Following a Fifth-Year Interim Report, Follow Up report, and a Monitoring Report, Snead State Community College (SSCC) was required to submit a second monitoring report on 8.2.a and was placed under the sanction of probation by the SACSCOC Board. The letter informing the institution of this arrived in the President’s office during the first week following the hire of a new President. The previous President, as well as the Vice President of Academic Affairs had retired. So a new President and a new VPAA found themselves in a bit of a pickle.
Dr. Whitmore, the new SSCC President, reached out to us and, following several conversations about the current state of student learning outcomes assessment at SSCC, chose to bring Southeastern Accreditation Consultants in to collaborate on the second monitoring report.
The first step was to identify existing student learning outcomes across all academic programs and modify as necessary to a standard format. After that, we worked with program directors to capture the details of how student attainment of those outcomes were assessed and to represent the data on a standard reporting form. The reporting form also provided a mechanism for faculty to describe the changes that they had made over time seeking improvement in student learning and to provide documentation that those changes were made.
Southeastern Accreditation Consultants travelled to Boaz, AL to work directly with faculty and administrators to prepare for the site visit from the SACSCOC team. The visit was a success and the team had no recommendations for the institution. Upon review of the report of the visiting team, the SACSCOC Board removed the sanction of probation. This provided SSCC with a fresh start as they began working on the Compliance Certification directly after.
SSCC chose to continue the collaboration with Southeastern Accreditation Consultants through the construction of the Compliance Certification and then continued the association again so that we will have the privilege of supporting SSCC until the final reaffirmation decision.
Southeastern Accreditation Consultants 