The University's institutional Accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), requires Penn State to maintain a current list of all professionally accredited programs and to provide notice if any Penn State program is subject to a negative accreditation action by a programmatic accreditor. Required information will be updated annually in April using the Professional Accreditation data inputted into CIM.
Note: If a program has been subject to a negative accreditation action (warning, probation, or show cause) you should immediately notify Marie Sullivan, Director of Accreditation, at mjs920@psu.edu.
Each spring you will be contacted and reminded to update your information in CIM. You also will be asked to provide:
If you have questions about professional accreditation reporting requirements, please contact the Office of Planning, Assessment, and Institutional Research at opair@psu.edu.
The instructions below explain how to successfully submit a new Professional Accreditation form in the CIM system. If you want to edit an existing form, please follow the instructions for how to find and edit an existing Professional Accreditation form.
Go to the CourseLeaf CIM Miscellaneous Request Management dashboard at: https://psu-next.courseleaf.com/miscadmin/.
Log in with your Penn State user ID and password.
A dialog box will appear requesting that you complete your login to CourseLeaf. Click the circle icon in the dialog box to proceed to the CourseLeaf CIM Miscellaneous Request Management dashboard.
Once logged in, you will see the CourseLeaf CIM Miscellaneous Request Management dashboard. Click the Propose New Miscellaneous button to open a new Professional Accreditation submission form.
The miscellaneous form will open in a new browser window.
The CIM miscellaneous request form is used to submit both Professional Accreditation and Professional Licensure/Certification information for Penn State programs. The information submitted will be used to complete University reporting requirements for Professional Accreditation and Professional Licensure/Certification and to provide the necessary disclosures to students planning to pursue employment in a career that requires professional licensure/certification.
Before starting on a new Professional Accreditation form, please read the following tips and guidelines to help you successfully navigate form features and requirements.
The CIM miscellaneous request form is a dynamic form that allows you to submit either Professional Accreditation or Professional Licensure/Certification information for your programs. The fields that appear on the form will change depending on your answers to certain questions. For example, if you select "Accreditation" for the Request Type, the form will populate with form fields pertaining to accreditation of your programs. If you select "Professional Licensure/Certification" for the Request Type, the form will populate with form fields pertaining to Professional Licensure/Certification.
Fields that are required are outlined in red. You cannot start workflow (i.e., begin the review and approval process) on your form until all required fields have been completed. You can, however, save changes to your incomplete form and return to complete and submit the form later.
Instructions for each question appear in italics above the question heading and field. Please read these instructions carefully before entering your information into the form.
You can save your changes to a form at any time by clicking the Save Changes button at the bottom of your screen. This will save all changes made but will not submit the form to the approval workflow process. Saving changes allows you to come back to your form and finish editing at a later date.
Clicking the Cancel button will close the form without saving any changes made.
Once your form is finished and ready to begin the review process, click the Start Workflow button to submit the form to the approval workflow process.
A single Professional Accreditation form should be submitted for each Professional Accrediting Agency that accredits the programs in your college. Programs covered by additional professional or programmatic accreditation are listed on the form with the agency.
The listing below displays all form fields for the Professional Accreditation form.
From the dropdown menu, select Accreditation.
The Title is created for each new form. The title is the name you will use in the future to search for and find your Accreditation form on the Miscellaneous Request Management dashboard when you need to make additional edits or updates. For consistency purposes, all Professional Accreditation titles should be entered as Accreditation: Academic College Code - Professional Accrediting Agency Acronym. For example, all Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral degree programs in the Smeal College of Business are accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate School's of Business (AACSB). The title for this Accreditation form should be entered as "Accreditation: BA - AACSB".
Tip: Academic college codes can be found on the Major, Minor, and Certificate Program Codes page on the Office of the University Registrar's website.
Note: The complete official name of the professional accrediting agency will be entered into a different field on the Professional Accreditation form. The form Title is used solely to search for and identify your forms within the CIM system.
