Submitted on behalf of Provost Rountree:
In just a few weeks, we will welcome the Middle States reaccreditation visiting team. As I have mentioned before, the team will be given complete access to the campus. They will be evaluating Ithaca College from multiple perspectives, including our educational practices and processes, our financial health, our physical resources, our business, managerial, and governance processes, and more.
In reviewing these broad areas, the team is charged by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education to evaluate Ithaca College's fulfillment of the Middle States "Standards for Accreditation and Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education," which may be found online at www.msche.org. Included in that publication are detailed explanations of the individual standards against which we will be reviewed.
In the preface to the document, Middle States summarizes the criteria for accreditation as follows:
"Middle States' accreditation is an expression of confidence in an institution's mission and goals, its performance, and its resources. Based upon the results of institutional review by peers and colleagues assigned by the Commission, accreditation attests to the judgment of the Commission on Higher Education that an institution has met the following criteria:
• that it has a mission appropriate to higher education;
• that it is guided by well-defined and appropriate goals, including goals for student learning;
• that it has established conditions and procedures under which its mission and goals can be realized;
• that it assesses both institutional effectiveness and student learning outcomes, and uses the results for improvement;
• that it is accomplishing its mission and goals substantially;
• that it is organized, staffed, and supported so that it can be expected to continue to accomplish its mission and goals; and
• that it meets the eligibility requirements and standards of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education."
