The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) is an independent, non-profit membership organization recognized by the United States Department of Education since 1952 and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) as the regional authority on educational quality and institutional effectiveness of higher education institutions in the seven-state Northwest region of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. It fulfills its mission by establishing accreditation criteria and evaluation procedures by which institutions are reviewed. As of May 2012, this commission is not listed in CHEA's database of recognized accrediting agencies; it is shown as one that was formerly recognized.
The Commission oversees regional accreditation for 156 institutions. Its decision-making body consists of twenty-six Commissioners who represent the public and the diversity of higher education institutions within the Northwest region.
The organization traces its history to 1917 when the Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher Schools was formed. In 1974 the association changed its name to the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges. In 2000 it became the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges and Universities, which disbanded and split into two separate organizations in 2004, with the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities handling the accreditation of institutions of higher education and the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools handling the accreditation of primary and secondary schools.
Famous quotes containing the words northwest, commission, colleges and/or universities:
“I got my first clear view of Ktaadn, on this excursion, from a hill about two miles northwest of Bangor, whither I went for this purpose. After this I was ready to return to Massachusetts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“The present century has not dealt kindly with the farmer. His legends are all but obsolete, and his beliefs have been pared away by the professors at colleges of agriculture. Even the farm- bred bards who twang guitars before radio microphones prefer “I’m Headin’ for the Last Roundup” to “Turkey in the Straw” or “Father Put the Cows Away.””
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The rush to books and universities is like the rush to the public house. People want to drown their realization of the difficulties of living properly in this grotesque contemporary world, they want to forget their own deplorable inefficiency as artists in life.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)