���ϴ��¼�

The program titled, Leveraging Your Campus Professionals, by Director of College Relations Alex Helmbrecht and Digital Graphic Designer Daniel Binkard gave an audience of about 60 people from institutions across the country insights into the 14-month long task of writing, editing, and compiling evidence for the Assurance Review that followed HLC’s 2017 comprehensive evaluation, Helmbrecht said.

“The presentation focused on explaining the writing and editing processes and giving some tips and tricks for how they worked on our campus, how we tried to organize things and some different methods for collaboration,” said Helmbrecht, the lead author of the nearly 35,000-word document.

Accreditation by HLC is critical in part because it is required for an educational institution to receive federal funding, including the grants and loans that form an important source of aid for many CSC students.

HLC records show that ���ϴ��¼� State first earned accreditation in 1915, shortly after it was founded. The process governing continued accreditation for CSC requires a comprehensive evaluation every 10 years, an Assurance Review four years later, and a Quality Initiative in years five through nine. The 10-year comprehensive evaluation includes a campus visit by an HLC peer review team, while the Assurance Review is conducted virtually, with all materials submitted through an online portal.

“Basically, you are updating your comprehensive plan, showing how the college has progressed towards goals it wanted to accomplish in 2017 or how it is addressing recommendations the peer review team gave it,” Helmbrecht said.

Helmbrecht said the work of Dr. Kathy Bahr and Dr. Margaret Crouse for the 2017 evaluation provided a strong framework for the 2021 review, but many things changed over the four-year period, including a revision of the college’s mission statement.

“You want to make sure those (changes) are all reflected and updated with correlating evidence,” he said.

As primary editor for the review, Binkard worked closely with Helmbrecht to polish the written narrative, and was also responsible for compiling and formatting the several hundred pieces of evidence included in the final submission.

“The evidence ranged from news stories about student activities and faculty work to financial documents to sections from Nebraska State College System board materials,” said Binkard, who, like Helmbrecht, still had regular day-to-day responsibilities while engaged in the project.

“I spent time each week working on the project,” he said. “There were some long days.”

Pam Newberg, Head of Technical Services for the King Library, and Joy Omelanuk, Coordinator for Assessment and Accreditation, provided key assistance for the review, said Helmbrecht. Work by members of the President’s Executive Council was also critical to the project, he said.

Because the Assessment Review portion of the reaccreditation process is relatively new and HLC’s expectations for completion are somewhat vague, many of the colleges and universities at the Chicago conference were interested in CSC’s experience, according to Helmbrecht.

“Institutions interpret it in a lot of different ways, so they are always hungry for ‘How did you do it?’” he said.

Completing the review is no small task.

“It’s a really big undertaking,” Helmbrecht said. “We had more than 900 citations to evidence and 35,000 words. You have to be organized and on the ball. We were able to do that.”

Looking back, Binkard expressed satisfaction with the project.

“Working on a four-year accreditation review takes time, but it’s worth doing well, both for the good of the institution and to produce something you can be proud to have worked on,” said Binkard.

Helmbrecht agreed with his colleague.

“It was one of the more rewarding professional experiences I have had,” he said. “It increased the campus awareness of what we do and the resources we have. Our department benefitted from our involvement with it.”

 

—George Ledbetter