A
Primer on Accreditation
Although considered
Òvoluntary,Ó without accredited status, educational institutions cannot receive
federal funding for their students and courses cannot be used for transfer to
other institutions. The Òstamp of
approvalÓ provides students, the public, faculty, and staff with assurances of
our integrity, quality, and effectiveness.
Besides the obvious advantages
of being accredited, a school can benefit from taking the time to stop and evaluate
the way it functions. We donÕt
often take time from our daily routine to ask, ÒHow are we doing? Could we do better?Ó
WhatÕs
involved?
First, we need to
conduct a thorough self study, involving faculty, administrators, classified
staff, and students. We will
appraise our performance against the CommissionÕs standards as well as our own
stated goals. Based on our
discussions and research, we will write a comprehensive report, which sums up
our findings and responds to the recommendations made last time.
A team from the
Commission will read our report, visit the campus in Spring 2007, interview
some of us, and write a report, with commendations for exemplary practices and
recommendations for areas needing improvement. The Commission uses all of this information to determine our
status and makes its decision public.
Your Job as Co-Chair:
1. Set a schedule of meeting times for
your team. Plan for your committee
to meet twice in the summer, at least two times a month during the fall
semester. The steering committee
(made up of all the co-chairs) will meet several times this year. We will also have meetings of the whole
crew – the kick-off on May 24th and another meeting in the fall.
2. Assign a facilitator to keep dialogue
going smoothly (could be you), a note-taker (could be you), and some writers to
draft sections (also could be you).
3. Set deadlines and assign tasks to do
research, write, and gather evidence.
Your team will collect supporting documents and evidence and get it to me.
4. Make sure everyone attends meetings and
follows through on tasks.
5. Submit a first draft by November 30,
2005
6. Submit a final draft by March 30, 2006
Keep your Accreditation Chair in the
loop! Let me know when your team
is meeting and contact me if you need help.
Check the LAVC website for information
on our progress.
Contacting Deborah Kaye,
Accreditation Chair:
Extension 2805 office – H109C
(818) 760-3152 home (818) 378-9175 cell
My mailbox in the main office, #262 or my
mailbox in the English office, H121
Email: kayedr@lavc.edu or debkaye@pacbell.net
Dialogue
– a Key to Improvement
The Commission has made it clear that an Ôongoing, self-reflective dialogueÕ is central to institutional processes. ÒA dialogue is a group discussion among colleagues that is designed to explore complex issues, create greater group intelligence, and facilitate group learning.Ó They see this dialogue as helping the college to promote quality and improvement.
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Dialogue occurs when
individuals see themselves as colleagues.
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Dialogue involves
active listening, seeking to understand, giving everyone the opportunity to
talk, and trying not to interrupt.
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Groups engaged in
dialogue develop greater insights, shared meanings, and collective
understanding of complex issues and how best to address them.
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A practice of
dialogue can benefit the individual as well as the institution.
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Dialogue can help
build self-awareness, improve communication skills, strengthen teams, and
stimulate innovation that fosters effective change.
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Dialogues are
powerful, transformational experiences that lead to both personal and
collaborative action.
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Discussions can allow
controversial topics that may have in the past become sources of disagreement
and division to be explored in a more useful context that can lead to greater
group insight.
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Dialogue is a means
for an institution to come to collective understanding of what it means to be
learning-focusedÉand how resources and processes might be structured to support
the improvement of student learning.
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Unlike debate, in
which most academicians are trained to seek to score points and to persuade,
the goal of dialogue is mutual understanding and respect.
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A conscious
commitment to engage in dialogue
ensures that a group welcomes a
range of viewpoints during its search for effective ways of addressing
important issues.
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Retaining the use of
a facilitator can help ensure that the ground rules are maintained and can help
clarify themes and ideas.
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Instead of avoiding
controversial topics, we can use dialogue lead to institutional growth. By discovering common ground and
developing the willingness to work collegially to solve problems, dialogue can
improve an institutionÕs ability to deal with the inevitable disagreements that
arise.
