The mission of The National Graduate School of Quality Management (NGS) is to provide educational programs which advance knowledge in the area of Quality Systems Management (QSM), to facilitate the codification of QSM “best practices,” and to create innovative models with significant, enterprise-wide or national significance and application. NGS programs demonstrate performance-based achievements of its mission at every degree level through the degree “project” which must show tangible results to the NGS faculty and the employer or sponsor. We have required that students demonstrate their knowledge and the application of that knowledge in practical, work-related projects since 1993. The National Graduate School of Quality Management (NGS) is a professional practice institution with a primary focus:

• To provide working adults with higher-level knowledge and understanding of the concepts, principles, and tools of quality-based systems management for performance excellence.
• To graduate individuals with behavioral, analytic, customer service, and leadership skills to achieve tangible and measurable results for organizational performance excellence.
• To raise the overall understanding of quality-based systems management in the public and private sectors nationwide.
• To develop proponents and educators of quality systems management able to further understanding and application of the concepts, principles, and tools.

The educational objectives of The National Graduate School of Quality Management programs are:

• To provide students, particularly working adults and other non-traditional students, with a business-related higher education that will empower them to make rapid contributions to for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.
• To engage students in a rigorous, exciting, challenging, theoretical and practical learning experience in a specialized curriculum that is uniquely centered in both management sciences and quality systems sciences, predicated on a teamwork approach and incorporating a business project that requires measurable results.
• To provide highly qualified faculty who are practitioners with professional work experience as well as appropriate educational credentials.
• To provide students with the resources needed to interact with others clearly and effectively.
• To impart and demonstrate to students the aligned relationship between leadership management and a quality systems theme to ethical behavior.
• To facilitate degree offerings on an accelerated basis, consistent with managing curriculum delivery to the capacities of working adults.
• To furnish students with methods of inquiry.
• To subject the body of knowledge known as quality systems management to a process of continuous improvement derived from the application of that knowledge in the workplace and responses to research in the field.
• To seek and track achievements and evaluations of respondent alumni and sponsoring employers to assess the program’s viability.

Accreditation

The National Graduate School of Quality Management is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. through its Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. Accreditation of an institution of higher education by the New England Association indicates that it meets or exceeds criteria for the assessment of institutional quality periodically applied through a peer review process. An accredited college or university is one which has available the necessary resources to achieve its stated purposes through appropriate educational programs, is substantially doing so, and gives reasonable evidence that it will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Institutional integrity is also addressed through accreditation. Accreditation by the New England Association is not partial but applies to the institution as a whole. As such, it is not a guarantee of every course or program offered or the competence of individual graduates. Rather, it provides reasonable assurance about the quality of opportunities available to students who attend the institution. Inquiries regarding the accreditation status by the New England Association should be directed to the administrative staff of the institution.

SCHEV

The National Graduate School is certified to operate by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV): Private & Out-of-State Postsecondary Education State Council of Higher Education for Virginia James Monroe Building 101 N. 14th Street, 9th Floor Richmond, VA 23219 (804) 225-2600