Eligibility Criteria and Selection

A majority of the members of the Peer Corps will be officially and actively employed on a full-time basis by HLC-accredited institutions as faculty, administrators or other institutional personnel. Other members of the Peer Corps may include, as appropriate, members of boards of trustees of accredited institutions, legal counsel, state education system employees, or representatives of the business community. The Peer Corps may also include individuals with specialized experience. Recent retirees from any of these categories may serve for a period typically not exceeding one term beyond the term during which retirement occurs and subject to periodic HLC review. Peer reviewers will have appropriate academic degrees from accredited institutions of higher education or the equivalent foreign degrees as well as a minimum of five years of work experience. HLC may include in its Peer Corps members who have an employment relationship with other institutions of higher education provided that such members comply with all other eligibility criteria for membership in the Peer Corps. 

As part of ensuring effective mechanisms for evaluating institutions’ ability to meet HLC requirements, HLC will assure representation in the Peer Corps on evaluation teams of individuals who are academics, including faculty members, academic deans or others who have a primary responsibility in the teaching and learning process, and administrators who have a primary responsibility of providing oversight in an institution of higher education. 

HLC staff will be responsible for developing selection criteria for peer reviewers and for implementing a selection process and will report the Corps’ composition to the Board of Trustees.  

Specialized Corps. HLC staff may establish within the Peer Corps specialized groups of peer reviewers who will be assigned to candidacy, removal of sanction or Show-Cause, advisory visits or other evaluations that HLC staff determines require peer reviewers to have specialized expertise or training or to perform particular functions on the team. 

Policy History

Last Revised: June 2021 
First Adopted: January 1983 
Revision History: February 2002, October 2003, November 2012. April 2013, June 2014, June 2021 
Notes: Former policy number 6.1. In February 2021, references to the Higher Learning Commission as “the Commission” were replaced with the term “HLC.”