April 2, 2009
Dear Colleagues,
As you know, the university has been going through the process of reaffirming our accreditation by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). I am pleased to report to you that the on-site visit by the review team occurred last week and that the committee found ULM to be in compliance with all standards.
As might be expected, the committee made a few recommendations, and we will address them over the next five months in preparation for the Commission’s annual meeting in December when the reaffirmation decision will be finalized. Three of those recommendations will be handled as our assessment processes mature and more groups learn how to use their results to make improvements. The other recommendation concerns our Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), which the reviewers suggest we revise by focusing course redesign on selected areas of the core curriculum rather than on all core courses. Allison Loftin and Kelli Cole from the Office of Assessment and Evaluation will be working with you on the assessment recommendations, while Jeff Cass and the QEP Steering Committee will continue to seek your input as they work on the latter recommendation.
To be found in compliance on all standards and to have only four recommendations is an outstanding result, and all the people who worked on the reaffirmation process should be thanked for their hard work and congratulated for its success. Those thanks and congratulations also belong to every faculty, staff member, student, and administrator who helped ULM improve, especially over the last seven years when so much change has occurred. Your efforts to make those changes work produced this result.
I also want to thank Dr. Eric Pani, our SACS Liaison, for all of his hard work on the SACS reaccreditation process. I will continue to keep you informed about our reaffirmation, but please let me know if you have any questions about this matter.
Sincerely,
James E. Cofer, Sr.
ULM President