Four years after being placed on warning by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), the college has made progress toward ensuring it retains its accreditation status.
The college was initially placed on warning in February 2009 after an October 2008 visit from an ACCJC task force found the college lacking in several areas including student learning outcomes (SLO), which are meant to ensure that the college continues to make improvements in the delivery of student learning.
“The warning was from the 2008 accreditation visit and we cleared it up within the year in which we responded to those recommendations,” Jeanie Nishime, vice president of student and community advancement said.
According to a letter from the ACCJC posted on the EC website, the college was given two years to correct the issues the task force found concern with. The original due date for completion was October 2009.
During the October 2009 task force visit, it was found that the college had made substantial improvements in its processes for assessing institutional quality and making improvements.
“We addressed all the recommendations and those were all accepted by the commission,” Nishime said.
According to a December 2009 letter from the Commission available on the EC accreditation website, “All appropriate participants are now involved in the program review process, all program reviews have been documented as completed, and the projected timetables showing scheduled program reviews through 2016 should meet the Commission standard.”
“In other words, we are in no danger of losing our accreditation,” Nishime said.
Each division of the college has at least one SLO facilitator whose job it is to ensure that all faculty are conducting course assessments, know when assessments are due and how to plan and carry out assessments.
Rachel Williams, full-time English instructor, is the facilitator of the SLOs for the Humanities Division.
“One hundred percent of our courses have SLO in humanities, and so do all our programs,” Williams said. “We are making sure we have done regular assessments.”
Williams added that a great deal of time has been spent making sure that student learning outcomes are in line with what the college faculty wants the students to learn.
“Our division is making really good progress. Everyone understands the importance the SLOs, and that there is a reason why we are doing it, and that it is important for our accreditation as an institution,” Williams said.
“We are at one hundred percent in terms of every course and every program having an SLO. We are on track to be at one hundred whenever our schedule says we will be,” Williams added.
The follow-up report from the college, which is due on Oct. 15, has been drafted by President Tom Fallo and is available for viewing on the EC accreditation website.