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The new standardsÕ
focus on student learning calls for dealing with a complex issue -- improving
student learning. It calls on
institutions to change and learn.
Dialogue can be a powerful strategy for generating the creative
discussions and collective wisdom that enable change.
Using
the Themes
Several themes are
threaded through the standards.
These themes can provide guidance and structure to self-reflective
dialogue and evaluation of institutional effectiveness. Here are the themes:
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WeÕre being asked to
make a commitment to provide high quality education congruent with our mission.
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Does our mission
statement reflect the intended student population and our commitment to student
learning?
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Can we ensure
consistency between our mission and our goals and plans and that it guides our
action?
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Do we support student
learning as our primary mission?
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Do we regularly
review our mission statement, adapt it as needed, and renew commitment to
achieving our mission?
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We are being asked to
evaluate and improve to help serve students better, focusing on achievement,
learning, and the effectiveness of processes, policies, and organization.
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Do we have an ongoing
and systematic cycle of evaluation, integrated planning, implementation, and
re-evaluation?
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Does our evaluation
inform college decisions about where we need to improve? Are resources distributed to implement
these goals? When resources are
insufficient, does the college adjust its priorities or seek other means of
supplying resources? Once
improvement plans have been fully implemented, do we evaluate how well the
goals have been met?
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Do we consciously and
robustly demonstrate the effectiveness of our efforts to produce and support
student learning by developing student learning outcomes at the course,
program, and degree level?
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Do we measure and
assess them to determine how well learning is occurring so that we can make
changes to improve learning and teaching?
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Do faculty engage in
discussions on how to deliver instruction to maximize student learning?
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Doe we provide
student support services to develop student learning outcomes and evaluate the
quality of policies, processes, and procedures for providing students access
and movement through the institution?
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Are student learning
outcomes at the center of our key processes and allocation of resources?
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Do we engage in
self-analysis leading to improvement of all that we do regarding learning and
teaching?
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Do we facilitate
engagement in inclusive, informed, and intentional dialogue about institutional
quality and improvement?
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Do all members of the
college community participate in this reflection and exchange about student
achievement, student learning, and the effectiveness of our processes,
policies, and organization?
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Is it based on
reliable information about the collegeÕs programs and services and evidence on
how well the institution is meeting student needs?
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Is the information
quantitative and qualitative, responsive to a clear inquiry, meaningfully
interpreted, and broadly communicated?
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Does the
institutional dialogue result in ongoing self-reflection and conscious
improvement?
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Do we demonstrate
concern with honesty, truthfulness, and the way we represent ourselves to all
stakeholders?
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How do we treat
students, employees, and the public?
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Are we concerned
about clarity, accessibility, and appropriateness of our publications?
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Do our faculty
provide for open inquiry in our classes as well as student grades that reflect
an honest appraisal of student performance? Do we have an expectation of student academic honesty?
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Do we demonstrate
regard for issues of equity and diversity? Do we look at our hiring and employment practices as well as
to our relationship with the Commission and other external agencies?
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Are we
self-reflective and honest in all our operations?
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Do we have inclusive,
informed, and intentional efforts to define student learning, provide programs
to support that learning, and evaluate how well learning is occurring?
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Are we organized to
identify and make public learning outcomes, to evaluate the effectiveness of
programs in producing those outcomes, and to make improvements?
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Do we have adequate
staff, resources, and organizational structure (communication and decision
making structures) oriented to produce and support student learning?
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How well does our
organization support learning?
If you were involved in
previous cycles of accreditation, you know that many of the standards are the
same. However, in 2002, a new
element was added to accreditationÕs focus: Student
Learning Outcomes. These focus on what students have
learned as a result of attending college.
This focus requires that the institution provide evidence of a conscious
effort to:
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make learning the
institutionÕs core activity
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support and produce
student learning
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measure that learning
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assess how well
learning is occurring
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make changes to
improve student learning
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organize its key
processes to effectively support student learning
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allocate its
resources to effectively support student learning
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improve learning as
an important means to institutional improvement