nPeer Reviewn - The Commission on Colleges believes that "a free people can and ought to govern themselves through a representative, flexible, and responsive system.  Accordingly, accreditation is best accomplished through a voluntary association of educational institutions."  SACS-COC is an association of close to 800 colleges and universities in eleven southeastern states.  We are SACS.  The SACS evaluators who review our document are colleagues from similar institutions and we provide a number of evaluators to SACS-COC as well.  If we are unhappy with the manner in which we are evaluated, we have opportunity for comment on proposed revisions of the Principles of Accreditation, the document that provides the list of standards we are to meet.
 

nCommitment to Compliance n - SACS-COC expects us to demonstrate a commitment to comply fully with the Principles of Accreditation.  St. Petersburg College has demonstrated this multiple times over the last ten years as we have expanded our locations and offerings.  Over the last ten years, we have received visits from separate SACS teams as we opened the Seminole Campus and Downtown Center, as we moved from Level I to Level II to offer baccalaureate degrees and, of course, for our regular reaffirmation six years ago.  In addition, we have submitted a comprehensive prospectus for one to two new baccalaureate programs each year since implementing the first three Level II programs (Nursing, Education, and Technology Management).  We have received approval from the Commission on Colleges for the following new programs:

nCommitment to Quality.  SACS-COC also expects institutions to show a commitment to quality improvement.  One way of encouraging improvement is through assessments, such as surveys and academic tests, that feed results into the unit and strategic planning process.  Assessments and use of results are a special emphasis of the current Principles of Accreditation.  Another key component SACS-COC expects us to provide is the Quality Enhancement Plan.

nIntegrity.   SACS-COC expects institutions to conduct their business and report their results to SACS with integrity.  There is no way a review team can physically review every document to see if an institution is telling the truth in its Compliance document.  SACS-COC says, "Therefore, evidence of intentionally withholding information, deliberately providing inaccurate information to the public, or failing to provide timely and accurate information to the Commission ... may result in the loss of membership in the Commission on Colleges."  The Commission takes breaches of integrity very seriously.