At the Feb. 20 meeting of the Navajo County Community College District Governing Board, Northland Pioneer College Chief Operations Officer, Jason Foutz presented an overview of the first component of criteria that must be completed for the upcoming accreditation visit scheduled for November of 2019.
The most challenging portion of the accreditation criteria has to do with diversity, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) requires that the college understand the relationship between the mission and the diversity of society. The challenge to NPC is being able to attract diversity in faculty and staff.
“While we do understand the diversity, we struggle to meet it in some areas. Once huge area we struggle in is staff and faculty. We struggle on being able to get staff and faculty that represent the population of our service area,” said Foutz.
Other than the challenge of the diversity component, One minor adjustment like sharing the mission publicly more often is one item it can do better. The HLC checks to see if the college mission is clearly stated and publicly available. It will also look to see how the mission guides NPC’s operations. NPC’s current mission states, “Northland Pioneer College provides, supports and promotes lifelong learning.”
The HLC in Chicago, Illinois, currently accredits Northland Pioneer College (NPC). Accreditation is designed to assure that an institution has integrity and provides a high quality of services.
Some other core pieces of this criteria are checking to see if the mission has been updated and show that academic programs, student support services and enrollment profiles are consistent with the mission. The HLC will also look to see if the mission is shared by NPC on college catalogs, the website, board documents, and employee handbooks. Another key to these criteria is demonstrating a commitment to the public good. This includes showing how the college responds to the needs of its community.
Over the coming months until the November of 2019 visit, there will be teams drafting statements for the college to address each specific criterion. This portion was step one.
