Bakersfield College President Greg Chamberlain is not worried.
At least he is not worried about whether the college will continue to receive accreditation status, that is.
According to Chamberlain, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) did not issue to BC any fresh recommendations to correct deficiencies in the college and its operations in fall 2006.
According to a Jan. 31 WASC letter to former BC President William Andrews, at a WASC meeting held Jan. 9-11, the self-study programs report from BC and the report of the WASC evaluation team’s report based upon the committee’s Nov. 8-9, 2007 visit proved that BC has made improvements.
Now BC has received from WASC a two-year period to address remaining deficiencies or face the loss of accreditation. The corrections need to be made by January 2010, and a mid-term special BC self-evaluation report must be sent to WASC by Oct. 15, 2009. The loss of the college’s accreditation status means that BC students would not be able to transfer their credits from here to other institutions.
“I’m not concerned about it (losing accreditation),” Chamberlain said. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t have any work to do. And we should not think of accreditation as an ‘event.’ We must think of it as staying on track.”
There were 14 recommendations listed in Andrews’ Jan. 31 letter from WASC. One of the recommendations of WASC is that BC must be consistent in keeping up the quality and deployment of program and service developments. Within this recommendation, it was also stated that BC widen its attempts to evaluate and deploy student outcomes strategies.
Within another recommendation, it was suggested that a document should be drawn up that concisely explains the roles and duties of departments, and that departments should develop a system of self-examination.
Some BC students approve of the accreditation process.
“It (the accreditation process) is very fair; it makes us live up to high standards,” said Kristina Yates, 21, nursing major. “It’ll make our degrees worth something.”
“It’s fair. We need oversight,” said Eva Roby, 22, political science major. “This should be done more in high school.”
Some BC students fear the accreditation process.
“It would be horrible if BC lost its accreditation,” said Richie Perez, 23, theater major. “All that hard work going to waste.”