The Navajo County Community College District Governing Board held its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, May 15. The accreditation process for Northland Pioneer College (NPC) continues to be an important agenda item as they move towards the November of 2019 visit by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). The fourth criterion was revealed as faculty in speech and theater Dr. Mike Solomonson presented the report to the board. This criterion deals with the evaluation and improvement of teaching and learning.
The fourth part of the criterion has three main components. NPC must ensure that it demonstrates responsibility for the quality of its educational programs, a commitment to educational achievement and improvement through ongoing assessment.
The final portion of the criterion states that NPC must demonstrate a responsibility for the quality of its educational programs, learning programs, learning environments, and support service through processes designed to promote continuous improvement.
The NPC Strategic Planning and Accreditation Steering Committee is responsible for writing draft accreditation criterion evidence arguments and hold monthly meetings to refine data, identify weaknesses, and assess procedures and processes currently being modified to comply with new HLC requirements.
After review of the criterion it was determined that the college is well positioned in responsibility for the quality of the educational programs and can provide evidence to support that. The college catalogue outlines how NPC accepts student credits not earned at NPC, the Instructional Council Handbook outlines the college’s approval of new and revised courses and systems are in place to help track the success of its graduates.
The college also has established assessments processes for general education learning outcomes used by the Division of Arts and Sciences and that will help meet the second part of criterion four. There were changes in the assessment process in 2017. The college will only have one year of program-level learning outcome assessment data to provide to the HLC.
“It’s possible with the revised program review process that since its relatively recent since we implemented it they might want to come back and look at it again to make sure that we are still following through with what we started,” said Solomonson.
It was also determined that the improved ability to access and interpret internal data because of the addition of a staff line will help meet the final portion of the criterion. The college will be able to provide evidence regarding NPC’s commitment to student retention, persistence and completion. Some of that evidence includes revised student placement process data, the 2018 Retention and Persistence Report, and the implementation of Advising Skills Workshops.
The college will continue to make assessments of its policies and procedures to assure that all criterion are met to have a successful accreditation visit.
