Middle States Visit – Chair Dr. Melanie Perreault

Middle States Update September 2017

To the College Community

From President Marcia V. Keizs

From now through March 2018, the date of our Middle States site visit, everyone at York will be focused on this all-important event in the life of the college.

Most of you here know that over 70 Faculty, staff, administrators have been gathering information to address the seven standards and 90 criteria and the federal compliance report in preparation for the Middle States accreditation review which will take place from March 11 - 14, 2018. The Steering Committee, with the help of Dr. Sundeep Bisla who has been editing, is pulling together the first draft of the Self-study.

The emerging recommendations include:

• Develop new mission and strategic goals for York College Strategic Plan 2020 - 2028;
• Align policies, processes, practices, and procedures institution-wide and with CUNY, and communicate these policies campus-wide, and assess the impact these have on the mission of the College
• Strengthen General Education and Pathways to ensure that each course promotes skills for scientific and quantitative reasoning, technical competencies and assess the impact General Education has on building a strong foundation for majors.
• Assess the effectiveness of programs supporting student experience especially as they relate and impact student progress, retention, and graduation.
• Develop an oversight system for institutional-wide assessment of student learning, the communication system for sharing the student learning objectives, measures and results to the whole campus and link the results to future planning and resource allocations.
• Establish assessment of non-academic units including the development of assessment plans (mission, goals, measurable objectives, results) and implications for future planning and budget allocation.

In the run-up to March 11-14 2018 we will focus our attention on the following:

• Receiving feedback on the draft of the Self-study in late September and early October from the college community and CUNY.
• Hosting on November 9, 2017, Dr. Melanie Perreault (Provost at Buffalo State), the Visiting Team Chair. She will meet with key members of the campus and the Steering Committee. Please put this date on your calendar in case she wishes to meet with you. We will have a full list of who she would like to see before she gets to campus.
• Completing the Self-study and submitting it to MSCHE and the visiting team members by the end of January so they may prepare for their visit in March.
• Hosting the visiting team on March 11-14, 2018. Keep these dates open in case any member of the visiting team wants to meet with you.
• Receiving notification from MSCHE as to our accreditation status upon the conclusion of the June MSCHE Board meeting.

As the Self-study is still being compiled and edited, please be aware that the committees will come back to you for points of clarification. Please give them every consideration and a swift response. And let me add a heartfelt thank you to the critical committees and their leaders.

Membership of the Executive Committee (Steering Committee)

I look forward to your continued support of this crucial process in the life of our institution.