NASPAA Standards Colloquium Timeline

The NASPAA Executive Council, together with the Standards Committee, convened a series of conversations to comprise the decennial review of the NASPAA Accreditation Standards. The Colloquia kicked off at the 2017 NASPAA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., and will continue through October 2019.

The first phase of the Colloquia involved a series of listening sessions held across the globe. These sessions were held as both stand-alone conversations, as well as panels at peer conferences. Individual colloquium sessions were held:

  • Conference on Globalization, September 14, 2017 (Shanghai, China)
  • NASPAA Annual Conference, October 12 and 13, 2017 (Washington, DC, USA)
  • NASPAA Regional Quality Meeting, November 1, 2017 (Doha, Qatar)
  • NASPAA Simualiton Competition, February 24, 2018 (Cairo, Egypt)
  • COMPA Annual Conference, February 14, 2018 (Los Angeles, California, USA)
  • ASPA Annual Conference, March 12, 2018 (Denver, Colorado, USA)
    colloquium logo
  • INPAE Annual Conference, May 15, 2018 (Guadalajara, Mexico)
  • Social Equity Leadership Conference, June 13, 2018 (New York, New York, USA)
  • Southeastern Conference for Public Administration, September 22, 2018 (Birmingham, Alabama, USA)
  • International City Managers Association Annual Conference, September 24, 2018 (Baltimore, Maryland, USA)
  • NASPAA Annual Conference, October 12, 2018 (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
  • ARNOVA Annual Conference, November 15, 2018 (Austin, Texas, USA)

To supplement these sessions, the Steering Committee also released a survey, to capture the feedback of stakeholders unable to join the conversation in-person. The survey was open September 12-November 15, 2018.

With the feedback gathered, the Steering Committee reconvened to analyze the data and offer recommendations to the NASPAA Executive Council for possible ways to strengthen the Standards. These recommendations were presented in March 2019 and ultimately endorsed by the Council. 

The second phase involved the direct revision of the Accreditation Standards. With the work of groups before it, including the Executive Council, Steering Committee, and COPRA, the NASPAA Standards Committee worked to develop revisions to the Standards. The first draft of proposed revisions was available for public comment May 7-June 3, 2019. In consideration of comments received, the Standards Committee finalized its recommended revisions, which will be presented for a vote of accredited programs at the annual business meeting in October 2019. Alongside this process, the Standards Committee and COPRA collaborated to align the self-study instructions with the proposed revisions, clarifying expectations and strengthening the basis of judgment and examples in the instructions.