Accreditation is a crucial process that Fresno City College is currently completing and it determines the future of the college. With the process being an in depth and detailed account on the college’s programs, accreditation becomes a system of checks and balances.
With this system in mind, the question of why it is necessary appears. Accreditation is necessary for any academic institution to be valid and to have their degrees or certificates of completion recognized by other institutions across the board.
Along with the self-evaluation of its programs, the school is paid a visit from an accreditation team of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.
As the accreditation team reviews the reports provided by the college, they compare them to the standards established by the ACCJC for valid educational credentials.
“The way it works is, the college will be visited next week. The team reviews everything we’ve submitted, all of the evidence that we have. They do it through a series of interviews validating what we say in our self-study. Then, they measure us against the standards”, said FCC President Tony Cantu.
With any assessment, there can be certain issues that arise and make the process more difficult or tedious. FCC itself has four key focuses that are at the forefront of the self-evaluations.
“Planning is one of them. The other is curriculum, making sure that you’re reviewing your curriculum on a regular basis. Also, program reviews are important. It’s not just degree programs but it is institution wide,” said Cantu. “Program review is what gives a department or program the opportunity to look at itself. What is working well and what needs to be changed? The other is student learning outcomes. It’s making sure that all of our courses have student learning outcomes and they are being assessed on a regular basis along with making sure that we use that information.”
Once the college completes its self-study the ACCJC team assesses it and measures them to the standards of the district bylaws. Furthermore, the ACCJC offers a series of open forum meetings in which students, faculty and staff may bring up issues that they feel need attention.
At the meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 18, a broad range of issues were presented to the accreditation team for assessment. They included issues pertaining to the Disabled Students Program and Services, issues involving the surplus of funds in the district and even issues pertaining to library security were heard.
The chair of the 2011 accreditation team of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, Peter Garcia, maintains that the open forums are an important part of the process.
“The open forums are a very important part of accreditation visits. They are an opportunity to make sure that the folks who may not be participating in some of the formal committees written up in the report have an opportunity to speak their minds,” said Garcia.
The comments heard at the forums are heard but not necessarily taken in real time. The team listens to the comments and notes the ones that may be applicable to the standards by which the college is being measured.  Garcia offered more on how the comments heard at the meeting will be taken into consideration.
“The large majority of the team members were at this meeting. We’ll talk about any of the comments applicable to the standards or the report as a whole and we will ask if any of them need to be pursued or if whether they are matters that fall out of the peripheral view of accreditation,” said Garcia.
True to the idea behind the meetings, many were given the chance to bring their issues to the attention of the team. Mischelle Liscano, an attendee of the forum and a chair of the Tort Appeals Board feels that the forums are a start in the direction of helping the students.
“It’s the start of understanding what Fresno is about. I think we’ve gone on the whim of worrying about money when we need to worry about servicing the students. We serve the students no matter what,” Liscano said.
Liscano feels that the community should come together to resolve the issues brought to the attention of the team and that no one person should have more power than the other.
“They should be addressed. We won’t know until afterwards, of course. However, this gives ample opportunity for all staff regardless of what level they are. It should be an even line for everybody,” Liscano said.
The final steps of the accreditation process include the revealing the of college’s score or standing in an open forum within the coming days. President Cantu believes the date of the assessment findings to be Thursday, Oct. 20.