Over the past few days, Southwestern Community College hosted its 10-year reaffirmation site visit as a key milestone of the accreditation process with the Commission on Colleges and Universities (CC&U, formerly known as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges).
A visiting committee met with more than 50 college administrators, employees and students from Oct. 5-8 at three instructional locations across SCC’s service area of Jackson, Macon, Swain Counties and the Qualla Boundary.
The visiting committee consisted of a CC&U staff member as well as six peer reviewers from colleges outside North Carolina.
“Reaffirmation is an important opportunity for us to look closely at how well we are fulfilling our mission and serving our students and communities,” said Dr. Don Tomas, SCC President. “I am incredibly proud of the way our faculty and staff prepared for this visit and, more importantly, of the work they do every day to provide an outstanding educational experience for our students. We appreciated the opportunity to welcome our peer reviewers to SCC and to share the great work happening across our college.”
Southwestern was initially accredited by the Southern Association on Colleges and Schools in December of 1971 and has since continuously maintained that accreditation.
Peer review is a fundamental aspect of the CC&U accreditation process. Higher education professionals from peer institutions evaluate SCC’s compliance with accreditation standards and its commitment to institutional quality and student success.
“One of the strengths of the accreditation process is peer review. Our visitors are higher education professionals who understand the work we do because they are doing similar work at colleges across the region,” said Dr. Barbara Putman, SCC’s Executive Vice President for Instruction & Student Services. “Their questions and perspectives give us an opportunity not only to demonstrate that we meet accreditation standards but also to reflect on how we can continue to improve. The site visit allowed our faculty, staff, students and partners to tell SCC’s story, and I was very proud of the story they told.”
Though significant, the site visit does not mark the conclusion of the accreditation process. SCC’s reaffirmation work reflects an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement, institutional effectiveness, academic quality and student success.
SCC will continue the remaining steps of the reaffirmation following the site visit with the final reaffirmation decision expected in June of next year.
“A reaffirmation review involves an extraordinary amount of work across an institution,” said Andrea Stamper, SCC’s Director of Institutional Research & Planning and the college’s CC&U Institutional Liaison. “Faculty and staff throughout SCC contributed to documenting our compliance, evaluating our practices and preparing for the visiting committee. The site visit was an important milestone in a process that has involved years of work and collaboration, and we are grateful to everyone across the college who helped us reach this point.”
For more information about Southwestern and the programs it offers, call 828.339.4000 or drop by the nearest SCC location.
