When an institution finally is reaffirmed, it is because there is demonstrated quality and processes are consistent with the respective mission. The primary role of the BAC and the AAC is to ensure consistency across peer review team recommendations relative to the standards and institutional missions. The committees work hard at consistency and talk much about it. While no system based on professional judgments is without error, both committees believe that they have ensured and are ensuring consistency. Thus, the accreditation committee must work through a team and build an effective two-way communication flow.
Consistency depends heavily on clarity of the team visit report.
Because there are differences among reviewers and their respective judgments, consistency across team recommendations never will be purely straightforward. The limited number of panels resulting from non-concurrence by the committee with the peer review team recommendation suggests that the process is working. There are numerous sources for questions of consistency. First, a mission-linked accreditation process always will invite questions about consistency. Institutions with different missions will achieve accreditation with different configurations of resources and resource deployments.