ACTA Senior Fellow Reappointed to Accreditation Advisory Committee

WASHINGTON, DC—The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) today announced that Senior Fellow and former President Anne D. Neal has been reappointed to the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI). This advisory committee recommends to the Department of Education which accreditors should be authorized to serve as gatekeepers of federal education funding. Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader, made the appointment.

This is Neal’s third term on the Committee, serving first from 2007–2008, and most recently from 2010–2016. Since her first appointment in 2007, Ms. Neal has been a key contributor to crucial discussions about accountability, academic standards, quality assurance, and higher education governance. She is currently ACTA’s senior fellow focusing on accreditation issues. She worked for over 20 years to advance higher education reform as co-founder and later president of ACTA. Prior to that, she served as general counsel and congressional liaison of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Neal  has provided expert testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) and the U.S. House Committee on Education and the  Workforce on improving higher education quality assurance and preparing for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.  Her op-eds, guest columns, and letters on accreditation have appeared in many publications including The Hill, the Wall Street Journal, and Inside Higher Ed.

The next meeting of NACIQI will take place February 22–24, 2017. 

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