One year after receiving an unsatisfactory report card from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, ACCJC, which evaluates colleges, EC recently received all A’s.
All recommendations that the ACCJC stated have been resolved including the college’s budgeting, tracking planning and program review, according to a letter sent by the ACCJC.
“You can’t just sit on your laurels and say we’ve been a great college and we don’t need to continuously get better,” President Tom Fallo said.
Committees will be formed in order to maintain EC’s continuing progression dealing with all the areas that gave EC the bad report.
For example, there will be committees that deal with budgeting, tracking planning, program review and the Compton Center.
“These activities are all made possible by very many people, working very hard.” Fallo said.
The ACCJC’s main goal is for colleges to continually improve, and EC is heading in the right direction.
“Students who are worried about the accreditation of EC or what affect this may have on them have nothing to worry about,” Ann Garten, director of community relations said.
In addition, students’ ability to get into classes or have sufficient units to transfer will not be affected. EC’s faculty has also not been affected much throughout this process with the exception of adding student learning outcomes to their classes.
“El Camino was never in jeopardy of having its accreditation fully removed,” Garten said. “Ten of 14 colleges were put on warning in 2009.”
“It’s common for a college to be put on warning by the ACCJC. The college just needs to handle the task at hand and fix the problem areas,” Garten said.
Consequently, EC will need to send one more follow-up report to the ACCJC. In this report EC should demonstrate the colleges’ resolution to all of ACCJC’s recommendations for improvement.
EC has partially completed these recommendations and the report will verify that it has been fully completed. This will be the final report needed by the ACCJC, according to letter sent by the organization.
The letter said that all deficiencies noted must be resolved by the time the report is sent in October or the commission will be compelled to act. This act could include terminating EC’s accreditation.
However, EC was able to correct these deficiencies in a timely manner, which is something that faculty and students should appreciate.
“The administration, faculty, and everyone involved are doing an awesome job. The college stepped up to make changes that were needed, which is fabulous,” Jane Patton, president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges said.