UAF's accreditation site visit

October 7, 2011

LJ Evans

For more than a year now, faculty and staff at UAF have been preparing for our institutional accreditation evaluation. This laborious but vitally important work culminated last week with a visit from an accreditation evaluation team from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

The evaluators presented commendations and preliminary recommendations at the conclusion of their visit Oct. 5. A transcript is available online in PDF format.

Joseph Fedock, the committee chair, also noted that UAF is among the first universities to go through the accreditation process under the commission's newly-adopted standards and continuous evaluation process. One result is that UAF will be required to submit a year-one report in fall 2012. A draft of the site visit report will be provided for corrections of error of fact. The team will then provide information to the board of commissioners including any additional reporting requirements. The commission is expected to take action on UAF's accreditation at their January 2012 meeting.

I thank all the faculty and staff at UAF who have spent so much time on this process, including the Accreditation Steering Committee, the Unit Committees, Marketing and Communications, the Office of Information Technology, the Provost's staff and especially the work of Accreditation and Assessment Assistant LaNora Tolman and Vice Provost and Accreditation Liaison Officer Dana Thomas.