The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is one of only 19 colleges and universities with concurrent enrollment programs that gained national accreditation this year through the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP).

“This accreditation is so important because it proves that we adhere to the standards set at a national level,” said Lisa Davis, director of distributed learning at UA Little Rock. “We want the high school students to receive the same academic rigor as students on our college campus.”  

Altogether, only 105 higher education institutions in the country with dual enrollment programs with high school students have earned accreditation through NACEP’s extensive peer-review process.

“University of Arkansas at Little Rock has once again demonstrated to its peers that the college courses it offers in high schools are of the same high quality as college courses offered on campus,” said Victoria Zeppelin, chair of the NACEP Accreditation Commission.

To earn accreditation from NACEP, concurrent enrollment programs conduct a self-study, document how their programs adhere to NACEP’s 17 standards, and undergo a rigorous peer-review process conducted by a team of representatives from NACEP‐accredited programs as well as the NACEP Accreditation Commission. NACEP’s accreditation is valid for seven years, during which time programs are expected to uphold NACEP’s standards and report annually on program practices.

“Our staff members have worked diligently with our academic departments and partners to implement policies, processes, and procedures to ensure delivery of a high quality concurrent enrollment program,” Davis said. “I am so proud of the work they have done to achieve this tremendous accomplishment.”

Davis, Mary Elizabeth Woolery, UA Little Rock concurrent enrollment coordinator, and Nick Steele, concurrent enrollment specialist, led the accreditation effort. They collected data for nine months and submitted a document with more than 400 pages covering the standards necessary to gain accreditation.

UA Little Rock’s concurrent enrollment program began in 1998 with only 43 students. Today, the program has more than 1,700 students enrolled in 15 high schools.

The program will expand to 21 high schools with more than 2,000 students in the fall.

In partnership with the offices of eLearning and Scholarly Technology and Resources, online classes will be available to concurrent enrollment students for the first time in the fall of 2017.

“We are planning on taking concurrent enrollment courses online, since it’s the wave of the future,” Woolery said. “We will be starting with eight classes, including speech, composition 1 and 2, biology, algebra, and history.”

The online classes, which will be taught by UA Little Rock faculty, are also a way to provide concurrent enrollment courses to high schools that do not have teachers with the credentials to teach college courses. Those credentials include a master’s degree and 18 graduate hours in a specific discipline.

The UA Little Rock concurrent enrollment staff will be honored at the NACEP national conference in Washington, D.C., in October.

Arkansas had seven colleges and universities earn accreditation, including Arkansas State University at Beebe, Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, National Park College, Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas, Southern Arkansas University-Magnolia, and University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana.