For three days in late October, the SGA boardroom will become a confidential headquarters. An elite team led by Dr. Jerome Hunter will be shacking up in the conference room for BC’s accreditation.
The accreditation is the follow-up to the self-evaluation which was conducted this year. “Every six years every community college in the state does a self-evaluation,” said BC President William Andrews. Following this, a group of outside administrators come to review the self-evaluation and offer their own suggestions and judgments on the document. The self-evaluation is a comparison to the national standard for community college education and takes place in three parts: Description, Self-Assessment, and Planning Agenda.
These parts describe specific areas of concentration within the study, grade the area according to the national standard, and make decisions and plans for future improvement if needed, respectfully.
The accreditation team has been studying the self-evaluation, according to Andrews, and is prepared to see if they are correct.
The accreditation will begin on Tuesday, Oct. 24 and conclude on Thursday, Oct. 26.
There will be times set aside for students to walk in to the SGA conference room and discuss any issues they deem important with the evaluators. These times will be on Oct. 24 from 4-5 p.m. and Oct. 25 from 11a.m.-noon.
This will be an “open meeting for college staff and students to drop in and meet with selected team members,” according to a statement released by the evaluation team.
The final report of the group will be drafted and submitted by noon Oct. 26, just before the final meeting.
Also, as a finale to the accreditation, there will be an open meeting in the Forum on Oct. 26 with Dr. Hunter. He will talk about the findings and recommendations of the team, as well as conduct an group exit interview with all who attend. The rest of the accreditation team will be in attendance for this meeting, but will not speak. After the meeting, the team will leave the campus, “not speaking to anyone,” Andrews says, “in order to maintain confidentiality.” Dr. Hunter is the chancellor of North Orange County Community College District. The rest of his 12-member team is yet to be announced.