Cosumnes River College is once again accredited and faculty say they are elated. The process towards accreditation was filled with completing midterm reports, and revising a couple systems the school had in place for CRC.

Accreditation is an ongoing process that helps students receive credit for the classes they take, which in turn can be used to transfer out to other schools. Without accreditation, the school would not be able to reward students with degrees and may even be closed down due to not being able to operate properly.

“The commission thought there were two specific areas that we needed to improve on and wanted us to report out in 18 months,” said Edward Bush, president of CRC. “We reported out the work that we had done in those areas and then that’s when last June we got word that we met those improvement areas and that we’re back on our regular cycle of accreditation.”

The accreditation commission conducts a visitation every seven years towards the accreditation process. This commission reviews how the college is doing and what exactly needs to be improved on to bring forth a better education for students.

CRC was reviewed in 2015 and asked to follow up on a few recommendations from their previous accreditation review, in order to sort out the two specific problem areas in an 18 month span. The two areas that needed improvement were the course-level program and college-level outcomes.

These two programs were the basic expectations that CRC students needed to learn, through a certain course and/or program they chose to take.

“I think it’s a great thing; it’s an important thing to have our system of accreditation to ensure the quality of the college and to make sure that it’s providing good education for our students,” said Emily Bond, the faculty chair of Accreditation.

Bond served in this year’s accreditation faculty as one of the Tri-chair, which is made up of one administrator, one staff and one faculty member.

Every seven years, the school’s accreditation team sends in a midterm report to show the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges how the college is doing in order to renew their accreditation. The midterm report is due next year and the staff has been working on the report since 2015.

Not only are staff involved in the accreditation process, but students are as well. “Students are an intrical part of the accreditation process and if you look at the standards, student involvement is really important,” says Georgine Hodgkinson, former faculty chair of Accreditation.

Students play a vital role in accreditation and are encouraged to get more involved and learn more about the whole process of accreditation.

“Sometimes when the visiting team is here conducting that evaluation, they will ask to interview students,” says Hodgkinson. “Though students are involved, especially students in leadership positions.”

If other students want to learn more about accreditation and whether or not their JC is accredited, Bond recommends logging in to ACCJC.org. “I know a lot of times students don’t know exactly what accreditation is,” said Bond. “It’s a system of peer review that colleges enter into where we follow certain standards that are agreed upon.”

Bond believes the accreditation process is important because it “ensures that the colleges are financially stable and structurally stable.”

CORRECTION: Cosumnes River College was not put on academic probation during its review in 2015.