We got through day two of our accreditation visit yesterday still in really good shape. We resolved a few of the issues from day one and are well on our way to completing the visit by around noon on Friday with just a couple of minor citations that will be fixed over the next month or so. Unlike our visit in 2007 we have received several compliments from this team about our Institutional Effectiveness Plan (IEP), our students and faculty and our Self Study. The IEP is the most important document we have and one we work on constantly every year. Last visit it was a major citation, this visit we not only got no citations for it and its implementation, we got glowing accolades from the team chairman. The compliments on our IEP are a testament to Katie who drafted the original template we still use and who noted the kinds of data and analysis we needed to be doing and that we still do to this day.
It has been a long and stressful couple of days (every day this week has been 12 plus hours and the team days over 14 hours) but it has been so much better than the last visit where it just felt like huge rock after huge rock was falling on us. We have been preparing for this visit for over a year and a half and never really stopped working since the last visit on continuous improvement. That has really been the key. We continued to push in all areas, and will continue to push for improvement in all areas after this visit so that hopefully at the next visit in four or five years it goes even more smoothly. It has been a personal point of pride to hear team members compliment us on our process and on our institutional reports because as the Dean I was ultimately responsible for most of those reports. However, this has been a complete team effort and we have reached this point where we can in just four short years go through a visit in really good shape because of the fantastic staff we have.
When the ACICS team finishes around noon they will give us their preliminary report. They may dig up one or two more things this morning but we are through the big stuff. Then they send their report to council who may determine certain citations the team suggested are not appropriate and who will send us the final report with any areas that we need to take corrective action on. We already know two of those areas (both fortunately minor and easily correctable) and have already started the corrective action. Tonight is our Board of Trustees meeting and we will report to the Board on the visit. I told our students in the weeks leading up to the visit that this was like the Olympics for the college and to carry that analogy I cant help but feel like we are on that medal podium, maybe not the perfect gold medal but definitely having proved our worthiness.
