Talk:Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

message: I added some explanatory text on how this differs from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, namely that it doesn't accredit post-secondary schools with degree programs (per the US Dept. of Education), and my edit was undid. I'm going to restore it, since I believe that the information is necessary to distinguish the two organizations, and I referenced my source.
A garbage person (talk) 18:35, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Differentiation needed

message: , please identify where in this source it says that the MSA's accreditation of post-secondary schools is limited to those which do not confer degrees, or which offer technical programs. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, I don't follow your logic. The Middle States Commission on Secondary Schools is not the same thing as the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Are you saying "close enough?" --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:56, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I can tell, the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools has two parts, the Commission on Secondary Schools and the Commission on Elementary Schools, also collectively known as MSA-CESS. If one part of a greater whole does something, I don't think it's reaching to say that the whole is also involved. Since the Middle States Commission on Higher Education is legally and operationally distinct from both the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and MSA-CESS, the fact that MSCHE accredits degree-granting programs has no conflict with saying that MSA doesn't.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by A garbage person (talk • contribs) 20:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a logical fallacy in there. If a part of the whole does something, then you can say the whole does it too. But that's not what this is about. If a part of the whole doesn't do something, that doesn't mean the whole doesn't do it either. That's because another part of the whole might do it. So just because MSA-CESS is limited in what types of post-secondary programs it can accredit, doesn't mean MSA is so limited. As I understand it the other part of MSA, namely the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, is specifically permitted to accredit degree-earning post-secondary programs. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 02:13, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: MSCHE is not part of MSA; it's legally separate and has a specific agreement with MSA to continue using the "Middle States" name.  I'm a higher ed scholar (who happens to work at a MSCHE-accredited university and is a little bit involved with the organization) so I don't specifically know anything else about MSA but I know that it's not one of the seven recognized regional accreditors of colleges and universities.  So while we may not be able to prove a negative ("MSA does not accredit colleges or universities") we can definitely prove the positive that it's not a recognized regional accreditor so I think this situation is quite clear. ElKevbo (talk) 02:30, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

text: And the source cited at the very beginning of this section explicitly says this anyway: "Scope of recognition: the accreditation of institutions with postsecondary, non-degree granting career and technology programs in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to include the accreditation of postsecondary, non-degree granting institutions that offer all or part of their educational programs via distance education modalities."  So where's the confusion??? ElKevbo (talk) 02:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Not confusion, basic verification. The source is talking about the MSA-CESS, not the MSA. I have no doubt that your personal knowledge is correct, but we still need a reliable source that verifies the content. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 03:02, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The MSCHE website details how it was part of the MSA, but isn't any longer: "From its origins in 1919 through February 2013, the Commission was a unit of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Although now an independent corporation, the Commission maintains an ongoing relationship with the Middle States Association.". So MSCHE is not part of the MSA any longer; it just works with them. --A garbage person (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I seem to remember from a MSCHE town hall or conference that the relationship focuses almost strictly on licensing the name "Middle States."  The current MSCHE website says: "From 1919 through February 2013, MSCHE functioned as one of the three Commissions of the Middle States Association. However, on March 1, 2013, MSCHE was separately incorporated under Pennsylvania Commonwealth law as the Mid-Atlantic Region Commission on Higher Education, doing business as the Middle States Commission on Higher Education."  I think they have retained the name primarily to reduce confusion among institutions and other constituents because they used the name for so long (nearly a century) but otherwise have no substantive relationship with MSA-CESS or what remains of MSA . ElKevbo (talk) 19:17, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

text: Thank you, that's helpful. The verifiability problem still stands, however. The MSA is not the same thing as the MSA-CESS, so we can't use a source that says something about the MSA-CESS to say something about the MSA in general. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:00, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that there is a substantive MSA organization, not in an operational sense.  There seems to have been a unified, functioning organization with that name at some point in the past but right now the only organizations that actually exist are MSCHE and MSA-CESS; the Department of Education's accreditation website supports this understanding.  If this article doesn't reflect that - and I don't think it does! - then this article needs to be rewritten.  It should probably be a somewhat short article with some history but the majority of the material should be left for the MSCHE and MSA-CESS articles since those are the contemporary accrediting organizations that currently exist and have ties to MSA.  ElKevbo (talk) 19:13, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  post-secondary accreditation