Stephen D. Spangehl serves as Director of the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP), The Higher Learning Commission’s alternative accreditation process for institutions pursuing systematic continuous quality improvement. Working with an AQIP staff team, other Commission staff, and with external partners, consultants, and peer-review volunteers, Spangehl continually searches for innovative ways to build and improve cost-effective processes and self-funding services that increase AQIP’s value for both the Commission and for its member institutions. Before creating AQIP, Spangehl worked (from 1991 to 2000) with the traditional accreditation process, now called PEAQ, was Assistant Provost, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs, and academic department chair at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, a major doctoral-granting university of approximately 24,000 students. He has also held faculty and administrative positions at the University of Louisville in Louisville (Kentucky), the University of Akron (Ohio) and the University of Pennsylvania (in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

EDUCATION:

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ph.D., 1972 (English Philology: Linguistics, Old and Middle English language and literature, Old French)

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, New York, New York, M.A., 1966 (English)

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, Washington Square College, New York, New York, B.A., 1965 (English)

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, Graduate School, Columbus, Ohio, Graduate courses in Linguistics, Summer Linguistic Society of America Institute

UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE, School of Business, Louisville, Kentucky, Graduate M.B.A. courses in management and accounting

EMPLOYMENT - ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS:

Director, Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP), Innovative program that assists higher education organizations in pursuing continuous performance improvement while providing a structure that allows accredited HIGHER LEARNING COMMISSION members to maintain their accredited status. (1999-); website: http://www.AQIP.org

Associate Director, Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, NORTH CENTRAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS, Chicago, Illinois 60602. [1991 - Present]

Director, Interdisciplinary Program in Linguistics, College of Arts and Sciences, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. [1986 - 1991]

Director, Liberal Studies Program, College of Arts and Sciences, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. [1987 - 1988]

Assistant University Provost, Office of the University Provost, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. [1982 -1986]

Co-Director, Developmental Education Center, University College, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. [1976 -1982]

Fellowship Assistant, Office of the Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104. [1967 -1968]

EMPLOYMENT - FACULTY POSITIONS:

Director, Interdisciplinary Program in Linguistics and Associate Professor of Liberal Studies, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. [1976 -1991]

Assistant Professor of English, UNIVERSITY OF AKRON, Akron, Ohio 44302. [1969 -1976]

Teaching Fellow, Department of English, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104. [1968 -1969]

PUBLICATIONS: Faculty development, teaching inquiry and library research, assessment, underprepared students and developmental education, linguistics.

OTHER SKILLS AND INTERESTS: Board of Examiners, National Baldrige Quality Program (1997-2002); tenor banjo & ukulele player, Chicagoland Banjo Band); computer programming; motion picture and television production; statistics and empirical research design; accounting and bookkeeping; carpentry; photography; rollerblading.