MFLL News
Handelsman named to Andean Commission for Evaluation and Accreditation of Higher Education
In February 2008, the Governing Board of the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, with its principal campuses in Bolivia and Ecuador, selected Professor Michael Handelsman, Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, to serve a four-year term as President of the newly created independent Andean Commission for Evaluation and Accreditation of Higher Education. The Commission is made up of three academics who will be responsible for the oversight and coordination of the Andean University System’s evaluation and accreditation process of all university programs. The Commission will establish the basic standards and measurements to be used by each university and, ultimately, will make the final determination relevant to each academic program’s accreditation. According to the principal objectives approved by the Governing Board of the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, whose council members represent Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, the Andean Commission for Evaluation and Accreditation will:
- ensure the quality of each campus’s academic programs and administrative leadership through an on-going process of professionalization among university professors and administrators;
- submit annual progress reports to the University System’s Governing Board and to the General Secretariat of the Andean Community in which the efforts made by each campus to implement and attain high standards of quality in administration, teaching, and research are assessed;
- assist institutions of higher education from the Andean Region to address effectively society’s needs.