The CAFE Espresso
A short read on a robust topic
Longwood University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). Every ten years Longwood is asked to review and determine compliance with 73 standards of accreditation – this process is called reaffirmation. According to the U.S. Department of Education, “the goal of accreditation is to ensure that institutions of higher education meet acceptable levels of quality,” and institutions have to be accredited in order to receive and issue federal financial aid to students.
The reaffirmation process has two parts: a Compliance Certification and a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). The Compliance Certification is a narrative that discusses our determinations of compliance with the SACSCOC Principles of Accreditation. We submitted the Compliance Certification report in September 2023, and responded to requests for additional information in the focused report in February 2024.
Our on-site visit is next week, March 18-21, 2024.
The On-Site Reaffirmation Committee has three goals:
- clear up any lingering questions related to the Compliance Certification,
- ensure the university is compliant with all key areas of accreditation as required by the US Department of Education, and
- review the QEP and provide feedback
So what happens at the on-site visit next week?
Longwood will host a team of ten individuals, including peers working at colleges and universities in the SACSCOC region. They will meet with students, faculty, staff, administrators, and members of the Board of Visitors. Many of you have been contacted about the potential for an interview with on-site committee members. However, the on-site committee can ask anyone a question, and they may need to schedule interviews while here on campus.
The On-Site Reaffirmation Committee will discuss its findings with the President and Provost during the exit conference on Thursday, March 21. These findings may include recommendations related to compliance standards or the QEP.
Longwood's Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP): Post-Graduate Success Initiative
The QEP is a five-year institutional improvement plan that focuses on student learning or student success. As you already know, our next QEP is the Post-Graduate Success Initiative. Aligned with our institutional mission of developing citizen leaders, our QEP will empower students to articulate how their Longwood experiences shaped their goals and built their capacity to create a personal and communal future based on their skills, interests, and aspirations. The goal of the Post-Graduate Success Initiative is for students to choose and complete curricular and co-curricular experiences that are linked to their post-graduate success.
Accomplishing this goal requires building sustainable faculty and staff partnerships. To that end, members of the QEP Leadership Team represent three vice-presidential units at Longwood.
- Sarai Blincoe, QEP Lead, Department Chair, Associate Professor of Psychology (Academic Affairs)
- Waleed Ahmed, QEP Co-lead, Assistant Director of Admissions & Retention (Strategic Operations)
- Quincy Goodine, QEP Co-lead, Associate Director for Leadership Development (Student Affairs)
Just in case you are stopped by a member of the On-Site Committee and asked about the QEP, please take a few minutes to review the Post-Graduate Success Initiative at https://www.longwood.edu/qep/ .
Want to learn how to integrate the QEP into student learning experiences? Join CAFE and the QEP Advisory Committee for the next Teaching and Learning Institute, Consider Life Design, on May 13, 2024. You can also attend a pre-Institute virtual event on Friday, May 10. Inspired by Stanford University’s Life Design Studio, participants will immerse themselves in life design as students, applying life design to their own life and vocational wayfinding.
What happens after the on-site visit?
We will receive the final on-site committee report about one month after the visit. At this time, Longwood would respond to any recommendations of the On-site Committee. The full SACSCOC Board of Trustees will receive the Committee report and Longwood’s response; they will make a decision regarding Longwood’s accreditation and any required follow-up activities. The final decision on reaffirmation will be announced at the SACSCOC Annual Conference in December 2024.