SACS is responsible for the accreditation of colleges and universities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Milligan’s accreditation is important to everyone who receives a diploma. Not being accredited would keep most undergraduate students from getting into graduate school or having their four-year degree taken seriously.
The administration and various committees started meeting this summer in preparation for this long process. The first step was to write a compliance document stating why Milligan meets the standards of Southern Accretitation of Colleges and Schools. The offsite committee, which is a committee that reviews all of the paperwork Milligan submits, looks at the forms that Milligan is required to fill out and returns it for any revisions that are needed. These forms ask Milligan to explain why they are eligible to be accredited.
After the offsite committee passes it, the onsite committee comes to the campus. If the onsite committee approves of the standards, then Milligan has to submit a Quality Enhancement Plan. This is a 5-to-10-year plan that will be put in place to improve the campus.
There are committees that have been put in place to handle these steps. Two students, Sarah Green and Amanda Morrell, were chosen to serve on the Quality Enhancement Plan Committee.
“The QEP Committee is a collaboration of students, staff, faculty and administration,” said Green.
There is also the Workhorse Committee that is in charge of writing the compliance document and the Leadership Committee that oversees the process from beginning to end.
Since these committees have mostly faculty and staff on them, this will add to their normal work schedules. “Who knows, we may bring in someone to help out in the future but for right now the extra work will be distributed among existing faculty and staff,” said Dean Mark Matson.
On October 5 Milligan will be hosting a convo where students will be able to voice their opinions about how Milligan can be improved for the QEP. There will also be a tab set up on Angel for students to have an open discussion said Dean Matson.
The faculty, staff, students, administrators and trustees that are a part of the planning for SACS have came up with 8 different topics that will lead the student discussion. These topics are written and spoken communication, student engagement and success, technology for learning, global cultural literature, service learning, better preparing students for graduate school, spiritual formation, and enhancing student research.
See www.sacscoc.org to learn more about the reaccreditation process.
This article was written for Multimedia Journalism
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