Accreditation!
It’s official — the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts is fully accredited!
As much as I loved the program and everything I had heard and read about it when I was doing my research, I had only the one point of hesitation: it was not accredited, and I had been accepted at another school that was.
Kind of a weird sticking point, really. It wouldn’t matter one bit as about the fact of the degree itself (they were already authorized by the state of Washington to give it) and it did not reduce the quality of the study, but it might have affected my future. If I were to decide to pursue a Doctorate or a teaching position, which I might at some point, a lack of accreditation might mean that the degree would have been treated as invalid by other school,s whether they were hiring or teaching me. This was an unpleasant prospect to face.
So why take the chance?
I contacted the Program Director about it. He was not allowed to tell me anything about when they would know or what their chances were — mandated by the accrediting board — only that they were in the application process. So I talked to him a little more about the program and decided to risk it. After all, I believed in what they were doing and I would be there for about two years. If they were in the process now, they would probably complete it before I finished.
It turns out I didn’t have to wait all that long. What he could not tell me at the time was that they were at endgame: only the site visit and the vote remained. They passed both with flying colors, and in both its first year of eligibility and on its first attempt, the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts has become a fully accredited MFA program. I believe it is the first to do so without affiliation with an existing university.
