Quality Assurance @ Home and Abroad

At the invitation of the Estonian Quality Assurance Agency EKKA, Prorector Maren Schmohl was recently a guest at the Academy of Arts in Tallinn.

The university went through an extensive process of external quality assurance: an institutional accreditation and an assessment of its study programs. The renowned Estonian Academy of Arts has a 100-year tradition and a wide range of study programs in the fields of art, design and architecture. Part of the assessment was a new building that is currently being remodeled and renovated for the college. “Normally, as an appraiser, I don’t need protective clothing, but reviewing a university’ s spatial conditions and development plans are also part of the job,” she says.

Because the Merz Akademie also regularly goes through external assessments itself, the prorector is familiar with such procedures from a different perspective: “Immediately before I left, a group of experts from ZEvA visited the university to accredit the Merz Akademie’s master’s program for a second time.” Despite the great effort such procedures entail, she views the experience positively: “We have conducted six procedures of institutional and program accreditation in the last 10 years and received helpful suggestions for the further development of the study program and the university. In addition to the survey of graduates, the positive accreditation decisions are an important instrument of quality assurance and confirm the special study quality and the excellent range of courses offered by our university.”