Welcome and thank you for stopping by to check on the status of the Accreditation 2005 process at the College of Southern Idaho . This newsletter is designed to bring everyone up to date on the latest happenings in the accreditation process.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FALL OF 2003?
Since we held the Celebrating Success and Innovation In-service at the beginning of the fall semester, we have made significant progress in taking a critical look at the College and how we operate. Committees for each the nine standards have made significant progress in researching, analyzing and reporting on the many successes at the College of Southern Idaho as well as the many challenges we face in the future. As you know, the fall of 2003 was our data gathering semester and, boy, do we have a lot of data. More than 125 people from all across campus had a hand in gathering information, analyzing data and writing sections of reports during the fall of 2003 and they are to be commended for the great work that they have done to this point. Because of their efforts, we now have reports from all nine committees either sitting in the accreditation team room or on their way. Let me extend a giant thank you to everyone who has been involved to this point; without you, we would not be where we are today!
WHAT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, IN THE SPRING OF 2004?
Over the next month, John Hughes and I will be working through the reports that were handed in by each of the committees and we will be writing initial summaries of those reports. Those summaries are the first draft of what will eventually become the bulk of our institutional self-study. Once John and I have the initial summaries done, we will send them back to each of the committees so that they can review what we have done. This will begin a semester long back-and-forth process of writing, analyzing, re-writing, and re-analyzing that will culminate in the creation of an entire first draft of the self-study which will be reviewed by the Steering Committee in May. During this back-and-forth process, committees will look for strengths that we have as an institution as well as challenges that we face, and they will suggest possible courses of action to address those challenges. Initial drafts of reports are also being shared with other campus members who work in areas addressed by specific standards for their input. Our belief is that this collaborative process will allow for a wide array of input into the self-study while still keeping the actual writing process as centralized as possible.
WHERE ARE WE HEADING?
So, where do we go from here? Well, despite all of the work that has been done, as of right now we are only about halfway through the process of putting the Accreditation Self-Study together. Once the Steering Committee looks at it in May, it will go through a series of revisions and we will again be looking for input from across campus. So, even if you haven't been as involved in the process as you would like to be at this point, there will be more opportunities. Again, the process will culminate with a visit from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities in April of 2005 and, with the help of all of you, we will be able to show them how successful and innovative CSI is along with how we are addressing the challenges that lie ahead.
Please feel free to contact me at any time with your ideas, concerns, comments, or anything else you wish to share (good jokes are especially appreciated at this point) so that we can make sure that this process makes CSI and even greater institution!
