specialized accreditors that are not CHEA or DOE recognized

My wife's forensic science graduate program is trying to get professionally accredited through the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Although is not CHEA/DOE recognized, it seems like the "official" accrediting organization for forensic science programs. I do not see a CHEA/DOE recognized accrediting organization for this field on the CHEA website.

Two questions: Since the program is not CHEA/DOE accredited, is accreditation really that important? Why would an accrediting organization such as this not push for official CHEA/DOE recognition?

http://www.aafs.org/

 

Being CHEA/DOE recognized is probably much like being accredited; a lengthy, costly process that doesn't happen overnight. There probably are some "accreditors" who have applied and are going through the process.

The unofficial "accreditor" of Criminal Justice programs, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, recently "certified" their first program;

http://www.acjs.org/pubs/167_667_14143.cfm

Whether or not ACJS is going for official recognition, I have no idea.

 

Perhaps not. In general, specialty accreditation is most valuable in professional fields that are subject to regulation by state licensing boards. For example, state bar associations always prefer/require ABA-accredited law degrees, and state engineering boards always prefer/require ABET-accredited engineering degrees. In such cases, an accredited degree is demonstrably "better" than an unaccredited degree, at least for licensing purposes.

But I don't think that forensic scientists are subject to that kind of state regulation. So there may not be any laws or regulations that make AAFS-accredited forensic science degrees "better" than unaccredited forensic science degrees. In this case, specialty accreditation may have little or no value, unless it is widely perceived as desirable by prospective employers or clients. Don't know if this is the case with AAFS degrees.

Such recognition is probably not easy to get (as suggested in the previous post). And it may not be worthwhile to make the effort, if AAFS-accredited degrees have no particular legal significance anyway (as suggested above).

 

You'll find the answer to the first question in their accreditation standards, which requires institutional accreditation before they will award their programmatic accreditation.

As far as your second question, their website shows only eighteen programs that have earned their accreditation. I don't think they have sufficient numbers or history to seek CHEA/DOE recognition.

http://www.aafs.org/pdf/FEPACStandards-05-02-07.pdf

 

The Project Management Institute accredits Project Management programs at already-accredited schools. This accreditation is of interest for those of us in the PM field. But it is open to abuse....

The University of Management and Technology, accredited by DETC, got a Ph.D. in PM accredited by PMI. Well, such a program is outside the scope of their DETC accreditation--they shouldn't be able to implement such a program while accredited by DETC. UMT acknowledged they were implementing the Ph.D., saying that PMI's accreditation was sufficient to keep DETC at bay. (This was utterly false; I don't know if it was naive or disingenuous.) Well, when DETC checked with them, they denied it, despite being listed on PMI's website as being accredited by PMI to offer it.

UMI doesn't offer the Ph.D. They do offer the DBA, which is now within DETC's scope. (It wasn't, however, when this little dust-up occured.) Oh, and UMI is still accredited to offer the Ph.D. by PMI. How is this so, considering they don't even conduct such a degree program? Also, the DBA isn't listed at PMI as accredited. Sigh....

 

Accreditation is important if people in a particular field think it's important. Apart from licensing, there's the question whether employers prefer graduates of accredited programs. Is graduation from an accredited program expected of those giving court testimony?

And just in terms of subject-matter quality, who's better qualified to say that an educational program is sound than the national professional organization for that subject?

They might not think that there's any reason why they should. The primary reason why the Secretary of Education recognizes accreditors is to make accredited schools (and their students) eligible for federal funding programs. If a specialized accreditor only accredits programs offered by schools with recognized institutional accreditation, then everybody's already eligible.

The American Chemical Society approves chemistry bachelors programs. The ACS isn't DoEd/CHEA recognized but its approval is a very big deal to chemists. Universities proudly list it on their accreditation webpages and boast about their ACS accredited chemistry programs.

http://portal.acs.org:80/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_TRANSITIONMAIN&node_id=194&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1

 

Who is this UMI? You started out by talking about the University of Management and Technology, which would be UMT.

 

Typo from moving back and forth between UMT and PMI.