Quality at Scale — RGSB's Accreditation Crunch

A four-round, advanced academic-governance simulation set inside Rheinmain Graduate School of Business (RGSB), an AACSB-accredited private business school in Frankfurt am Main (2,400 students, 88 core faculty, 96 Mio. € revenue, a 9% operating surplus ≈ 8,6 Mio. €). You play the new Vice President for Academic Affairs in the week two crises collide: an AACSB "areas of concern" memo (two of twelve programs have slipped below the SA / SA+PA qualified-faculty thresholds, exec teaching loads are mis-counted, and the fast-growing Executive Education unit — now 31% of revenue at a ~42% contribution margin — has essentially no Assurance-of-Learning loop) and a signed 6,2 Mio. € DAX custom program that can only be staffed by the same eight senior professors already running at an average 1.34x of the 100% workload norm. Over four rounds you (1) diagnose the situation, separating a staffing problem (hire / adjuncts / substitution) from a governance problem (no AoL loop, mis-counted loads) — because each demands a different remedy; (2) allocate the 88 core faculty plus an adjunct budget across the degree portfolio and Executive Education within a binding senior-research-capacity envelope, holding every program at threshold and protecting research time without overdrawing professors; (3) take the go / no-go / re-scope decision on the 6,2 Mio. € custom program and set a minimum, proportionate AoL standard for the exec portfolio — credible evidence of learning without crushing the margin that funds the mission; and (4) defend a Rectorate & Accreditation Steering Committee brief that shows the portfolio is staffed to standard, the QA system is credible and evidenced, the faculty model is sustainable under an agreed load ceiling, and the plan still delivers a surplus. The math rewards a re-scoped program with added capacity, an AoL standard aligned to where the exec growth landed, protected research time, and an explicit governance rule — and punishes the five classic errors: chasing the DAX logo at full scope without counting faculty capacity, treating the SA/PA shortfall as a hiring problem when time-to-hire (11 months) exceeds the AACSB horizon (14 months), over-measuring until exec margin collapses, over-relying on adjuncts until programs drop below threshold, and optimizing this year's numbers with no documented governance principle. Final KPIs track Accreditation Readiness, the Quality (AoL) System, Faculty Sustainability, and Operating Surplus (EUR M).