Citrus College is undergoing accreditation this year and is a part of the pilot program for the new accreditation process.
Community and junior colleges must be accredited to ensure they are meeting standards and providing quality education for students. The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges is in charge of this task, the accreditation tab on Citrus College’s website said.
The ACCJC does evaluations of the colleges through self-study and peer reviews, where they are being evaluated throughout the course of the six-year cycle, the Citrus College website said.
Citrus College is in the middle of the new accreditation process right now. They are one of three institutions who have opted to be a part of the pilot program along with Santa Barbara City College and Southwestern College, ACCJC Vice President Gohar Momjian said.
Momjian said if Citrus College fails to be accredited in the fall, then degrees coming out of Citrus College may be considered invalid and the college will not receive funding. This means that it would be difficult for students to use their degrees to transfer or get jobs.
The new accreditation process was implemented to “reduce fear or surprise on the part of the college that sometimes accompanies that accompanies the ‘visit’ because now the college has time to prepare for the visit and it is only going to be focused on the Core Inquiries that the team gave them a heads up on,” Momjian said.
This allows the visit to solely focus on core accreditation issues because the team will have already verified the standards previously met by the institution, Momjian said.
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Accreditation Liaison Joumana McGowan said the old process was like turning in a group project cold turkey to the teacher whereas the new process is like turning in a rough draft that receives feedback.
Citrus College is working on the second draft of the Core Inquiry Report, in which the ACCJC reviews the findings in the self-reflection to ensure the college has met the standards for accreditation, Momjian said. This is the third of four steps in the accreditation process.
The Core Inquiry Report is also used by the ACCJC to “provide feedback to the college on areas where further clarification or information is needed,” Momjian said.
Accreditation co-chair Catherine Besancon said she thinks the Core Inquiry Report is helpful to the college because it gets the college to think of ways to continue improving.
Citrus College’s Core Inquiry Report acknowledges that Citrus is meeting accreditation standards, Besancon said.
The Citrus College accreditation team has been working to make sure that Citrus College will remain accredited in the spring of 2022, the accreditation website said. Besancon said she is proud of the accreditation team’s effort.
“There’s just been such incredible work that has been done by the members of the accreditation team who are numerous and from all constituency groups and so we’re just so thankful that we have such an involved staff and faculty and administrators at Citrus,” Besancon said. “This was a really collegial process that went really smoothly, because of how well everyone was participating and willing to kind of give their time to make it work.”
President of the ACCJC Stephanie Droker was emailed between April 29 and May 17 but did not respond for an interview.
The next step in the accreditation process for Citrus College will be the focused site visit in the fall. This is scheduled for the week of Oct. 11-15.
“We’re very, very confident that we will receive accreditation,” Besancon said.
