SACS Update: "Fulfilling SACS Core
Requirement #12 for Reaffirmation of Accreditation: The University's
Choice of the Critical Issue for Its Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)" Reprinted
from Hog eWeekly, July 25, 2003
During
AY 2002-2003 fourteen SACS committees made preliminary preparations
for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) reaccredidation
(officially a three year process 2003-2005). In fall 2002, eleven
audit committees did an internal, institutional self-assessment
on the basis of SACS guidelines (core requirements and comprehensive
standards) and submitted written reports of their findings December
2002, to the SACS Leadership Committee (SLC). In spring 2003, the SLC
read the reports, noted areas identified as deficient, and subsequently
made two formal reports to the administration. Those reports identified
areas where the university was felt to be out of compliance and subsequently
identified remedies to bring those areas into compliance. (See http://www.tamuk.edu/sacs/)
Currently, and on into AY 2003-2004, we are in the process of attending
to these deficiencies, areas where the University is not or is only
in partial compliance with SACS.
The next phase in the process,
beginning with the 2003 fall semester, is the development of a quality
enhancement plan (QEP), required under new SACS guidelines and defined
as "a
course of action for institutional improvement that addresses one
or more issues that contribute to institutional quality, with special
attention to student learning."
The critical issue selected
is defined as a focus on all students' success with each student
viewed as a product of the A&M-Kingsville
experience. By drawing on the university mission statement, that
experience involves at least two components:
- the acquisition of knowledge (substantive excellence/quality),
over a sufficient time period (retention), and in sufficient quantity
(graduation)
- support areas, both institutional and social (especially the
domains of enrollment management, student services, data-based
learning outcomes, and community support).
A
Planning Committee of approximately fifteen members chosen campus-wide
is being created to develop and to refine for this issue a detailed,
realistic plan of improvement that will have campus-wide consensus
and commitment. Successfully writing and implementing a QEP demonstrates
to SACS a capacity to achieve our major aspirations. The QEP is
a subset in the President's strategic plan for the University,
thus a long-term institutional commitment and roadmap to fulfilling
our mission. The plan is due to SACS for consultation and approval
28 February 2005 , six weeks before the on-campus visit now slated
for April 11, 2005 .
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