If some of your programs are accredited by different divisions of the same accrediting agency, the title should be entered as Accreditation: Academic College Code - Professional Accrediting Agency Acronym (Division Name). For example, the Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from the College of Engineering is accredited by the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET, while other College of Engineering Bachelor's degree programs are accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. The title for the form reporting the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET should be entered as "Accreditation: EN - ABET (Computing Accreditation Commission)". The title for the form reporting the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET should be entered as "Accreditation: EN - ABET (Engineering Accreditation Commission)".
Enter the official name of the accrediting agency, along with the acceptable abbreviation or acronym, if applicable.
List all the LionPATH Plan and Sub-Plan Codes (if applicable) of the programs that are included in the accreditation review of the entered accrediting agency. Only enter one plan code (or plan and corresponding sub-plan code combination) per row.
Plan codes can be found on the Major, Minor, and Certificate Program Codes tool on the Office of the University Registrar's website or in CIM Program Management.
To add another plan code, click the Green Plus Sign Button in the form field header to add a new row. Enter the additional LionPATH Plan and Sub-Plan Code (if applicable).
To delete a row, click the Red X Button to the right of the row.
From the dropdown menu, select your academic college. The college selected here will determine the approval workflow.
From the dropdown menu, select the year when this accreditation was first approved to begin.
From the dropdown menu, select the year when the last review with this accreditation was completed.
If the accreditor has taken any negative accreditation actions since accreditation was last reviewed/reaffirmed, select Yes. If not, select No. Negative accreditation actions include being placed on warning, probation, or show cause.
Recommendations for improvements that can be implemented over time for a future review/self-study would not require you to select Yes.
From the dropdown menu, select the year of the next accreditation review by the professional accreditor.
The reaffirmation of accreditation (next review) date should be the year that reaffirmation is expected to be received. For example, if reaffirmation is anticipated in academic year 2028-2029, the next review date would be 2029.
Enter the full name and email address of the person to contact about this Professional Accreditation information.
Once you have completed the Professional Accreditation form, click the green Start Workflow Button at the bottom of your screen to submit the form for final review and approval. The form will be sent to the first step in the approved workflow.
Note: You cannot start workflow on your Professional Accreditation form until all required fields have been completed.
The automated approval process in CIM is called the workflow. Once you click the green Start Workflow Button, your Professional Accreditation form will begin this approval process.
Once a Professional Accreditation form is submitted to workflow, your college Accreditation Approver will be notified via an automated email that the form is ready to be reviewed, edited, approved, or rejected.
You can log in to the CourseLeaf CIM Miscellaneous Request Management dashboard at any time to check the workflow status of your Professional Accreditation form. Once you have located your form in the dashboard, the preview will include the workflow steps the form must complete. The current workflow step for the form will be in bold orange text. Completed workflow steps will be in bold green text.
During the approval process, your college Accreditation Approver might have questions about the form. If a form edit is required, you can be added as a workflow step so you can directly edit your form while it is in the workflow process.
The college Accreditation Approver may also choose to rollback the form out of workflow. In this case, the form will need to repeat the workflow steps from the point the form was rolled back to.
Once the Professional Accreditation form has completed the approval process, the form submitter will receive an automated email message notifying you of the form approval.
Accredited Associate and Bachelor's degree programs include the name of the accrediting agency and requisite accreditation statement on their program pages in the the Undergraduate Bulletin. After approval of your Professional Accreditation form, please review your program pages in the Undergraduate Bulletin to determine if any updates are needed. Updates to the accrediting agency name, website, and/or accreditation statement should be sent to bulletins@psu.edu.
In April of each year, the Office of Planning, Assessment, and Institutional Research will use the Professional Accreditation data inputted into CIM to update the University's list of professionally accredited programs and to provide notice of any Penn State program that is subject to a negative accreditation action, as required by the University's institutional Accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE).
If you have questions about professional accreditation reporting requirements, please contact the Office of Planning, Assessment, and Institutional Research at opair@psu.edu.
