How 6th Edition Standards Drive Succession Planning

Last week, we began a blog series about why Succession Planning has emerged as an expectation under the ARC-PA 6th Edition Standards. We discussed how leadership turnover is increasing across PA education and why ARC-PA is emphasizing continuity, stability, and shared responsibility rather than reactive problem-solving.

This week, we turn to the how. One challenge we face with Succession Planning is that there is no single ARC-PA standard labeled “Succession Planning.” Instead, the expectation is woven across multiple standards, particularly within the A (Administrative) and E (Accreditation Maintenance) sections. As our consultants, Drs. Tina Butler and Jennifer Eames explained in their November 18 webinar, this distributed structure can make the requirement feel vague or even invisible until a program finds itself out of compliance.

Understanding how these standards interact is key to understanding what ARC-PA is really asking programs and institutions to demonstrate.

A-Standards and Institutional Responsibility

The major driver of Succession Planning is within the A-Standards, which focus on the sponsoring institution rather than the PA program itself. This distinction is critical.

One frequently cited standard is A1.02c, which requires the sponsoring institution to ensure effective leadership by the program director. At the same time, this standard is sometimes associated with administrative oversights or documentation issues, Drs. Butler and Eames emphasized that it fundamentally points back to institutional accountability for leadership continuity. Anyone who is familiar with my blogs on the most frequently-cited ARC-PA Standards knows that citations on Standards requiring demonstrable institutional support are always near the top of the list, and this is no different.

In practice, this means ARC-PA expects institutions to be able to answer more than just “Is the program director following their mission statement?” but questions such as:

• Who steps in if the program director leaves or is unexpectedly absent?

• How is leadership effectiveness evaluated in ways specific to the PA program?

• Who at the institutional level understands the program’s leadership structure?

Too often, program directors are evaluated using generic university instruments that do not reflect the unique qualifications and responsibilities outlined in the ARC-PA Standards. Succession Planning pushes institutions to think more intentionally about leadership readiness, and its responsibility to ensuring that your program has the guidance and resources it needs.

Program Director Qualifications

Several additional A-Standards indirectly shape Succession Planning by defining what effective leadership entails. Standards like A2.07, A2.08, and A2.09 address program director qualifications and responsibilities, outline expectations for program organization and administration, fiscal management, continuous program review and analysis, communication, and adherence to ARC-PA Standards and policies

Taken together, these standards reinforce an important point raised in the webinar: no single person can, or should, carry all of these responsibilities alone.

Succession Planning requires programs to ask:

• Who else on the team understands these domains?

• Where are leadership responsibilities already being shared?

• Who could step into an interim or future leadership role with appropriate mentoring?

The standards also specify required experience, FTE commitment, and administrative time allocation for program directors. Identifying future leaders means recognizing these requirements early and developing individuals who could realistically meet them if called upon.

The E-Standards and Succession

If the A-Standards explain why Succession Planning matters, the E-Standards explain when it becomes critical.

The E-Standards govern how programs communicate changes to ARC-PA, and they include strict timelines, including:

• notification within two business days of a program director vacancy (E1.08 a)

• appointment of an interim program director within five business days (E1.07 a-b)

• limits on the length of interim appointments (E1.07 a-b)

• required updates on recruitment efforts (E1.05)

These timelines are not flexible. Moreover, they are often where programs experience what Drs. Butler and Eames described as “cascading citations,” meaning that a citation under one Standard leads to other related citations, sometimes several, which have a noticeable critical impact on accreditation.

A leadership change requires numerous actions, many of which are easy to overlook when succession is rushed and chaotic. Neglecting to implement changes such as portal updates, official notifications, website revisions, and access changes for ARC-PA systems can create roadblocks to departmental operations, not to mention citations down the road.

When programs lack a clear, operational Succession Plan, these steps can be delayed or overlooked. Rather than due to negligence, this happens because responsibility is unclear or access was never established in advance.

Succession Planning exists, in part, to prevent these roadblocks.

Documented and Operational Succession Planning

One of the most essential clarifications from the webinar was that having a written plan is necessary, but not sufficient.

ARC-PA expects Succession Plans to be documented, institutionally supported, and ready for immediate implementation.

This includes:

• clearly identifying interim leadership

• defining communication procedures

• ensuring multiple individuals have access to ARC-PA systems

• outlining timelines and responsibilities.

When viewed collectively, the A- and E-Standards tell a consistent story: ARC-PA requires that programs and institutions demonstrate preparedness for 1) leadership transitions; 2) compliance responsibilities; and 3) continuity of operations.

Succession Planning is the structure that brings those expectations together.

Join us next week…

Today, we focused on how the 6th Edition Standards collectively drive Succession Planning expectations, even without naming it outright. In our next blog, we’ll move from standards interpretation to practical application.

We’ll explore the realities of Succession Planning for your program, including::

• what a compliant Succession Plan actually looks like

• what must be written versus what must be operational

• and common pitfalls programs can avoid with thoughtful preparation

If you missed last week’s discussion on why Succession Planning matters, I encourage you to start there. And if you’re looking for concrete guidance on how to build a plan that truly works, stay tuned for the final post in this series.