The recent reaccreditation of Mississippi Valley State University required a lot of work by the school, but it was worth it, a university spokesman says.
The accreditation, by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), was reaffirmed earlier this month at a meeting in San Antonio, Texas. This designation, which is good for 10 years, is required for schools that receive federal financial aid funds.
MVSU was first accredited in 1971 and has maintained that status ever since.
Roy Hudson, MVSU's vice president for university relations, said the school was judged on a long list of criteria, including academics, faculty credentials, physical plant, finances, graduates' success and other considerations.
SACS, the regional accrediting agency for an 11-state district stretching from Virginia to Texas, uses these criteria to evaluate schools of all sizes.
Hudson said accreditation is especially important for a school such as Valley, where 98 percent of the students are on financial aid.
Schools need it to qualify for Pell grants, Stafford loans, and grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Education and Department of Commerce. Many private foundations also have this requirement, Hudson said.
"It would be a major problem if we didn't have it," he said.
The university was required by SACS to conduct a self-study. The study was begun in the fall of 1999 and sent completed to the Commission on Colleges in February of this year.
In April, an evaluation committee of about 15 people from SACS spent four days on the campus and wrote a report on its findings, with questions about how some improvements might be made. MVSU then submitted an answer to this report, and the committee later made its decision to reaccredit.
Sometimes, Hudson said, if serious shortcomings are found, a school might be placed on notice. If the problems are not corrected, the school could receive a warning and eventually be placed on probation.
However, he said, Valley "passed with no qualifying marks."
Hudson knows this process well, having now participated in three self-studies at Valley and also served on committees that evaluated other schools.
A steering committee of executive staff and faculty coordinated the self-study, but virtually every other employee on campus was involved in some way, he said. Those in teaching, administration, finance, physical plant and other areas had to spend a great deal of time preparing the documents.
SACS provides a list of more than 700 "musts" that apply to all schools, but they are required to go beyond the basics to reach full accreditation. They must show detailed long-range plans and goals, Hudson said.
Such exhaustive studies force a university to take a close look at itself and how it serves students, Hudson said.
"If students are graduating from a non-accredited institution, it does not look good at all for applying to graduate school, a job, and things of that nature," he said.
