As with so many events over the last two years, ACBSP’s Council of Regional Chairs (CRC) Mid-Year meeting missed out on the in-person camaraderie that typically fills our annual January meeting. Despite the pivot to a virtual meeting, however, there was plenty of valuable time together, with laughter and productivity, as our regional chairs represented ACBSP’s 11 regions from around the world. I have had the privilege of serving as your chairwoman for the 2021-2022 academic year. Here are some of the highlights and calls to action for our regions:
We enjoyed a warm welcome and update from ACBSP current Chair, Professor Debbie Gaspard, from Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Nebraska. She reported on her various ongoing initiatives, highlighted by the continued growth and financial strength of the organization. She also noted the upcoming annual conference, which will include a pre-conference session devoted to the impact women leaders make in higher education in the form of a pre-conference session on Friday, June 17. Please make sure you keep June 17-20 clear on your calendar, as we hope you’ll join us for the annual conference.
Our President & CEO, Jeffrey Alderman, gave us an update on the Board of Directors’ exploration of expanding the home office’s use of a virtual workforce and whether there are ways that our organization can better use resources currently devoted to a physical workplace in a prime commercial location. The home office has largely worked virtually over the past two years, so there are many options to consider moving forward.
Region 1’s incoming chair, Dr. Jeremi Bauer from Post University, led a discussion on diversity, equity, and inclusion based on a recent article on business-school accreditation and DEI. Chief Accreditation Officer, Steven Parscale, highlighted criterion 1.2 on social responsibility. The AGB is expected to recommend expansion of this standard to further emphasize DEI
Chairwoman Gaspard also asked every member of ACBSP to please consider nominating a peer or yourself for the Teaching Excellence Award. This is an annual call for nominations beginning each fall. Honoring our peers for their commitment to teaching excellence is important.
President Alderman also offered a snapshot of the many in-person and virtual events planned for 2022. He specifically highlighted ACBSP’s premier training event, the Access Accreditation Workshops. Information regarding upcoming events can be found on the ACBSP website at ACBSP.org. We are always looking for member institutions to host these workshops, so if you are interested, please contact President Alderman at jalderman@acbsp.org.
ACBSP members are being asked to consider submitting a scholarly paper for publication with the Transnational Journal of Business. This is an excellent opportunity, and you can find more information on ACBSP’s website.
Dr. Parscale provided some important details on certificate accreditation (acbsp.org/accreditation-type-certificate). He wanted to emphasize how easy it is for institutions to include certificate accreditation as part of their curriculums.
Our CAO also shared more about our continuing recognition from the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) as ACBSP was re-recognized through 202.
Another great report was about ACBSP updating its global bylaws to better reflect a virtual environment. The Bylaws Committee updated the regional bylaws template to sync with the global bylaws, and we are asking each region to update their respective regions in 2022. Some of the suggested changes are important for accommodating virtual meetings, but the updated language also provides clearer language on the financial responsibilities between the regions and the home office.
This summary is just a small sampling of everything we discussed during our time together. We enjoyed robust conversation about in-person and virtual events as we look ahead to 2022. Even with a virtual meeting, we enjoyed productive conversation and gained a significant amount of information for our regions and members. I hope this article helps circulate what is happening at ACBSP, and we are already looking forward to our next CRC meeting and what will be (we hope) an in-person meeting together. As always, there is plenty going on at ACBSP!
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