A community update from EGSC

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Accreditation Update

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the college is moving steadily forward with its decennial accreditation process. The goal of this process is, of course, reaffirmation of the college’s accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC).

Successful completion of this process is one of the college’s top priorities during the coming 2020-2021 academic year. It is critical to our reputation as a high-quality institution of higher education and is required to allow us to offer federal student financial aid to our deserving students.

This rigorous process takes over 2½ years from start to finish. The process culminates with a visit to the college by a SACSCOC reaffirmation committee composed of approximately 8 experts from peer institutions in the southern United States. The committee is chaired by a college president. The reaffirmation committee will be here in the first week of October 2020. During that visit, members of the committee will visit Swainsboro, Statesboro and Augusta.

A high percentage of the college’s faculty and staff have been actively engaged in helping the college complete the two major components of the process:

  • Demonstration of the college’s compliance with the SACSCOC Principles of Accreditation.
  • Completion of a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) which will focus the college’s attention over the next five years on achieving the goals of the plan. This requirement of a QEP is an element of the accreditation process which makes the process in the southern United States unique and rigorous. This element is not commonly found in other regions of the U.S.

Demonstrating compliance with the Principles of Accreditation is a multi-step process. The first step in this process was completed in March of this year: Our compliance certification, hundreds of pages in length, was filed with SACSCOC. As required, it addressed each SACSCOC Principle in depth and provided documentary evidence of compliance with each Principle. For example, official transcripts of all faculty who taught courses in each of two semesters were provided to document their qualification to teach the courses assigned to them.

The next step in the compliance process is review of the compliance certification (called the off-site review) by a group of our colleagues at an off-site location. This review occurred later than originally scheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Accordingly, we received the report of the off-site committee only a couple of weeks ago – later than originally planned. We must file a response to this report in the first week of August. This means that many faculty and staff will be intensely engaged in preparing our focused report over the next few weeks.

Preparation of the QEP is the other key step in the process. This QEP must be filed with SACSCOC at the same time as our focused report. This is critical for two reasons. First, it focuses our college on a critical aspect of student learning for a 5-year period. In EGSC’s plan, this will focus our efforts on creation of learning communities. Second, it is critical because the completion of a QEP meeting the standards set by SACSCOC is a condition required for reaffirmation of the college’s accreditation.

All of this is to say that many of our faculty and staff have been and will continue over the next several months to pour many hours of time and extraordinary effort into this SACSCOC reaffirmation effort. This final stage of preparation for a SACSCOC reaffirmation committee visit is always an intense and stressful period. This year, it is particularly so because we are doing this in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Accomplishing both a successful return to campus in Fall 2020 and a successful reaffirmation committee visit in October is a lot to ask. However, I know our EGSC community is up to the task and I thank all of you in advance for supporting EGSC during this challenging period with collegiality and good humor. We will get it done together.

Stay healthy. Stay safe.

East Georgia State College, President Bob Boehmer