March 11, 2005

Next progress report due March 15

Evergreen Valley College works to maintain accreditation

By Angelo Lanham
Times Intern

The word “accreditation” has been floating around Evergreen for the last few years, with rumblings of Evergreen Valley College (EVC) and San Jose City College potentially losing accreditation.

All this hubbub raises certain questions. Namely, what is accreditation? How does it relate to EVC, and what happens when it goes away?

Without the rigid governmental control found in the kindergarten through high school levels of education, it’s necessary for institutions of higher learning to hold up to some sort of standards.

This gap is filled with accreditation, a process of self-evaluation that colleges undergo every five to ten years to ensure that they are delivering a quality education.

Processes similar to accreditation are found in virtually every country with institutions of higher learning. The process began shortly before World War II and has since become crucial for most universities and community colleges.

A self-evaluation is completed by an assembled group of faculty, administrators and staff, based on the accrediting agency’s guidelines. Then an accreditation team from a private agency comes out, looks over the self-evaluation, and makes certain suggestions as to what changes they think would benefit the school.

These changes are expected to be made within a period of two years, with checkups for progress on the way.

The most reliable accrediting agencies are approved by the U.S. Department of Education, and can be found on a list published by them. This is not to say that every agency not approved is unreliable, but it is rare that an unapproved agency will have very much pull.

Suggested EVC changes
The Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) suggested that EVC fill certain high-level vacancies and repair certain micromanagement issues involving the board of trustees to maintain its accreditation.

What happens to a college when it loses accreditation? In the case of EVC and SJCC, they disappear.

With this danger in the back of the minds of the EVC staff, the chairmen of the study decided that the only way to make a difference would be to make sure to do everything possible to get the whole campus involved.

This meant holding open-campus meetings, improving communications between staff members, and just figuring out what the campus as a whole thought would be the best changes to make.

Another important point, as with any accreditation process, was open, forthright honesty. Thus, rather than attempting to hide the warts, EVC’s study displayed them, along with campus-approved ideas on deflating them.

Said Jon Kangas, current interim president, “It’s sort of silly to try and hide what will eventually be sniffed out.”

Positive improvements
So, when the ACCJC returned in October, they noticed a number of positive things. For one, the college’s openness and honesty were appreciated. For another, they liked the cleanliness of the campus.

They also noticed the progress of new programs and buildings.

The Electronic Network for Latin American Careers and Employment (ENLACE) and Asian Pacific Islander Resources for Excellence (ASPIRE) are two such programs, designed to help minority groups succeed.

Unresolved issues
In spite of these rays of sunshine, many of the suggestions from the accreditation team had not been implemented.

Positions at the top still had not been filled with full-time candidates, the budget and managing problems with the board of trustees, some of which stem from 1992’s accreditation report, were still there.

The accreditation team also wanted to see a stronger, more integrated planning process, tied closely to the campus budget.

Part of the reason this fell short was due to the hierarchy the previous chancellor had created, which was completely void of necessary administration on the vice president level.

The ever-present issue of budget cuts (EVC’s share being $610,000 in cuts), coupled with vacancies in staff and faculty due to golden handshake-style retirements, all played a part.

Still, as Vicki Atherton, director of the EVC library and co-chair of the accreditation study said, “The accreditation team worked with the campus.”

Accordingly, their attitude was one of progress, not of trying to “catch” them, or to act as an antagonistic, external force.

An equally optimistic Kangas commented, “when I came on board, I was in a position to take motivation from the accreditation report.”

The EVC campus, at least, was not alone in these issues. SJCC, having the same board, found themselves scurrying to organize with as much enthusiasm.

The next progress report, by which EVC is expected to have begun changes, is due March 15, in which “they’ll see a lot of progress there...we’ll be pleased to show off the good things that have happened,” said Kangas.

In October, a full year after the initial report, EVC is expected to be close to having fixed the mentioned problems and have full-time positions for all the higher-up faculty positions.