Chadron State gears up for accreditation visit

CSC President Janie Park said accreditation is an “absolutely critical” process for a college or university and means the difference between its survival or demise. Many financial aid resources are awarded to students attending only accredited institutions.

A team of volunteer faculty and administrators from other higher learning institutions will evaluate CSC’s operations during a visit to the campus Monday-Wednesday, April 16-18.

CSC Vice President for Academic Affairs Lois Veath, who has led CSC’s Self-Study Steering Committee since fall 2005, told her coworkers Thursday that such accreditations were once granted without much hassle. She said standards have been raised in recent years and 75 percent of Higher Learning Commission visits today have some kind of follow-up activity before accreditation is granted.

The committee of CSC faculty and staff members has been preparing for the HLC visit for two years. Much of the work has involved gathering and organizing documents to support that CSC has been meeting its mission.

While the HLC accreditation encompasses all programs of an institution, Veath congratulated three CSC programs which have recently earned accreditations from agencies that are specialized toward individual disciplines of study. They are teacher education, business and social work.