Cleveland Institute of Music's Accreditation is Extended After 10-Year Realignment
Following a troubling 10-year period in which its accreditation was called into question, on Friday the Cleveland Institute of Music was officially reaffirmed for accreditation for the next 10 years by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC).
The HLC's 10-year peer review visit to CIM’s campus, conducted February 10-11, concluded that that CIM has met HLC’s five criteria for accreditation: having a clear mission; ethical and responsible conduct; quality educational resources and support; self-evaluation and improvement; and institutional effectiveness.
The affirmation of its accreditation is good news for CIM, an organization founded in 1920 that has struggled with its reputation in the 21st century.
As recently as 2024, music faculty held a vote of "no confidence" in President Paul Hogle and Provost Scott Harrison, and CIM orchestra conductor Carlos Kalmar faced Title IX inquiries. (Hogle and Harrison remain in their positions; the Title IX allegations were dismissed). And the damage to the institution still runs deep from the decades-long sexual misconduct by former CIM violin faculty member William Preucil, who was fired as concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra and resigned from CIM in 2018, after having taught there since the 1990s.
When it comes to the accreditation: The Higher Learning Commission is an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education that evaluates and accredits degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States, enabling students to access federal financial aid programs. Accreditation takes place on a 10-year cycle, with a peer review team conducting an on-site visit to evaluate the institution, as well as interim monitoring in some cases.
Following its 2014 evaluation, the Cleveland Institute was placed on Notice in 2015 for the risk of being out of compliance with the HLC’s Criteria for Accreditation. The sanction was removed in 2017, and the HLC continued to monitor CIM after its "Mid-Cycle Review" in 2019.
"CIM has been on a journey of transition since HLC issued the public sanction of putting CIM on Notice in 2015, with nearly every faculty and staff member required to reconsider, recalibrate, and in some cases, redo how they approached their professional lives at an institution of higher learning," said a statement issued by CIM. "Virtually every faculty and staff system in place to deliver a first-class education was evaluated, and many required change, even as the teaching and student outcomes of the Institute’s studios, ensembles, and classrooms maintained their high standard."
"The accreditation crisis of 2014-15 was unmistakable criticism from the Higher Learning Commission, made especially disturbing because the bulk of the citations involved the very core of what we do," said Trustee Charles P. Cooley, current co-chair of the CIM Academic Affairs Committee and Chair of the 2016 Accreditation Working Team. "The discipline of many led to the success of the 2025 accreditation evaluation, and while there remains, and to some degree will always remain, work to do, our faculty, staff, trustees, and students should feel valued as members of a community that earned these high marks of progress."
"The Cleveland Institute of Music has made great strides to effectively enhance the quality of its educational offerings through assessment processes and program review," the HLC Visiting Team reported. "Improvements implemented are formidable and reflect CIM’s accountability for high-quality educational programs."
The HLC is requiring a 2027 progress update in two areas: CIM's Blueprint:2030 strategic plan and its next generation of faculty governance coming out of the Transitional Faculty Council (TFC).
"I arrived in Cleveland nine years ago with a clear assignment.. to move forward into its second century with a clearer vision of 21st-century higher education best practices," said Hogle. "In service of CIM, its students, and their ambitions, we took on comprehensive changes and worked through major transitions in our approaches to operating and instruction. A decade later, HLC has found us to be substantially stronger, driven by our shared commitment to CIM and the future of classical music."
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Replies
I invite anyone to think about how those five accreditation criteria are objectively measured.
I would never recommend that a student consider auditioning for any music school where a respected professor could be summarily dismissed mid-semester with no acceptable explanation given.
So the admin is still the same as when the faculty gave them a no confidence vote? We have been told repeatedly by varied alumni that they would currently not send a student there.
CIM shouldn't be defined by Preucil any more than Curtis' violin department should be defined by Brodsky. Abuse -- not just sexual but emotional as well -- was rampant in American classical music teaching in the late 20th century. No conservatory was immune to this.
I hope CIM can survive in this tough time for higher education. Even if its mission were nothing more than to provide a teaching center for the Cleveland Orchestra, that would be enough to make it a world-class place. But it is much more than that.
I wasn’t referring to Preucil.
Mark Jackobs was fired mid semester for daring to speak out against CIM administration.
The problem at CIM is the current administration, not the current professors.
Problems of the past, problems of the present - they all compound.
I was speaking to a young colleague - absolutely fantastic player. When we were talking about background, this person confessed reluctantly to having studied at CIM with Preucil. What a lot of baggage that comes with.
It's just too bad that the problems at CIM have mounted in such a way that a person who studied and practiced like crazy, went to a top music school, met a very high standard and continues to do so, has to be embarrassed about their alma mater.
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May 20, 2025 at 12:13 PM · This comprehensive assessment and reform seems like the institutional version of a religious experience, bringing a new focus and purpose that makes me very optimistic for the future of the Cleveland Institute of Music.