The final of six Self-Study meetings will take place April 24 to focus on Mississippi State University’s financial and physical resources. The meeting will start at 3:45 p.m. in the Mitchell Memorial Library auditorium with a question and answer forum. The open meeting is for all faculty, staff and students.
Interim President Charles Lee will kick off the meeting with discussions led by Dan Hollingsworth, committee chair and School of Accountancy director; Don Zant, Office Of Internal Audit director; and Ken Stewart, assistant controller.
“Students are nominated to each Self-Study committee,” Leslie Bauman, physics professor and director of MSU’s Self-Study, said.
Bauman said she hopes that students will attend the last Self-Study meeting in support of the university, but she expects only 50-60 students to attend.
MSU was first accredited in 1993. After this year, the university will be accredited until 2013 if the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges states that MSU meets the criteria of requirements.
Thirteen on-campus committees are involved in the self-evaluation process for the reaffirmation of accreditation by the COC.
This reaffirmation affects everyone at MSU, including students and faculty, the Meridian branch. If MSU was not reaffirmed for accreditation Bauman explained, then the university could not receive financial aid, receive funding for programs and could not award academic credit.
“We will be accredited; it depends on how smoothly,” Bauman said.
“At the culmination of the Self-Study, the commission on Colleges sends a visiting committee of professional peers to the campus to assess the educational strengths and weaknesses of the institution.
The written report of the visiting committee helps the institution improve its programs and also provides the basis on which the commission decides to grant, continue, reaffirm or withdraw accreditation,” according to the SASSCOC Web site.
The Self-Study committee has sponsored five other Town Hall meetings: graduate education, distance education, outreach and service, research program, undergraduate education and student life and institutional purpose and effectiveness.
“The accrediting standards used by the Commission on Colleges are contained in the Criteria for Accreditation handbook. Periodically reviewed and revised by the College Delegate Assembly, this document provides consistent guidelines for peer review, representing the collective judgment of the membership on standards appropriate for the assurance of quality in higher education,” the SASSCOC Web site said.
All previous meetings are archived at the Self-Study site at http://library.msstate.edu/selfstudy/resources/TownHall.htm.
For more information visit http://library.msstate.edu/selfstudy on the Self-Study process here at Mississippi State.