Conducted during years 5 - 9 within the 10-year cycle, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) expects that institutions are always engaged in quality improvement. The Open Pathway requires an institution to designate ONE major improvement effort it has undertaken as its Quality Initiative for Reaffirmation of Accreditation.

The Quality Initiative should suit the institution's present concerns or aspirations. HLC encourages institutions to use the Quality Initiative to take risks, innovate, take on a tough challenge, or pursue a yet unproven strategy or hypothesis. 

Overview of the 2016 HLC Quality Initiative

Click here to download a copy of the full 2016 Quality Initiative Report

In its 2016 HLC Quality Initiative (QI), Wayne State University implemented three key components of the Undergraduate Academic Advising Initiative:

1. Completion of Academic Advisor Hiring, in which WSU hired more than 45 academic advisors and other academic support personnel, dramatically improving the student-advisor ratio.
2. Implementation of an Academic Advising Training Academy (ATA), which supports academic advisor training for content, skills, and dispositional outcomes, and continuing professional development. The ATA is comprised of a core curriculum and a certificate program built on advisor and student learning outcomes, other professional development activities, and support for the Academic Advising Council.
3. Development and deployment of online tools to support academic advising, including an advisor scheduling system, online declaration of major/program, and an improved degree audit system. We also piloted an advisor alert system: the Early Warning System.