Formalized Program Review: An Evolution

From the beginning, the same or similar opportunities and concerns have arisen at each step in International Leadership Association (ILA)–sponsored conversations and actions related to guidelines, standards, and accreditation of leadership education programs in higher education. Opportunities include increased legitimacy, program development, and more robust responses to external accreditation requirements. Concerns include dampening autonomy and creativity, skepticism that such a diverse field could be evaluated by a common program review model, increased bureaucratization, and, with regard to external review, ethical concerns. Because these conversations and actions have occurred over the past 8 years and have culminated most recently with preliminary recommendations of the ILA's Task Force on Formalized Program Review, we can learn from the history of the debates around these issues and the solutions that were derived to address them. The most salient of these solutions is found in the logic of the process order of Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs. The first step in Guiding Questions is for program faculty to produce a written conceptual framework that is grounded not only in theory but also in the context of the institution, college, and department. This should preserve local autonomy and creativity. Further, emphasis for evaluation purposes on program content, teaching and learning methods, and assessment and outcomes measures that are coherent and consistent with these locally derived conceptual frameworks should allow broad application across the diversity of the field. Local control should also minimize bureaucratization and help mitigate ethical concerns. The trend is toward increasing support for formalized program review. Concerns as well as opportunities remain. However, others, including external accrediting organizations and institutional effectiveness offices, should not be determining the terms of our legitimacy and accountability. We must do that for ourselves. Building on what we have learned over the past 8 years shows the way forward.