Some changes may be instituted in the near future for accreditation standards within the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Virginia Tech is accredited by SACS, therefore, the changes may directly affect the student body.
This potential change, indicated by Dr. Tom Benberg, Vice President and Chief of Staff of SACS is to "put more emphasis on student learning outcomes."
"We are clearly focused on institutions identifying and measuring student learning outcomes at the program level, and taking those evaluation results and using them to make improvements," he said.
This change will go before the College Delegate Assembly in December. If the change is approved it will be put into affect within one to two years of its passing, Benberg said.
Benberg said that SACS will not be measuring the levels of student learning outcomes. The process of measuring this outcome will have to be developed by the college or university, and the evaluation teams from SACS will come in and look at the process the university has used. This evaluation will confirm that the methods used are clear and that they are to be used for improvement of each program within the institution's curriculum.
"We have, for about 18 years, been asking for outcomes for academic and administrative units. But we haven't sufficiently focused on the student learning outcomes," Benberg said.
Benberg said that this program will help gather information of what students know, what skills they have, and what attitudes they possess in order to be successful in the world.
David Ford, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Virginia Tech, said that the university has already been accommodating for this change to take place.
"We have looked into and we are making changes to ensure that we can respond to that standard," Ford said. "And this is through an expanded office of academic assessment. And we are looking at a campus wide use (especially for the undergraduate student) of the portfolio."
The portfolio will be a mechanism whereby a student can develop and electronically describe themselves as a student-what they do, what they know, and what they have learned, Ford said.
By what is described in the electronic portfolio, Tech will be able to determine what students are taking from their education, Ford said.
Ford said that a random sample of the portfolios would be taken statistically since the student body at Tech is so large.
"We are trying to come up with a way to be representative of the campus," Ford said.
The date for implementation of the e-portfolio concept has not been determined, Ford said.
However, there are some formats within the e-portfolio that are currently already in use and whether it would be required of all students.
"We have students from an academic standpoint that are using the course of study planner, and that's just the academic piece of the portfolio, the student will be able to store all kinds of information about who they are, the skills, and learning abilities they have...," Ford said.
Ford said that this portfolio could be a tool for future employment of the student.
Ford hopes that the student use of the e-portfolio would matriculate from their freshman year or even summer before their freshman year and would extend until their point of graduation.
The e-portfolio has been discussed for last two or three years in regards to making it a campus-wide assessment, Ford said.
Ford said that maintaining institutional accreditation through SACS is an all inclusive effort made by more than the 3,000 employees at Tech. This institutional accreditation from SACS does not cover individual programs. Programs at Tech are accredited by agencies specialized in those particular fields.
"It's a big job and it's a university effort," Ford said.
Tech will undergo their reaffirmation of accreditation from 2009-2010. Tech was due for reaffirmation from 2008-2009; but, in lieu of the April 16 tragedy it was pushed back.