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Central Connecticut State University began
preparing for its decennial reaccreditation by NEASC in fall
2006, when President Miller appointed Provost Lovitt to oversee
the reaccreditation process. In turn, the Provost enlisted the
assistance of Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr.
Paulette Lemma, to manage the NEASC process and our preparations
for the site visit of the NEASC Review Team in October 2008. To
become familiar with the reaccreditation process, the Provost,
Dr. Lemma, and a member of the Executive Committee attended a
two-day NEASC orientation conference in fall 2006. During the
fall, the Provost appointed the NEASC Steering Committee, which
consisted of Executive Committee members, the President of the
Faculty Senate, and Dr. Lemma; the President of the University
served as an ex officio member. In consultation with the
Steering Committee, the Provost identified and invited members
of the Standards committees. In all, 17 NEASC Standards
committees were established: one for each of ten Standards, one
for each of the five sections of Standard Four: The Academic
Program, and one for each of the two sections of Standard Five:
The Faculty. Each of the 17 committees comprised administrators,
teaching faculty, administrative faculty, and staff, plus one or
more graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, members
of the Board of Trustees served on two Standards committees
(Mission and Purpose and Organization and Governance). In all,
125 individuals served on the NEASC Standards committees.
In February 2007, Provost Lovitt made a
presentation to the Faculty Senate about the NEASC
reaccreditation process and plans for preparing the Self Study.
Also in February, the Steering Committee held its first meeting
to review the entire NEASC process and the timetable of events
leading up to the Review Team’s site visit in October 2008. In
March 2007, a general meeting of all Steering and Standards
committee members was convened to introduce the NEASC process
and procedures and to clarify the role of each Standards
committee. At that meeting, committees were tasked with
developing an action plan and a timetable for their respective
charges, to be completed in April 2007. The first NEASC Town
Meeting was held in March 2007, during which information about
the NEASC process was shared and discussed with the campus
community.
In spring 2007, Dr. Lemma hired a University
Assistant to support the NEASC reaccreditation process, with
responsibility for keeping records of meetings and for
establishing and maintaining a dedicated NEASC Web page, which
would serve as the locus of information for the campus community
about the NEASC project and as a repository for drafts of the
Self Study and for electronic documents and appendices. The
University Assistant was also responsible for equipping and
maintaining the Documen-tation Room, which was located in the
CCSU Library. Throughout spring 2007, the Standards committees
became familiar with their assigned standards, and they reviewed
previous NEASC reports to identify areas of concern applicable
to their respective standards and to determine whether actions
had been taken to address those concerns. The Standards
committees were also involved in spring 2007 in collecting
documentation for the “Description” section of their respective
standards. The spring semester concluded with a campus visit by
Dr. Peggy Maki, who presented insights into the NEASC
reaccreditation process to the campus community and who met with
selected members of the Standards committees to discuss plans
for drafting the Self Study. The Steering Committee met
regularly throughout spring 2007 to discuss progress by each of
the Standards committees and to refine plans for the Self Study.
During the summer of 2007, designated
members of each Standards committee received support to prepare
drafts of the “Description” section of their respective
Standards. Instructions called for each Standard to be broken
down sentence by sentence to ensure that every statement in each
Standard was addressed. The drafts of the detailed “Description”
section of each Standard were completed in early fall 2007 and
posted on the NEASC Web page, where they were available for
review by the entire campus community; visitors to the Web page
had the opportunity to send comments and suggestions to the
NEASC University Assistant. A second Town Meeting was held in
October 2007 to review highlights of the Self Study’s
Description sections and to invite feedback. Standards
committees spent the fall 2007 semester conducting research for
the Appraisal section of their Standards. This research involved
interviews, focus groups, and surveys, as well as a review of
information from previous research (e.g., NSSE, Accountability
Reports, CIRP, etc.). Also, in January 2008, an opinion survey
was distributed to participants at the third Town Meeting, which
yielded insights specifically keyed to each Standard. Plans
originally called for developing and administering our own
Web-based survey to collect university-wide input for the
“Appraisal” sections, but the decision was made to administer
the Noel-Levitz employee climate survey instead, at the request
of the Faculty Senate. Each Standards committee was invited to
submit questions to include on the climate survey, many of which
were incorporated. Drafts of the Appraisal sections, which
included data from the Noel-Levitz survey, were completed in
April 2008 and posted on the NEASC Web page for review. Using
the findings from the Appraisal sections, the Standards
committees then developed drafts of the “Projections” section,
which were completed in June 2008.
The Provost devoted the month of June to
consolidating and editing a draft of the complete Self Study,
which he delivered to a team of five readers at the beginning of
July. The readers included the University President, the
incoming President of the Faculty Senate, the Public Relations
Officer, the Director of Assessment and Institutional Research,
and Dr. Lemma. While the five readers reviewed the Self Study,
Dr. Lovitt drafted the Preface and Overview. The Provost spent
the first two weeks of August incorporating suggestions from the
five readers and revising the Self Study, which was mailed to
NEASC headquarters for a preliminary review in mid-August.
In late August, CCSU issued a number of
public announcements and news releases concerning the imminent
NEASC site visit and invited feedback from the external
community. Throughout fall 2008, the Steering Committee
implemented a marketing campaign to heighten awareness and
excitement on campus concerning the anticipated visit of the
review team in October 2008. A final Town Meeting was scheduled
for September 2008 to review highlights of the Self Study and to
discuss plans for moving forward with our projections.
The preparation of the NEASC Self Study took
place at a strategically opportune moment in our university’s
history. With a relatively new president and a new
administrative team of vice presidents and chief officers, the
Self Study enabled the university to take stock of itself and to
chart a course for its immediate future. Coupled with the recent
identification of CCSU’s four areas of distinctiveness:
international education, workforce and State economic
development, community engagement, and interdisciplinary and
cross-curricular initiatives, the appraisal sections of the Self
Study provided the critical evaluation needed to set
institutional priorities, and we made efforts to align the Self
Study’s projections with the goals and objectives in our
emerging Strategic Plan, which was approved in spring 2008.
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