If I’m honest, it was a difficult start to the winter. The loss of our beloved colleague and friend Debra Hart hit me hard. She was committed to accreditation in ways that not everyone understood. I believe it stemmed from her commitment to inclusion and her willingness to say and do hard things. Inclusion for Debra was an absolute. As our National Coordinating Center (NCC) Accreditation Workgroup (AWG) continues to forge ahead without her, we hope we can make her proud by ensuring that students with intellectual disability have accredited programs to attend.
The NCC AWG has continued to move ahead with pilot site work with University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) who both successfully submitted their self-study in the fall. Congratulations! The peer review teams are busy reading the self-study and information provided by the program. The campus site visits are happening this spring.
Speaking of peer reviewers, we created additional training materials that were vetted by the NCC AWG subcommittee on peer reviewer training. Many thanks to the current peer reviewers and team leads for all their time and hard work, Carol Britton-Laws (University of Georgia), Therese Fimian (Marc Gold & Associates), Ann Marie Licata (Millersville University), Cindi May (College of Charleston), and Misty Parsley (Lipscomb University).
We also have some exciting developments in program accreditation that can help everyone who is considering accreditation in the future. The 2024 Guide to Accreditation for Higher Education Programs for Students with Intellectual Disability was released. This online version of the guide is available for use and may be used to prepare programs for accreditation. For ease of use, the guide is divided into three sections including an introduction to accreditation, the accreditation process, and lastly the program standards, guidance, and required for review. Keep your eye on this page, because a pdf version of the guide will be available soon!
As we move toward the national implementation of program accreditation, we are working to create presentations that provide program personnel with ways to plan and take action to prepare for accreditation. One such presentation was made recently and helped to introduce the accreditation preparation concept of PLAN: Prioritize, Link, Assess, and Network. To view the slides, watch the presentation, and learn how to create your PLAN for accreditation visit this Think College resource library page.