Los Angeles Mission College
Accreditation Steering Committee
November 9, 1999

Minutes

Present: Gerald Scheib, Mark Pracher, Yolanda Ramil, Dale Newman, Joanne Kalter-Flink, Eloise Cantrell, Gwen Walker, Edgardo Zayas, Margie Long, Ron Portillo, Rosemary Smith, Mike Reynolds, Doug McFerran, John Cantley, Dr. Daniel Castro, Roman Juarez

Darlene Pacheco presented and overview of accreditation, the purpose of assessment, and the Multi-College Pilot Program. She explained that accreditation should be a process for internal benefit and not a periodic review.

She explained that the focus of assessment is on outcomes. When developing an assessment program are Some questions to ask: What is the outcome of budget committee, facilities planning, etc.? Are you evaluating what you are doing? Are allocations to the college sufficient and how effective is it? How do we know that we are serving our students? Who are they? What are our transfer rates? How to prove that something is effective?

She also explained what core indicators are and how to development them. Example:

• Student progress and success
• Workforce development: employer satisfaction of our students
• Transfer tracking
• Policies-(diversity, "citizenship skills")

She stressed that quantitative data and qualitative data are both good and valuable.

The Ideal would be to have an electronic board for students to complain, an on-line survey for students and for businesses

Examples of evidence are classroom assessment and student outcomes along with pre-tests and post tests, but not grades.

Board certified courses are not difficult to assess because they are controlled from outside. General Education courses are more difficult because they do not necessarily have outside standard.

She recommended taking assessment one department at the time. Have a set of objectives of what to teach but don’t dictate to the teacher how to teach.

She recommended Palomar College as a good example of assessment.

SELF STUDY

The commission is looking for processes that can continue. She emphasized that when writing the self-study the committees should address past recommendations:

Tip: talk to a lot of people and get the full picture.

Give only 6-8 recommendations