Published March 6, 2025

Dear MSU Community,

I am honored to share that Montana State University's institutional accreditation was officially reaffirmed this week by its regional evaluating agency, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. MSU undertakes this accreditation process every seven years -- the NWCCU has accredited our campus since 1932.

This wonderful news is the culmination of months of work by dedicated individuals across campus to comprehensively document our accomplishments and to answer a long list of accreditation questions about how MSU operates, how we engage our students and how we look for opportunities to improve as a university. 

A team of volunteer evaluators from the NWCCU visited campus for a few days in October, and among their notes was praise for our university's embrace of the land-grant mission, for our support and celebration of Native American culture, and for our processes that assess student learning and student success. 

The accreditation process also regularly results in recommendations for the institution. NWCCU made three recommendations: that MSU conduct evaluations of the effectiveness of our academic advising; that we establish and share a set of student achievement indicators that can also be compared with regional and national peer institutions; and that we implement the institution's assessment process to evaluate the quality of learning in all our programs. 

Accreditation is a welcome opportunity to assess our accomplishments and to focus on institutional improvement, and it is a demonstration of our commitment to our students. Importantly, accreditation also carries practical benefits, such as continuing our students' eligibility for federal financial aid. 

Having our university's accreditation reaffirmed reminds us that the work MSU takes on every day on behalf of our students and community matters. We use this milestone as an opportunity to recommit to our teaching, learning and outreach efforts. 

I am incredibly proud of this accomplishment, and I hope you are, too. Thank you for your continued dedication to Montana State University.

Sincerely,

Waded Cruzado

Waded Cruzado
President, Montana State University