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GTCC
(336) 334-4822
P.O. Box 309
Jamestown, NC 27282
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Letter From The President
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| It does not seem that long ago that we were going through SACS accreditation. And in some ways, this is as it should be: we are never really “done with SACS.” Our being an accredited college means that we regularly look at ourselves, figure out if what we are doing is “by the book,” and try to improve our processes. If we take a step back from that phrase “Institutional Effectiveness” and think about what it really means, we get an idea of what the accreditation process is all about: making sure that we, as an institution, are constantly trying to be effective at what we do. |
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| Our re-accreditation process this time is made up of two key parts |
1.
A “compliance audit.”
This review looks at the SACS-established guidelines for colleges. Ten years ago, these guidelines were called “The Criteria” and were broken down into a series of “MUST” statements and “SHOULD” statements. We measured our performance against these Criteria.
In the revised version of SACS guidelines, the language has changed—we now have “Core Requirements” and “Comprehensive Standards” and “Federal Mandates.” And though this language has changed a little, the underlying philosophy is the same: We need to review the mission of the college, the structure of the college, the key policies and procedures, and the stated objectives. Not only do we need to make sure these things are in place, we need to know—by observing and measuring—that these things work for us and are constantly improved.
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A “quality enhancement plan.”
This is the new part to the accreditation process. SACS has now mandated that every college undertake a multi-year project that engages everyone in the college in a specific plan to enhance quality as it relates specifically to student learning.
The Quality Enhancement Plan focus groups you have been a part of over the past few months have all brought out some common themes. Based on what our QEP team has found, these are the common themes related to improving student learning that emerged from across the college:
A theme related to improving our internal communication and/or customer service
A theme related to raising expectations for our students and enhancing excellence,
both in terms of their behaviors and their academic work
A theme related to becoming a thoroughly student-centered college
And those themes point us back to GTCC’s core values:
We value learning, we value our students, we value employees committed to providing services that insure student success. SACS will help us re-focus on what we value as a college. I look forward to our working together to make this SACS Reaccredidation process a time of renewed energy and commitment to helping students succeed.
Dr. Donald W. Cameron |
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