Binnae Bridwell
Re-affirmation of Accreditation for Pierce
Pierce College gets re-affirmation of accreditation from its March 2007 campus evaluation.An†accreditation team consisting of a 10 people roster from different junior/community colleges†visited the campus to evaluate if Pierce meets standards for accreditation. They were to write a report for the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges Western Association of Schools and Colleges to determine how Pierce meets the standards, make recommendations for improvement and make commendations, the final task was to turn in the report to the ACCJC.
Every six years Pierce College has to write a thorough, well-written Self Study Report and has to go through an on campus evaluation to see if it meets four standards for accreditation. “It is a lot of planning, hard important work,” stated Vice President of Academic Affairs, Nabil Abu-Ghazaleh. Pierce†is one of nine†accredited†community colleges of the Los Angeles Community College District.† Pierce did well on their March 19-22, 2007 evaluation to recieve a Certificate of Accriditation once again.
“We feel really great about it,” Robert Garber, president of Pierce said. “Pierce is working continuously to improve.” Abu-Ghazaleh said that he thought Pierce got an “A-” on the overall Evaluation Report. When asked how he felt Pierce did, he said, “It was overall highly complementary.”
Pierce College’s 51-page Evaluation Report noted 10 major areas of recommendation for improvement and received 20 commendations. Five of the recommendations (planning agendas) are ones that Pierce gave itself in the Self Study Report, and the evaluation team agreed upon as well. The other five recommendations are ones that the team noted throughout their evaluation of the institution. One of the recommendations was,
“. . .there should be a concerted effort to communicate the results of the planning process campus wide and clearly demonstrate a link between institutional planning and resource allocation.” This could be found on pg. 10 of the Evaluation Report.
Another recommendation that could be found on pg. 10 was,
“The college needs to develop a comprehensive system to monitor progress and quality of its Student Learning Outcomes effort so that a larger and significant number of courses will have fully completed the assessment cycle and the results used to improve institutional effectiveness.”
The Self Study Chair, Greg Gilbertson, expects Pierce to meet these accreditation standard recommendations by its next evaluation in spring 2013.
“I think Pierce is in a wonderful position to obtain those goals.” He said. “We have†the resources properly allocated so we can meet those goals.† It will take a focused, priority driven†commitment with organized transparent dialogue among all constituent groups.† This is already occurring but the key is consistency.”
Where there is room for improvement, there is also room for praise. Pierce received 20 commendations. Some of them are,
“The college is commended for integrating quantitative and qualitative data into many of its processes, particularly in the areas of educational planning and enrollment management,” and “The College is commended for its efforts to meet the needs of the changing demographics of its student population which includes students who are not college-prepared.”
A Focused Midterm Report will have to be completed and submitted to the ACCJC by March 2010. This report determines if Pierce is taking the necessary the steps for progress in completing the recommendations given by the evaluation team. The next extensive evaluation will place in the spring of 2013.