At the beginning of this year, RWC began forming a committee to conduct a self-study in order to gain re-accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association (HLC). The accreditation process is conducted every ten years, 1999 being the last year it was conducted for UC. The RWC Re-Accreditation Self-Study Steering Committee, chaired by Professor Marlene Miner, is overseeing the evaluation process and has to turn in a report with all their findings by 2009 to the HLC. Then as the next step towards RWC’s re-accreditation, the HLC will send out a team to the RWC campus to conduct their own reevaluation with the Steering Committee findings.
Surprisingly, the HLC is not run by the government but is recognized by the US Department of Education and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Developed for maintaining high standards of excellence, the Association was founded in 1895 as a membership organization for the educational institutions.
Re-accreditation is very important not only to RWC faculty and administrators, but also to the students attending. Accreditation is the decision maker on whether or not students’ credits earned at RWC are apt to transfer to other colleges.
However, while trying to allay some fears, RWC Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Don O’ Meara said confidently, “We have no doubts that we’ll gain re-accreditation from the HLC, because we always have.”
In addition to Professor Miner and Associate Dean O’Meara, the Re-Accreditation Committee includes RWC Dean Dolores Straker and RWC Student Government President Aimee McLean.
As chair of the Steering committee, Professor Miner works with both Dean Straker and Associate Dean O’ Meara in organizing and seeing that the report has a timely completion.
While trying to serve the common good of RWC and advancing the quality of learning, Miner is now in the process of establishing five criteria committees, which the Steering committee will oversee. The five criteria are the core values of both RWC and the HLC: (1) mission and integrity; (2) preparing for the future; (3) student learning and effective teaching; (4) acquisition, discovery, and application of knowledge; (5) engagement and service.
“As we focus on how well the college meets the five criteria,” Professor Miner explained, “we will address four themes: being a future-oriented, learning-centered, connected, and distinctive institution.”
By next year the Steering committee will be appointing a Report Writing Committee, who will be responsible for organizing all the data collected and writing the report that will be submitted to the HLC.
Through this self-study, Miner said that RWC acknowledges that there is room for improvement and sees this as an opportunity to evolve into a more efficient school.
“This is an opportunity for the college to take a close look at itself,” she added, “to acknowledge what we have been doing well, and see where improvements need to be made.