It’s not going to interrupt students’ lives,” said Elwood Parker, a professor in the Mathematics Department who is also a Guilford alum. “As a student – I was a senior – the only reason I even knew it was happening was that I happened to be among the leadership of some of the organizations. If I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have even known it was going on,” Parker said.

Guilford administration and faculty members are already working in preparation for a reaffirmation of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Groups have been formed to determine places Guilford may need to focus on to ensure compliance with SACS standards.

Mary Ellen Chijioke, Director of Hege Library, will present initial findings later this month. These findings will serve as a preliminary estimate of what steps, if any, the college will need to take in order to be in compliance with SACS guidelines.

These initial results will form the structure of a compliance document, required by the SACS Commission on Colleges, consisting of the college’s own estimate of how well it currently meets SACS standards. The compliance document must be submitted by March 2006.

“I don’t think there are any places where we’re not in compliance, or won’t be by 2006,” said Guilford president Kent Chabotar.

“The hard part isn’t being in compliance,” said Chabotar. “The hard part is having the documentation to back it up.”

” ‘Accreditation’ is review of the quality of higher education institutions and programs,” according to the website for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). “In the United States, accreditation is a major way that students, families, government officials, and the press know that an institution or program provides a quality education.”

Federal money is only available to accredited institutions and the students who attend them. Students who want to sit for licensure in some fields, such as the bar and CPA exams, must have degrees from accredited schools. Additionally, most graduate programs require a degree from an accredited institution.

CHEA and the U.S. Department of Education recognize eight regional accrediting organizations, including SACS.

SACS accredits most high schools, colleges, and universities from Texas to Virginia. Approximately 800 higher-education institutions are SACS-accredited schools, including Duke University, Texas A & M, Virginia Tech, the College of William and Mary, and Guilford.

Chabotar was recently elected to a three-year term on the SACS Commission on Colleges, meaning that he is one of 77 who are charged with the responsibility of “taking final action on the accreditation status of institutions,” among other things, according to documents available from the SACS website.

The reaffirmation of accreditation process is lengthy.

Every 10 years, SACS schools are required to demonstrate their compliance with a list of requirements. There are 15 core requirements that must be met for reaccreditation, including: a governing board, a chief executive officer who is not a member of the governing board, continuous operation, a curriculum that provides a general education base, student support services that promote student learning and development.

Guilford is already in compliance with several of the core requirements. The core requirements of the Guilford curriculum satisfy the general education core requirement of SACS compliance, the Board of Trustees acts as Guilford’s governing board, and students are encouraged to take advantage of services offered by the Academic Skills Center, the Career and Community Learning Center, and Student Health Services.

An additional core requirement for SACS reaffirmation of accreditation is the development of a Quality Enhancement Program (QEP), which should be in place six weeks before the on-site evaluation of the college (currently scheduled for September 2006).

A new part of the accreditation process, the QEP is intended to guide the college to excellence in some area of student development between SACS examinations of Guilford.

“(The QEP) is used to outline a course of action for institutional improvement by addressing one or more issues that contribute to institutional quality, with special attention to student learning,” the SACS Principles of Accreditation document reads.

For reaffirmation purposes, the college will also have to comply with a myriad of federal requirements and comprehensive standards that should also be met, though on a less stringent basis than the core requirements.

There is an off-site evaluation of the college based on submitted paperwork, as well as a three-day on-site evaluation by SACS commissioners, currently scheduled for September 2006.

Finally, in June 2007, SACS will pronounce whether Guilford College has successfully undergone the reaffirmation of accreditation or not.

“Between 75 and 80 colleges come up for accreditation each year,” said Chabotar. “Least year, all but four were affirmed and only one lost accreditation. It is very unlikely that (Guilford won’t be reaffirmed).”

“The upper-class students won’t really see anything different,” said Parker. “The first years and the sophomores, though, will be the ones to see the changes that come about as a result of the QEP going into effect.”

Students can also expect to see some faculty changes in preparation for the coming evaluations. For example, the English department will soon be hiring four non-tenure track full-time professors, according to department chair Jeff Jeske. This will help improve the ratio between part-time and full-time faculty members – a ratio the SACS Commission on Colleges will include in their evaluation of the college.