Commisson set to visit campus on March 9–12

Twelve external evaluators from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) will be visiting Laney College March 9–12 to conduct its regular review, following the college’s submittal of its required “Institutional Self-Evaluation” (ISE) last month.
Laney’s accredited status is extremely important to maintain as it helps “ensure that schools are worthy of the trust placed in them,” according to documentation provided by the administrative team directing this process.
The visit occurs in the wake of controversy over the ACCJC’s attempt to revoke the City College of San Francisco’s accreditation last year. CCSF was faced with a trial, protests regarding a special trustee appointment, and finally a two-year extension (granted in January) giving the college more time to come into full compliance with all accrediting standards, according to SFGate. If accreditation had been revoked, CCSF would have shut its doors to 80,000 students.
Laney’s accreditation team is therefore hopeful that its accreditation is reaffirmed without any trouble. But moments like this one are always cause for care.
“There’s nothing like having people come over to your house to tell you to clean,” said Laney College interim Vice President Lilia Celhay, accreditation liaison officer, at a town hall meeting on Feb. 19. “Every time I have people for dinner, my house is impeccable.”
Accreditation does not simply rely on an isolated visit. Laney participates in a continuous six-year cycle of self-evaluations, reports and external reviews to maintain its accreditation status. According to Laney College President Dr. Elñora Webb, community forums are held regularly at all stages of the accreditation cycle.
Transparency is important to the accreditation team. Two town hall meetings were held on Feb. 19 and 25 to discuss the ISE and to prepare students, faculty and staff for the ACCJC visit. Accreditation team members from the Laney administration set up a moodle page to give access to community members to give feedback and ask questions on drafts of the ISE and stay abreast of updates surrounding the process. Anyone can download the 337-page report on the Laney College website at http://www.laney.edu/wp/accreditation-status/.
Maintaining transparency around accreditation is not only good practice; it is mandated by the ACCJC.
One current example of this transparency is the Laney College Learning Assessment Committee’s Spring 2015 selfie contest to raise student awareness of the college’s Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs). The contest is part of a student awareness campaign, an accreditation requirement that students are made aware of these ILOs. Participants will be entered to win an iPad Air 2 and prizes include $100 gift certificates to the Laney Bookstore. The contest ends March 18.
Webb warned that ACCJC visitors might pop into classrooms unannounced or stop students, faculty and staff at random. Teachers should keep their work areas tidy, their websites up-to-date, and digitize their assessments, evaluations, curriculum and instruction. The names, photos and bios of the twelve ACCJC visitors will be published on Laney’s Accreditation website, according to Webb, although at the time of this writing, they are not yet available.