Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges
Encyclopedia
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) is part of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
(WASC), one of six regional accrediting organizations
in the United States. The ACCJC accredits private and public colleges that provide students two-year education programs and confer the associate degree. The Commission’s scope includes colleges in California, Hawaii, and American territories and protectorates in the Pacific Ocean. In total, the ACCJC has 142 “member” colleges, and its decisions directly affect millions of students, faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees.
The ACCJC was formed in 1962 when several accrediting agencies joined to create WASC. The ACCJC is not a governmental entity but an independent organization of educators and others representing the public interest. In concept, colleges apply to become members of the ACCJC and volunteer to participate in the accreditation process. In practice, however, accreditation is mandatory for these colleges. A college must be accredited in order to participate in federal student financial aid programs. A college must be accredited in order to receive fiscal apportionment from the state. Also, many institutions accept only the credits and degrees that students earn at accredited colleges.
Moreover, accreditation is crucial to a college’s reputation. Accreditation provides students, the public, and the educational community with assurances of the college’s effectiveness. It also affirms the professionalism and integrity of the faculty, staff, administration, and trustees of the college.
Accreditation processes vary among regional commissions. The ACCJC requires member colleges to carry out a self-study, compose a report, and undergo peer review every six years. In short, the ACCJC process consists of two elements: the college's evaluation of itself and the ACCJC's evaluation of the college. These evaluations determine the extent to which the college is meeting the ACCJC's policies, requirements, and standards, and their purpose is to help the school improve itself. However, while the ACCJC and its representatives are considered peers of the college they are evaluating, ultimately it is the ACCJC, not the college, that will decide the college’s accreditation status and any subsequent steps the college must take to better this status.
Colleges also submit to the ACCJC annual reports on student learning and achievement and on fiscal matters.
Recently, educators in California have become alarmed by the number of colleges sanctioned by the ACCJC. In the last five years, the Commission has sanctioned nearly forty percent of California colleges, as compared with only two percent of colleges sanctioned by the other five regional commissions in the same time period. Critics complain that the ACCJC has been overzealous in penalizing, creating conditions under which colleges must expend resources and energy reporting to the Commission that would be better devoted to their core mission of educating students. In June 2009, the California Community College Chancellor and the Consultation Council formed a task force of faculty and administrators to survey colleges on the subject of accreditation and develop recommendations for the improvement of the process to discuss with the ACCJC. Initially private, these recommendations became public after exchanges between the Chancellor’s Office and the Commission. At present, the issues remain unresolved.
At the 2010 Spring Plenary Session, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges adopted a number of resolutions calling for the ACCJC to be more responsive to the colleges' needs and to strengthen the ideals of self study and peer review.
Moreover, throughout this decade federal groups, and most prominently the Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, have proposed eliminating regional accrediting commissions such as the ACCJC and replacing them with a national accreditation agency.
Western Association of Schools and Colleges
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges is one of six official academic bodies responsible for the accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in the United States and foreign institutions of American origin. The Western Association of...
(WASC), one of six regional accrediting organizations
Educational accreditation
Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met...
in the United States. The ACCJC accredits private and public colleges that provide students two-year education programs and confer the associate degree. The Commission’s scope includes colleges in California, Hawaii, and American territories and protectorates in the Pacific Ocean. In total, the ACCJC has 142 “member” colleges, and its decisions directly affect millions of students, faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees.
The ACCJC was formed in 1962 when several accrediting agencies joined to create WASC. The ACCJC is not a governmental entity but an independent organization of educators and others representing the public interest. In concept, colleges apply to become members of the ACCJC and volunteer to participate in the accreditation process. In practice, however, accreditation is mandatory for these colleges. A college must be accredited in order to participate in federal student financial aid programs. A college must be accredited in order to receive fiscal apportionment from the state. Also, many institutions accept only the credits and degrees that students earn at accredited colleges.
Moreover, accreditation is crucial to a college’s reputation. Accreditation provides students, the public, and the educational community with assurances of the college’s effectiveness. It also affirms the professionalism and integrity of the faculty, staff, administration, and trustees of the college.
The Accreditation Process
The accreditation process is premised on the idea that the ACCJC and the colleges together shape the values and best practices of the educational community into the policies, requirements, and standards by which colleges are evaluated. It is the Commission’s policy that the ACCJC and its member institutions share this right and responsibility.Accreditation processes vary among regional commissions. The ACCJC requires member colleges to carry out a self-study, compose a report, and undergo peer review every six years. In short, the ACCJC process consists of two elements: the college's evaluation of itself and the ACCJC's evaluation of the college. These evaluations determine the extent to which the college is meeting the ACCJC's policies, requirements, and standards, and their purpose is to help the school improve itself. However, while the ACCJC and its representatives are considered peers of the college they are evaluating, ultimately it is the ACCJC, not the college, that will decide the college’s accreditation status and any subsequent steps the college must take to better this status.
