Campus Message: April, 2017

Office of the President

ACCREDITATION

Dear Campus Community,

As we approach a March 2018 accreditation site visit, it is time to have all hands on deck! I have three important items regarding accreditation that require the participation of each and every Fresno City College faculty and staff member.

1) ACCJC offers Online Accreditation Basics Training. I would like to achieve 100% participation in this course, as it provides a basic understanding of the process and Accreditation Standards. This will be helpful as you review our accreditation self-evaluation report.

To encourage participation each person that completes the training will be entered into a drawing win some excellent prizes!  The prizes include three iPads, two parking passes, and two restaurant certificates. To participate go to https://accjc.org/ and click on the online training button to begin. The course should take about 90 minutes to complete. Upon completion of the course print your completion certificate and take it to the Public Information Office by August 1, 2018. Winners will be announced at convocation.

2) Our first draft of the self-evaluation is ready for your review. This is a rough draft that is need of college wide input!  I would ask that each and every one of you review at least one section of the draft – more if you are able. You will find that there is a section most relevant to your work and/or committee participation at the college. It would make the most sense to complete the online training before reviewing the self-evaluation. There is also an excellent companion document available called the Guide to Evaluating and Improving Institutions found at https://accjc.org/publications/. This is the guide that our visiting team will use to evaluate us, so it is helpful to determine if we are meeting the

o Standards. If you would like a hard copy there are some available in the Office of Institutional Research. At this time we are looking for content feedback, as the document has not been edited. Edits will occur over the summer and the final draft will be available for your review in the fall. Here are some questions to ask during this review:

• Does the response answer the Standard prompt?
• Is there inaccurate information?
• Is something missing?
• Do you know of a great piece of evidence to support this? o Is something you read inconsistent with something you read in a different section?

The draft can be found here

After review please submit your feedback to Cyndie Luna. You can use track changes, hard copy or email your comments. If you have any questions or want to discuss anything you have read, please contact our Accreditation Liaison officer, Cyndie Luna, at cyndie.luna@fresnocitycollege.edu, as she will be coordinating the feedback process and ensuring the feedback reaches the appropriate writers.

3) Finally, we will hold two open forums. These are scheduled two weeks after you’ve received the draft to give you an opportunity to read it. These open forums will give us an opportunity to discuss the draft face-to-face, as well as any other items relevant to the accreditation process. They will be scheduled on May 3 from 11:30-12:30 in the Staff Dining Room and 5:00-6:00 in the Library Conference Room to allow all full-time and part-time employees to attend. If you can only come for a few minutes at any point, that is okay!

Thank you all for your participation in this incredibly important process. Many of you have been working very hard to get to this point, and many of you will begin the work now. If we are all involved the self-evaluation is sure to reflect the excellent work that you all do each and every day. Thank you and please do not hesitate to ask me or Cyndie any questions.

Dr. Carole Goldsmith, President