Stephen D. Spangehl

Stephen D. Spangehl serves as Vice President for Accreditation Relations at The Higher Learning Commission, where founded and directs the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP), an alternative accreditation process for over 200 institutions pursuing systematic continuous quality improvement. Working with an AQIP staff team, other Commission staff, and with external partners, consultants, and peer-review volunteers, Spangehl continually searches for innovative ways to build and improve cost-effective processes and self-funding services that increase AQIP’s value for both the Commission and for its member institutions. Before creating AQIP, Steve worked (from 1991 to 2000) with the traditional accreditation process. Earlier, he was Assistant Provost, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs, and academic department chair at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, a major doctoral-granting university of approximately 24,000 students. He has also held faculty and other administrative positions at the University of Louisville, the University of Akron (Ohio), and the University of Pennsylvania (in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).