The Self-Study
The self-study is an extensive research project by which the college examines itself and makes plans for improvement in the context of the ACCJC’s policies, eligibility requirements, and standards. The ACCJC maintains dozens of policies, including “Review of Commission Actions." There are twenty-one eligibility requirements, ranging from “Authority (to Operate as an Educational Institution)” to “Relations with the Accrediting Commission.” There are four areas of standards: “Institutional Mission and Effectiveness,” “Student Learning Programs and Services,” “Resources,” and “Leadership and Guidance.” The standards state the practices of an “effective institution.” The ACCJC considers an institution effective when it “ensures that its resources and processes support student learning, continually assesses that learning, and pursues institutional excellence and improvement.” The ACCJC emphasizes that this self-study must have the widespread involvement of faculty, staff, administration, students, and trustees to ensure that its conclusions are accurate and authoritative, reflecting the college as it is and projecting the college it wants to become.The Self-Study Report
The college composes and organizes the self-study report, which typically runs several hundred pages or more, along the lines of the ACCJC’s policies, requirements, and standards. The bulk of the report is the college’s discussion of its adherence to the standards. Here the college must provide a summary of current processes and products, an analysis of the extent to which the college meets the standards, and evidence to support the summary and analysis. When pertinent, the college also adds “planning agendas” to guide its self-improvement. It then submits this report to the ACCJC in preparation for the ACCJC sending a “visiting” team to the site to “validate” the college’s account of itself. Participants on the visiting team are volunteers drawn from other ACCJC member colleges.The Site Visit
The visiting team examines evidence, conducts interviews, and attends meetings of college committees and councils. When the team is done with its work, it delivers a preliminary oral exit report to the college. Subsequently, the team composes the written team report, which it delivers in draft form both to the ACCJC and to the college. This draft includes the visiting team's commendations and recommendations for addressing deficiencies. The college has the opportunity to correct factual errors in this report before it is considered a final draft.Commission Action
On the basis of the college’s self-study report, the site team’s visit, the site team’s report, documents from previous evaluations, and evidence of student learning and achievement, the nineteen-member Commission determines the accreditation status of the college. It announces this status to the college in an action letter and to the public through ACCJC announcements. This action letter also lists the Commission’s “official” recommendations. For a college seeking reaffirmation, there are in general two possibilities. The ACCJC can reaffirm the college’s accreditation, or it can sanction the college. The sanctions are of three kinds: Warning, Probation, and Show Cause. If sanctioned, the college maintains its accreditation, but the ACCJC withholds reaffirmation until the college addresses the matters that led to sanction. The ACCJC will also require the sanctioned college to provide one or more follow-up reports to confirm that it is in fact fulfilling the Commission’s recommendations. Often the ACCJC will also require follow-up site visits. Very rarely does the ACCJC terminate a college’s accreditation.Additional Reports
In between these comprehensive self-studies, which occur every six years, the college provides the ACCJC a midterm report, in which the college describes and analyzes its progress on each of the commission’s recommendations, its self-identified planning agendas, and any proposed “substantive changes.”Colleges also submit to the ACCJC annual reports on student learning and achievement and on fiscal matters.
Current Controversies
In this decade, the ACCJC has been at the center of controversies. In 2002, the ACCJC recast the accreditation standards to emphasize “student learning outcomes”—the knowledge and skills that students will acquire from successfully completing a course of study. These newest standards require that a college direct all of its structures and activities toward improving these outcomes. Faculty groups, however, have been especially concerned about what they consider the Commission’s limited and limiting definition of a “learning outcome”—and especially the insistence that learning that counts must be “measurable.” This insistence, these groups maintain, and the reporting requirements that follow from it, not only restricts students but also impinges upon academic freedom. Faculty groups have also been concerned that the ACCJC is imposing itself on workplace matters, such as professors’ workload and evaluations, that are rightly subjects for collective bargaining.Recently, educators in California have become alarmed by the number of colleges sanctioned by the ACCJC. In the last five years, the Commission has sanctioned nearly forty percent of California colleges, as compared with only two percent of colleges sanctioned by the other five regional commissions in the same time period. Critics complain that the ACCJC has been overzealous in penalizing, creating conditions under which colleges must expend resources and energy reporting to the Commission that would be better devoted to their core mission of educating students. In June 2009, the California Community College Chancellor and the Consultation Council formed a task force of faculty and administrators to survey colleges on the subject of accreditation and develop recommendations for the improvement of the process to discuss with the ACCJC. Initially private, these recommendations became public after exchanges between the Chancellor’s Office and the Commission. At present, the issues remain unresolved.
At the 2010 Spring Plenary Session, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges adopted a number of resolutions calling for the ACCJC to be more responsive to the colleges' needs and to strengthen the ideals of self study and peer review.
Moreover, throughout this decade federal groups, and most prominently the Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, have proposed eliminating regional accrediting commissions such as the ACCJC and replacing them with a national accreditation agency.