From June 5th to 7th, 2023, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Asia Pacific Accreditation Conference was held at the University of Technology Sydney. Nearly 300 representatives from 114 universities and institutions from 21 countries and regions in Asia Pacific and beyond were present at the Conference. Stephanie Bryant, AACSB Executive Vice President, Chief Accreditation Officer, and Geoff Perry, AACSB Executive Vice President, Chief Membership Officer, Asia Pacific Chief Executive Officer attended the Conference. Professor Wu Haitao, Dean of the School of Business Administration (SBA), and Chen Ke from the International Accreditation Office attended the conference in Australia. It is also the first time that SBA has attended the official Accreditation conferences of AACSB offline since SBA restarted AACSB Accreditation at the end of 2019.
Some cutting-edge academic topics, such as the social impact of business schools, intellectual contributions beyond the academic realm, faculty structure and development, generative artificial intelligence, and academic integrity, were discussed in the conference. In addition, representatives from business schools in the Asia-Pacific region shared their valuable experiences regarding the challenges and highlights of the initial accreditation and visitation process, as well as the development of the AoL (Assurance of Learning) assurance system.
During the conference, representatives of SBA had in-depth discussions with Ms. Amy Memon, the official liaison from AACSB. They discussed in detail the recommendations and strategies for the second round of continuous improvement in SBA, as well as the timeline and process leading up to the first on-site visit. Ms. Amy Memon highly praised the progress and improvements made by SBA since restarting the AACSB accreditation process. She expressed her hope that SBA would complete the second round of continuous improvement on time, submit the final SER (Self-Evaluation Report) soon, and proceed to the on-site visit phase as soon as possible.
In addition, after the conclusion of the conference, Xu Guodong, the East Asia Director of AACSB, organized a session for Chinese universities, where nearly 60 representatives from 25 institutions in mainland China participated. Mr. Xu provided a macro-level analysis of the AACSB accreditation and China’s unique “Five-in-One” evaluation system for high education (self-assessment, institutional evaluation, program accreditation and assessment, international evaluation, and regular monitoring of teaching status). He gave a detailed presentation on the progress of AACSB accreditation in domestic universities and shared information about upcoming AACSB conferences and training programs in the Asia-Pacific region.
SBA of ZUEL officially restarted the AACSB accreditation process at the end of 2019. In July 2020, we obtained the Initial Accreditation Eligibility status as a single business unit. Subsequently, we have gone through various processes, including the accreditation eligibility application, the initial self-evaluation report, and the first progress report. Moving forward, SBA is about to embark on the second round of continuous improvement and rectification and are expected to submit the second progress report in February next year. Since the restart of the AACSB accreditation, SBA has set strategic goals to make our disciplines more international-based, with international accreditation as our priority. With strong support and guidance from the leadership at both the university and school levels, as well as the collaboration of various functional departments within the university and the collective efforts of our faculty and staff, significant progress and milestones have been achieved in our AACSB accreditation journey. We hope to continue our efforts and achieve AACSB accreditation at an early date. Also we hope to make significant contributions to making our disciplines more international-based and to ZUEL’s world-class disciplines!