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Inside Iowa State
May 3, 1996

Iowa State gets high marks for preparation for NCA visit

by Linda Charles
The visit by the North Central Association accreditation team went well, reports assistant provost Faye Whitaker, who coordinated preparation for the March 31-April 3 site visit.

"The visiting team commended Iowa State for the open and honest participation of people across campus," she said. "The team members recognized the institution had prepared well for the visit."

To prepare, institutions must complete a self-study and provide evidence of institutional quality and integrity. Much of Iowa State's self-study was drawn from the recent strategic planning process that involved virtually all units on campus.

"Our preparation involved the cooperation of a lot of people who put their efforts into the institutional self-study," Whitaker said.

"Provost John Kozak and I want to extend our thanks to the campus community for the effort that went into preparing for the visit and for the time spent with team members while they were on campus," she added.

Iowa State officials have received a draft of the team's report and will respond to factual matters in the report. When the final report is completed, sometime before the end of June, Iowa State will prepare a response. Both the report and the response will be reviewed by an NCA readers' panel, which will make a recommendation to the NCA commission on accreditation. The NCA probably won't act on the accreditation until its November meeting, Whitaker said.

Based on the accreditation team's exit interview with ISU officials, Whitaker said, "We anticipate the NCA report will contain a number of observations about institutional strengths. It will, as well, include concerns about the university that we will need to address. We expect some of the concerns will involve matters about which we also have concerns, such as deferred maintenance."

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R evised 5/2/96