Building Beyond Accreditation: The Future of Trust in Higher Education
Written by Dr. Melik Peter Khoury
Exploring the edges of what’s next…
Full disclosure: I began writing this article well before the recent executive order. It is not a reaction to current events, but rather the result of a decade-long evolution in my thinking as I have wrestled with the 1965 Higher Education Act and the true meaning of access to education.
Unity Environmental University is proudly a fully accredited institution, having just completed a successful 10-year reaccreditation review. I am deeply proud of the faculty and staff who made this achievement possible, but accreditation alone is not our ambition. It is our launchpad. True leadership in education demands we do more than meet standards; it demands we rethink them. In that spirit, I wrote this piece not to defend the status quo, but to explore the edges of what must come next.
Over the past decade, we have worked hand-in-hand with our accreditors, not just to meet expectations, but to challenge and expand them. Their willingness to engage with our vision has been critical as we transformed Unity Environmental University into a scalable institution capable of exponential growth without compromising our commitment to sustainability-based education. Together, we proved that access and excellence are not opposing forces; they are the engine of lasting change. I am deeply grateful for their partnership as we built a model that doesn’t just survive the future; it helps shape it…
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