Grad PAASCU Visit 2025 (HE Memo#Y3.14)

HE Memo#Y3.14
10 March 2025

We have just finished going through our Institutional Assessment by the AUN-QA team and in a few days, we are going to welcome the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges, and Universities (PAASCU) accrediting team for our Graduate Programs in the School of Humanities, Gokongwei Brothers School of Education and Learning Design, John Gokongwei School of Management, School of Science and Engineering, and Dr. Rosita G. Leong School of Social Sciences.  This is how serious we are in upgrading our quality through learning from feedback on our processes by external quality assurance bodies.

In 2019, our graduate programs had a PAASCU visit, after which, we were given a 5-year PAASCU accreditation certificate by the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines (FAAP).  So, it’s 2025 and the time is here for us to be revisited to see how we have improved over the last 5 years.

Mark the Dates

Kindly mark the dates on your calendar for the Grad PAASCU Visit, which will be held on 20-21 March 2025 (Thursday-Friday). There will be 19 accreditors and 2 representatives from PAASCU. This is a significant milestone that reflects our commitment to excellence in delivering the highest quality in our graduate programs.

Over the last three to five years, the PAASCU has been gradually overhauling its processes and instruments to keep up with best practices among accrediting bodies in other parts of the world. One of the results of this review is the revision of the accreditation instrument. The PAASCU accreditors are going to use the revised instrument, benchmarked with the AUN-QA instrument.  It attends to 8 areas of inquiry: leadership and governance, quality assurance, resource management, teaching-learning, students services, external relations, research, results. The new instrument has necessitated the focus on individual programs instead of just a cluster of programs (as in the past).  That is no wonder that there are more accreditors on board at this time than in the past visits.

This accreditation visit is another important undertaking for us. The office of the Strategy and Quality Management Office (SQMO) in collaboration with the office of the Assistant VP for Graduate Education, has submitted the self-survey report to PAASCU.  The self-survey report was work done during the last many months prior to submission.  I thank the Self-Survey Committee at the outset for their dedicated work.

Preparing for the Visit

In preparation for the accreditation visit, I would like to ask the academic administrators (Deans/Chairs/Program Directors), graduate faculty, and graduate students to read the main report and the follow-up action report on the recommendations of the 2019 visit. The links have been sent to the deans who will in turn send these to their chairs/program directors that have graduate programs.  I expect the latter to share the links to those concerned among the faculty and students.

For graduate faculty who are teaching this semester, especially, here is a summary of what we would kindly ask them to do:

1. Take time to read and familiarize themselves with the reports.
2.  Have a copy available of the course syllabus and plan for the class in their classrooms (either online on or onsite) on the day of the visit.
3. Teach in the assigned classrooms during the accreditation days as the PAASCU accreditors have been given the assigned classrooms for the classes that they have chosen to observe; start and end the classes on time.  For those teaching online as indicated in their syllabi, we expect them to follow a similar decorum of presence and punctuality.
4. Inform students about the forthcoming accreditation and remind them of the usual respect and warm hospitality that we accord any visitors.

The PAASCU accreditors will also have interviews with faculty and students. The interviewees are randomly selected based on the list of current faculty members and students provided to PAASCU.  Once selected, faculty and students will be given notice a few hours before the interview or a day before depending on how early the selection process can be done. I would like to request that both students and faculty make time for the interviews.

Courage and Confidence

I’m asking the deans, chairs, and program directors to make sure that these guidelines and requests indicated above be observed and granted. I trust in your cooperation.

This accreditation will not only highlight the exceptional work we're already doing but also provide us with valuable insights for continuous improvement and growth.  Thank you for your continued support in ensuring the success of this accreditation visit.