Proposals for reforming the higher education accreditation system have ignited a firestorm of controversy this year. While Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and the recent Commission on the Future of Higher Education have both recommended changes to the current accreditation process, others in the higher education community feel that the changes go too far and could negatively impact accreditation as a whole.
 
This event will feature a keynote address by Charles Miller, chairman of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education­ known as the Spellings Commission­, who will talk about the group’s recommendations and the need for reform. In the first panel, Judith Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation; Sara Martinez Tucker, under secretary of education at the U.S. Department of Education, who is also a Spellings commission member; and Arthur Rothkopf, former president of Lafayette College and a current senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will discuss the current state of the accreditation system and whether it really needs to be changed. AEI’s Richard Vedder, who was also a member of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, will moderate.
 
In the second panel, Indiana University law professor William Henderson, who has conducted research on law school rankings and on the data used to accredit law schools; Anne D. Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni; and Jeff Sandefer, a higher education entrepreneur and the founder of the Acton MBA, will review and discuss possible substitutes for the existing process. Candace de Russy, a former trustee for the State University of New York, will moderate.