Ammons team teaches others how to fix an accreditation mess

FAMU administrators were key presenters at the 2009 Atlanta conference this week on surviving a perfect storm and best practices for reaffirming accreditation.

The presentations took place at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), where FAMU accreditation’s was reaffirmed for another ten years.

On Sunday, December 6, FAMU President James H. Ammons; Chief of Staff Rosalind Fuse-Hall; Vice President for Administrative and Financial Services Teresa Hardee; and Vice President for Enterprise Information Technology Robert Seniors were asked to present on “Surviving a Perfect Storm.”

The session reviewed the steps taken by FAMU’s leadership team after arriving in July 2007. In describing the session, the conference materials noted, “…University Leadership team arrived in the middle of a perfect storm: dramatic board turnover, declining enrollment, huge fiscal challenges, and an impending SACSCOC visit, as well as an unexpected twister. Learn strategies employed to survive each challenge and lead the university to calm waters.”

The unexpected twister was being placed on probation for a year while completing the reaffirmation process.

Another session on Monday titled, “The Impact of Leadership and Teamwork During Reaffirmation” was presented by Shawnta Friday-Stroud, SACS Accreditation Liaison and interim dean of the School of Business and Industry; and Cynthia Hughes Harris, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs. They discussed how the daunting task of coordinating, editing and submitting the compliance certification could be accomplished through “committed and passionate leadership and teamwork.”

“This was extraordinary progress, given that FAMU was on probation in March 2008,” the materials noted.

Maurice Edington, FAMU QEP director and associate professor of chemistry; Friday-Stroud; and Dreamal Worthen, associate professor in College of Engineering Science, Technology and Agriculture, presented a workshop on “Strategies for Achieving True Campuswide Engagement and Buy-in During the Development and Implementation of the QEP.” During this session, there was discussion on strategies used during QEP development. The team designed and implemented an aggressive marketing and publicity campaign directed toward key university stakeholders.

Valencia Matthews, assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences; Uche Ohia, director of university assessment; and Gita Pitter, associate vice president for institutional effectiveness, presented on “Faculty as Change Agents in Reengineering an Institution’s General Education Outcomes and Assessment.” The presentations addressed how to change the institutional culture and identify outcomes and instituting a new assessment system for general education.