After more than two years of dealing with the effects of the cash-for-grades scandal, Diablo Valley College administrators prepare to breathe a sigh of relief as they inch closer to redemption.
Keeping in line with what DVC officials are calling the “year of assessment,” accreditation officials visited the Pleasant Hill campus, a sister-college to Contra Costa College, on Thursday and Friday, looking for signs that the college is making the changes recommended to it in 2007 and 2008.
Although the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) will not make its final decision until January, if the organization finds DVC’s progress since it was deemed with the lowest possible rating of “show cause” earlier this year satisfactory, the college will regain full accreditation.
“People here are feeling like we really worked hard on the recommendations,” DVC President Judy Walters said. “But we’ll have to wait until January.”
The college detailed its work in addressing these recommendations in an Oct. 15 report that it sent to the ACCJC.
According to the report, which can be read at www.dvc.edu, the college was issued seven recommendations and two notices on eligibility requirements. They collectively concerned issues such as collegewide planning, curriculum and program review, technology planning, decision-making roles and communication.
More than 100 college employees worked on the report, Dr. Walters said.
Accreditation liaison officer Ted Wieden said work groups were assigned to each recommendation to better focus on each required task.
Additionally, in an effort to further display DVC’s progress, Wieden said the college will be putting together another follow-up report that would include all of its work up through the semester, which it will send to the ACCJC prior to its January meeting.
Wieden said actions like this are key to achieving the commission’s expectations of constant evolution.
“The accrediting commission and the standards really don’t want anyone to say you are done. Because you’re never really done,” he said. “It’s something you’re always working on because one of the standards is continuous improvement.”
He said that even if a college is achieving particular goals well, the question arises: “How can you do them better?”
Thus, in addition to the numerous committees set up and other changes made to coincide with the ACCJC’s immediate concerns, Wieden said DVC is also addressing less urgent issues, unrelated to the “show cause” branding, suggested to it last fall.
A new technology plan was approved by the district in May, and more than 85 percent of DVC’s courses have established their student learning outcomes (SLOs), which detail what skills and concepts professors expect students to have grasped by the end of a course, Wieden said.
Walters said DVC’s actions to address all of the recommendations, as well as the ACCJC’s eventual decision, will only give further rationalization for what she already believes — that DVC provides quality education and services to all of its students.
Contact Alec Surmani at asurmani.advocate@gmail.com
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Published: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Updated: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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