To the Campus Community from Middles States Re-accreditation Steering Committee co-chairs Vonnie Vannier, assistant professor, English, Modern Languages and ESL, and Sondra Valle, Ph.D., assistant to the vice president for Academic Affairs:
A while back, New York City Mayor Ed Koch was famous for walking up to people and asking, “How am I doing?”
The Self-Study for Middle States Re-accreditation is kind of like Mayor Koch’s approach, except that we will be asking ourselves, “How are we doing?”
Educational accreditation, such as the Middle States process, is a way of doing quality assurance and making sure that Hudson Valley is meeting its goals and living up to its mission of providing “dynamic, student-centered, comprehensive, and accessible educational opportunities that address the diverse needs of the community.”
During the next year, we will be gathering information from ALL areas of campus — from staff, faculty, students and administrators — as we begin the self-study.
Each person who works at Hudson Valley will have the opportunity to contribute to this project — some will serve on working groups, some will chair working groups and serve on the steering committee. Others will be providing information by completing surveys and participating in focus group or even by answering e-mail questions. No matter what role you take as the self-study goes along, please know that your contributions are vital.
The self-study is not just some “paperwork” that we have to do every 10 years. It is a chance for us to get together and take a hard look at what we are doing and where we are going.
There will be lots of questions to answer and many more questions will come out of the process.
Ultimately, we will end up with recommendations about what we are doing well and what we could be doing differently.
A self-study that is effective is one that is thorough; that relies on good, solid information, and above all, is honest. This is one reason that your participation will mean so much.
With the help of each and every Hudson Valley employee, we can conduct a self-study that not only meets Middle States requirements, but equally important, allows us to learn, set new goals and continue to deserve such honors as being named by the Aspen Institute as one of the top 10% of community colleges, and being recognized as one of the largest and most productive two-year colleges in the United States by Community College Week.
Published: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:47:54 +0000 by s.valle