraighterLine’s CEO and Founder Burck Smith is proud to be a Partner for Transformation with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). HLC’s Partners for Transformation is a blue-ribbon think tank tasked with offering innovative ideas on accreditation of colleges and universities. This group of higher education thought leaders is conceptualizing 21st-century accrediting practices that assure quality in higher education and ultimately better benefit students in today’s world.

This group of higher education thought leaders is conceptualizing 21st-century accrediting practices that assure quality in higher education and ultimately better benefit students in today’s world.

HLC recently asked some of the members of the Partners for Transformation to share some thoughts on accreditation and innovation in the 21st century. Watch StraighterLine CEO Burck Smith’s response here:

Watch the video, The Landscape of Higher Education

The group has also published a compendium of thought papers – “Innovation Beyond the Horizon and the Future of Education – that explores the future and transformation of higher education.

“The group was challenged to work toward a “transformation” of accreditation, not to merely “tweak” what was already in place. Two exploratory topic papers on “Student-Focused Accrediting Agencies” and “Revolution of Postsecondary Education: The Unbundling” offer a distinct new view of the issues to be addressed by an accreditation agency functioning in the 21st century. The third paper, “Relationship to the Triad and Beyond,” calls for a reorientation of the roles various organizations provide as oversight to higher education in this transformative structure.”

Read the full report, Innovation: Beyond the Horizon and the Future of Higher Education pdf