Institutional Effectiveness

Departmental News

Institutional Effectiveness (IE) recently submitted the university's fifth-year accreditation compliance certification to our regional accreditation organization (SACSCOC). The report was compiled by IE personnel to demonstrate compliance with accrediting standards over the past five years. The report also included the impact report for the university's quality enhancement plan (QEP) which targeted improving critical thinking in students enrolled in upper-level discipline-specific courses. The QEP impacted student learning but also had benefits for faculty development, pedagogy, and staff development. SACSCOC contacted the university on June 18th to congratulate us on our fifth-year review and to inform us that it was accepted with no additional reports, follow-up, or monitoring required.

Accrediting standards are established collaboratively through the actions of commissioners elected by member institutions. As such, each institution has stacked hands and agrees to abide by these standards and to ensure our higher education product is of the highest quality. Further, to establish compliance, SACSCOC requires that it is the institution's ethical responsibility to ensure that is it both the policy and practice of its members to comply with the standards. So, establishing compliance is an exercise in not only asserting compliance, but proving it. Well, after reviewing over 45,000 words of narrative and over 1,700 supporting documents, it is gratifying to see that peer reviewers agree that we are in compliance with the standards. Accreditation standards are stringent and very few institutional reviews are accepted without further reports required. So, while meeting the standards is our responsibility, completing a review without additional questions is an accolade that should make each employee proud.

Accreditation reviews occur every five years and a compliance certification is a very labor intensive project. So, for the fifth-year report, IE adopted the strategy of continuously compiling evidence of compliance for each academic year rather than going through the typical disruptive last minute (year) process. We think the strategy worked. So much so, that we are employing the same strategy to certify compliance next time around, which is due September 2017. But keep in mind that IE is like logistics, helping to compile reports and supporting documentation. You, however get the hardest job - ensuring that it is both your policy and practice to comply with the standards year in and year out. Without you fulfilling your responsibility to uphold the highest standards, we can't develop the supporting documents.