Preparing Your Campus for a Site Visit ASCCC Accreditation Institute February, 20, 2015, 11:15 am – 12:15 pm James Todd, ASCCC Area A Representative John Stanskas, ASCCC Secretary Danny Martino, Santiago Canyon College

Breakout Description You have spent years working on your self-evaluation report and now your visit is on the horizon. Does your campus already have accreditation fatigue? This breakout will focus on strategies to get your campus and faculty ready for the site visit. Ideas and comments have been added to the presentation slides based on conversations that occurred during the session.

What Worked Well on Your Campus? Team Preps: Have set up complete and organized, where the team will meet, computers, rooms, hotels, etc. “Mug Shots” handouts for faculty/staff to review before the team arrives. Update report for the team just before they arrive. A “quick shot” of what the college has done since the Self-Eval was completed Good communication prompts a good rapport with the visiting team

What Worked Well on Your Campus? College Preps: Acronym quiz President’s monthly updates to include accreditation updates Accreditation guides: “this could be asked of you by the team” Senate meeting quizzes on one standard or substandard at each meeting “Crash course” primmer, what should campus know? Create visuals for faculty/staff Quick glance references Accreditation games/events/rewards for all campus events WASC-a-Palloza Departments get questions and first to fully answer questions get rewarded. Liaison with sister college(s) on what they are doing Mock site visit Quiz each other on standards when done

What didn’t work well? Overkill with reports to everyone Senate leaders/senators not knowing major processes Such a budget allocation model Not enough self-reflection. Self-eval is too polished up Not identifying ways to provide evidence Overly critical – Try consolidating common issues Writing before collecting evidence. Try having the evidence drive the report

Setting up a Standing Committee What does a committee need to do to get the campus involved? Standing Senate agenda item through the entire cycle, not just the 2 years before Identify the role of the classified Members can link/liaison with other major committees on campus and report back to accred. committee How soon does it need to happen? Have some kind of ongoing role through entire cycle Increase reports/linking committees as site visit nears How to educated an the entire campus? Report to/attend meetings to explain what standard they are responsible for What is role of your Faculty Accreditation Chair? Can the Chair get reassign time Have support for chair/co-chair, not one sole leader

How to Include the Campus ●What have you done? ●Academic Senate Meetings ●Department/Division Meetings ●Brown bag lunch ● s ●Flex activities ●Involve classified AND students all through the process ●Consult with lab techs about facilities needs ●Clear reporting procedures for committees ●Information should flow back to committees as well ●Google Docs for faculty/staff to view and work with ●Break up review of the standards to perspective committees ●i.e. the Curriculum Committee reviews/provides feedback on Standard II portion of Self-Eval.

Academic Senate Involvement Things to consider in planning: What should the Academic Senate review? When should the Academic review items? How do you plan and maintain a timeline? Why is Program Review important? How does resource allocation relate to the standards?

Academic Senate Involvement How do Academic Senates implement and fully vet processes related to accreditation? How does your Faculty Accreditation Chair work with your Academic Senate? What are other ways Academic Senates are involved and responsible for accreditation?

What Works and What Doesn’t? ●What has worked for you? ●What have you been lacking? ●What have you learned in terms of your cycle? ●What do you want to change? How do you include your campus and Academic Senate, and what has and hasn’t worked?

Visiting Teams & Open Forums ●How do you communicate to the visiting team at open forum? ●How do you handle disgruntled discussions that come up? ●How do you handle counter criticisms that come up in the open forum? ●Accreditation is about everyone understanding processes and how to be involved. ●Have evidence on hand during the Open Forums to counter overly negative criticisms that come up

Preparing Evidence Examples ●How can we keep it from being...

Preparing Evidence Examples ●How to make it a comfortable visit for the team ●Making evidence available ●Making sure those in meetings have the evidence with them ●Scheduling meetings accordingly ●Have team available to have evidence found quickly ●Possible manuals for various processes. ○i.e. SLO Handbook ○Visual representations to present to public ●What has everyone else done??

How do you Overcome Accreditation Fatigue? Have processes in place that last the entire cycle Feedback is giving as an ongoing basis to Accred. Committee Senate committees feed reports to Accred. Committee throughout the cycle Senate appointed liaisons on Accred. Committee to other committees Be sure to include feedback from District committees ONGOING recognition of ALL involved Celebrate a job well done, even before the results of the visit are known Recognitions don’t need to be all campus. Smaller “thank you” events go a long way in maintaining a more positive process Professional Development events to get others engaged SOCIAL TIME!

Questions/Thoughts