- Institutional Effectiveness

A team of five HLC Peer Corps members -- faculty and administrators from other HLC universities like ours -- will be on campus October 19 & 20, 2026.  

Block the times: add Google Calendar hold    

How can I help?

When asked, review our draft materials and give meaningful feedback!

Attend "mock visit" events in early fall and actively participate. 

Show up to open and focused forum sessions when the peer reviewers are on campus! They want to hear from you! 

"You" means you -- don't assume "Someone else will take care of this." "Other people have more to say." "My work isn't important..." You mater! Your work is important!! Your voice is needed. 

Before peer reviewers come to campus they will read our assurance argument and evidence (our self-study); it’s essential that we cover the right material in that writeup. You tell us what “the right material” is. 

During Academic Year 2025-26, we had several means of submitting leads or feedback. Those have been taken down as we moved into review of the draft stage. However, you can still have your voice heard before we submit materials to HLC in September. Contact Dan Cullen for more information.

NMU's accreditation team are crafting the argument to demonstrate our excellence -- let them benefit from your expertise.  

The Higher Learning Commission's Peer Corps team visit gives NMU the opportunity to reflect on what we do best -- what you do well at NMU, how you contribute! -- and to show off. 

We know we are a strong institution. We know we can always strive to do more and to do better. This visit let's us demonstrate to peers the many ways we put students first and strive for excellence. 

Institutional accreditation is fundamental to our operations, enabling Federal Student Aid participation and validating our students' credentials. Graduate schools, employers, and healthcare organizations trust NMU transcripts to document competencies because of our accreditation. Maintaining it is essential to our role in the education ecosystem.

Top Five Reasons for YOU to Care:

1. Financial aid – the U.S. Dept of Education  requires good standing with institutional accreditation for colleges and universities to be eligible to disperse Federal Student Aid such as Pell Grants, subsidized student loans, and other forms of financial assistance. Student can only continue to use Federal Student Aid to attend NMU if we remain accredited.

2. Quality assurance – Reaffirmation of accreditation verifies that NMU meets rigorous standards of quality.

3. Continuous improvement – Preparing for our visit and attending to accreditation through the ten-year cycle encourages Northern to assess our strengths and areas needing attention. This commitment to quality benefits students most of all, but also our graduates, the community, and all NMU constituents, including faculty and staff.

4. Employer and college confidence – Employers and graduate schools who receive NMU students value degrees from accredited institutions; affirmed accreditation signals that graduates have the competencies necessary to thrive in their chosen fields.

5. Pride – NMU’s reaffirmation of accreditation is a collective point of pride for students, alumni, faculty and staff.

While on campus, the members of the HLC Peer Corps will meet with specific individuals and groups, hold themed and open sessions where they will ask us about our work, see our campus close up, and review our records. They will seek evidence of how Northern meets students' educational needs, based on the HLC’s Criteria for Accreditation. 

What you can do is attend appropriate sessions and talk honestly and with pride about your work. 

The campus visitors will have read about NMU's policies, practices, and operations, but they won't really know us until they meet you and others who make up the campus community. They want to hear from faculty, students, and administrators, so make it a point to share your story and show our collective -- and your individual -- good work. 

2024-25

• With university and Academic Affairs leadership, review the Criteria for Accreditation and assess Northern's standing relative to all standards.
• Appoint and empower accreditation team to lead the work developing NMU's assurance argument and evidence files to support our claims of excellence.

2025-26 

• Accreditation team writes NMU's assurance argument.
• Accreditation team meets with on- and off-campus constituents and assembles evidence that supports the claims of excellence we will make in our assurance argument.
• Institutional Effectiveness holds campus engagement activities to prepare campus constituents to host an effective peer visit. 

2026-27

• In early September, NMU finalizes assurance argument and evidence files and submits to HLC.
• Peer Corps members visit campus October 19 and 20 to meet with a wide range of constituents and to explore our operations.
• NMU responds to reviewers' comments and recommendations. 

Faculty Authors

Kathryn Johnson
Assistant Professor
History

Elizabeth (Liz) Monske
Professor
English

Adam Naito
Assistant Professor (Associate effective 2026-27)
Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences

Institutional Effectiveness

Katie Buhrmann
Executive Administrative Assistant

Daniel Cullen
Director of Institutional Accreditation and Assessment

Jason Nicholas
Assistant Provost and Director for Institutional Effectiveness and University Strategic Planning

Kyle Person
Graduate Assistant
Exercise Science

Faculty authors and the accreditation team spent Academic Year 2025-26 speaking with folks across campus, gathering evidence, and writing narrative. Thank you to all who provided help!

The Higher Learning Commission, HLC, is an independent, non-profit institutional accreditor recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Accreditors for higher education ensure postsecondary educational institutions put into practice the quality and credibility standards the accreditor requires for good standing. Accreditors develop their own standards and criteria; they conduct evaluations through a rigorous review process, predominantly by peers from other member institutions. The HLC looks at the institution as a whole, not just specific programs.

The goal of reaffirmation of accreditation is to assure Northern Michigan University students -- as well as parents, employers, graduate schools and other constituents -- that NMU provides a quality educational experience.

NMU is on HLC's Open Pathway of accreditation, which is run on a ten-year cycle. Our accreditation was last reaffirmed in 2016-17, and then reviewed mid-cycle in 2020-21. Our upcoming Comprehensive Evaluation will be in 2026-27 and will include a team from peer intuitions first reading the assurance argument and supporting evidence we submit as well as researching our operations on their own, and then visiting our campus to see first-hand how we function.  

Northern has been continuously accredited by HLC since 1916.

For more information or to talk about how to get involved, contact Dan Cullen in Institutional Effectiveness.