June 29, 2015
IVC OFF WARNING, ACCREDITATION REAFFIRMED
Contact Bill Gay (760-427-2314)
Imperial Valley College has been removed from its Accreditation warning status and has been granted full accreditation by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.
"While this news was not unexpected, we are thrilled to have all accreditation sanctions lifted," said Victor Jaime, IVC President/Superintendent. "It is a tribute to the very hard work of lots of people since 2013."
The ACCJC action comes as a result of a campus accrediting team visit this spring and official action by the full commission at its meeting June 3-5. The college was notified of the action Monday.
"In our exit interview after the visit, the team leader was very positive about our college's work," Jaime said. "But nothing was official until after the ACCJC acted.
IVC had been on "Warning" as the result of the comprehensive accreditation evaluation conducted on campus in March 2013. The status is the mildest sanction that is issued and came amid serious fiscal issues that had hit the college in the aftermath of the state budget crisis. Through this period, IVC had remained fully accredited and was given a statutory two years to resolve the commission's concerns.
The recommendations that needed to be addressed involved the college's strategic planning processes as well as fiscal issues.
"At no time did the commission ever question the quality of education provided by IVC," Jaime said. "In fact they commended us for that."
But the commission wanted to see improvements in two areas:
- Linkage of Institutional Goals and Objectives from the Educational Master Plan with Operational Plan goals and resource allocations.
- Development of a fiscal strategy to have a balanced budget.
Jaime said that over the past two years, IVC has proven to the commission that planning processes have been improved and the fiscal issues have been adequately addressed.
The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges has a number of options when it evaluates colleges. It can reaffirm accreditation without sanctions or it can continue accreditation but with options of three levels of sanctions. Sanctions, by level of severity, include warning, probation or "show cause" -- which is the step before losing accreditation.
Of the 13 colleges that received full accreditation reviews in 2013, six were reaffirmed, six were issued warnings and one was placed on probation. The commission also voted to terminate accreditation of the City College of San Francisco which had been placed on "Show Cause" status the year before.
In its latest findings, IVC is one of 13 colleges that were been reaffirmed with full accreditation. Another seven were placed either on probation or in a warning status. A complete list of the commission's actions can be found at http://www.accjc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Commission_Actions_on_Institutions_June_3_5_2015.pdf
The commission's letter to IVC has been posted on the IVC Accreditation website at http://accreditation.imperial.edu.