SACS Accreditation Reaffirmation

From: Sanford Shugart
To: All Faculty and Staff
Date: 3/06/03 4:46 PM
Subject: SACS Accreditation Reaffirmation

As many of you know, Valencia is regionally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Every ten years, SACS member institutions must have their accreditation reaffirmed; 2003 is our year. The College started the current reaffirmation process in 1999 and the pace has quickened over the past year. An essential element of the process is an internal assessment of compliance with SACS Criteria . A team of internal "auditors" review and document compliance, and report areas of weakness to appropriate staff so that corrective action can be taken. A SACS Visiting Committee will review the internal compliance audit report and conduct on-site interviews and other research. The report of that committee will be a critical factor in our reaffirmation of accreditation.

We were approved to also address four strategic topic areas (strategic planning process, core competency integration, LIfeMap, and Atlas implementation). An internal self-study report on those topics has also been developed and will be reviewed by specialty area consultants that are part of the Visiting Committee. Their reports will help inform our future planning processes.

The combination of a compliance audit report and a strategic topics report is described by SACS as an Alternative Self-Study. I am pleased to report to you that the electronic version of our SACS Alternative Self-Study (Compliance Audit Report and Strategic Topics Report) has been sent to our Visiting Committee members.

The address for both the Compliance Audit Report and the Strategic Topics Report is http://valenciacc.edu/sacs/.

This is a moment to pause and reflect, if only for a moment, on what has been accomplished in the completion of these reports. We have every right to be proud of the documents and the incredible college wide efforts documented within them. The next step in our reaffirmation of accreditation process is preparing to host our Visiting Committee (March 31-April 3). In the weeks ahead, Michael Hooks and Bill Castellano, co-chairs of the College Planning Council (which also serves as the Steering Committee for the SACS Reaffirmation Process), will be providing additional information on the reaffirmation process and updates on the Committee's visit.

We will celebrate our reaffirmation at the appropriate time. Meanwhile, I want to thank the many people who have worked diligently to prepare us for this step. I am very proud of the work for a couple of reasons. First, the accreditation documents and the efforts they represent are very good. Second, and more importantly, they represent the real work of the college, not just some hoop we are trying to jump through. Because our approach has been authentic, I expect to get authentic guidance from the process, and that's the best reason for peer accreditation in the first place.

Thanks to all.

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