Western Dakota Technical College Learn. Do. Now.
We have a lot of accreditation-related work to accomplish between now and 2018. We will write and submit a progress report, Assurance Argument, and Federal Compliance report; prepare and host a comprehensive peer review; and become experts in accreditation, assessment, planning, program and unit review, and more. Thankfully, we have plans in place to complete all this work and have set aside time
The Higher Learning Commission publishes several different kinds of standards. Understanding each of them reduces what can be a significant amount of confusion that occurs when we first start learning about accreditation. It is difficult to say one of these standards is more important than another, our Assurance Argument will focus on showing compliance with the Criteria for Accreditation. Here’s a primer on the Criteria and other sets of standards:
As you know, the Higher Learning Commission, our regional accrediting agency, placed Western Dakota Tech on Probation in February 2016. We were placed on probation because HLC decided we were not in compliance with its requirements in three areas – assessment of student learning, use of persistence and completion rates, and institutional effectiveness.
That’s the bad news. The good news is we have been making, and continue to make, improvements in all three areas. Our progress has been so significant I have complete confidence we will be off probation as soon as possible.Western Dakota Tech named the 174th Best Community College in the country, out of 821 ranked.
