| American post-secondary education faces unprecedented challenges in the dynamic 21st century environment. An appreciation of the higher education accreditation process, as a quality control mechanism, therefore may be seen as a significant priority. When American higher education is viewed systemically, the perceptions of quality held and operationalized by individual peer reviewers form a portion of the tacit quality leadership within the system. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences, knowledge, and perceptions of quality held by selected Higher Learning Commission (HLC) peer review corps members.;The results of this study revealed quality within the HLC accreditation process to be a relative, multidimensional, subjective, and dynamic phenomenon. As a result, quality is continuously evolving against the unique and specific mission of each individual institution. These findings produced a more explicit description of quality within the North Central Association (NCA) accreditation review process. In addition, this information may serve to increase the effectiveness and strategic potential of this critical control process in institution-level quality pursuits. |
