The Middle States Commission on Higher Education’s site team is visiting Syracuse University this week to review a self study that SU has compiled.

Middle States is an accreditation organization for colleges, necessary for university students to receive federal tuition and aid. Universities must go through the accreditation process every eight years.

The site team will give its own report with recommendations for the university, according to a set of guidelines and federal compliances, said Rochelle Ford, a chair of SU’s Middle States Reaccreditation Steering Committee.

The site team, made up of leaders from peer institutions, arrived Sunday for a welcome and orientation. The team was scheduled to meet with university-affiliated people, such as students, faculty, administrators and staff, on Monday and Tuesday. Ford said the team will be meeting about 300 people.

The site team will ask members of the university community about the student experience, budget and strategic planning, among other things.

On Wednesday, the team will read its report to the chancellor’s council — administration, deans and members of the steering committee — which will include how well the commission believed the committee evaluated SU. They will also provide a list of recommendations for the school. The steering committee will take notes during the closed meeting, but no questions are allowed. SU will receive a copy of the report in the future.

The university wrote a preliminary self-study that included aspects of the university that needed to be improved, how the university is meeting certain compliances and budget and administration facts.

Ford said hopefully the only corrections in the university’s report will be typo mistakes, but since the school is already coming up with recommendations, she imagines the site team will agree with and emphasize those recommendations.

“We knew going into it there’s things that we’ve got to do better at Syracuse,” she said. “So we know that they’re going to repeat those things back to us.”

Once the site team gives its report, the reaccreditation committee can make revisions to the self-study and send it to the commission, which votes to approve or deny accreditation in June.

“The good news is, Chancellor Syverud is a commissioner,” Ford said. “He’ll be at that meeting. He kind of knows where we stand in comparison to other reports and things that they see.”

Ford said the recommendations that SU is self-identifying also help the university better align with the Academic Strategic Plan, a document that aims to improve the university in a variety of areas.

“We’ve already made a commitment to enhancing the student experience,” Ford said.

Published on March 26, 2018 at 8:32 pm

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert