The Activist

Issue date: 5/18/09 Section: Opinion

On Wednesday, May 6, Raymond Walters College learned that it earned a preliminary recommendation for a 10-year accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission's (HLC) site evaluation team.

While the final written report won't be provided for several months, we can now say with pride that we passed with outstanding success. In summary, the site team's conclusion was that RWC is an excellent organization with outstanding students, staff and faculty, and that we are well situated to deal with any future college challenges and opportunities.

The recommendation also provides us with insight into our strengths and several areas for continued advancement. According to the HLC's site evaluation team, RWC's strong points include the following:

• Faculty and staff are devoted to our mission and our students
• Strong relationship with community partners
• PDI's contribution to local business and industry
• Academic success of our students who transfer to uptown campus
• Active faculty and staff participation in governance - at both RWC and UC
• Excellent internal communication among faculty, staff and administration
• Exemplary professional development programs, especially faculty learning communities
• Strong learning support services that lead to student success - our labs, tutors, student services

The team also gave recommendations for areas of continued advancement, including the following:

• Create a more succinct mission statement to complement our existing document
• Consider additional space for student use - lounge, activities, study space
• Under the new RWC and UC initiatives to promote diversity, we should take advantage of upcoming faculty retirements to recruit additional minority faculty
• Incorporate a review of economic and demographic trends and input from community
• Progress from collecting data to a more robust analysis and use of data for continuous quality improvement
• Our ongoing assessment program should continue to emphasize data for program improvement and to inform budget decisions
• Take advantage of state-wide initiative to improve transfer and articulation of credit within the university and with other public institutions

In a few months, we will receive the final report as approved by the HLC Board. In the meantime, we should celebrate this good news and continue building on our success.

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