Accreditation Visit by WASC, October 4 - 6, 2011

September 20, 2011

To:       The UCSB Community

Fr:        Gene Lucas, Executive Vice Chancellor

            Henning Bohn, Chair, Academic Senate

Re:       Accreditation Visit by WASC, October 4 – 6, 2011

UCSB will host a visit by the campus’s accrediting agency, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), on October 4-6, 2011, as part of the second stage of our work toward reaccreditation. We write to invite you to participate in the visit by attending one of the meetings for faculty, staff, or students listed below. The meetings are an opportunity for all members of the campus community to provide information about their experiences at UCSB. Students are particularly encouraged to comment on issues of academic rigor and consistency, availability of student support services, and other matters related to the quality of the educational experience.

Members of the visiting team will hold open meetings with UCSB community members on Wednesday, October 5 from 2:15 – 3 pm at the following locations:

Faculty: UCen, Santa Barbara Mission Room

            WASC Team Member: Dr. David Skorton, President, Cornell University

Undergraduate Students: UCen, Flying A Room

            WASC Team Members: Dr. Helen Chen, Research Scientist, Stanford University

            Dr. Teresa Shaw, Special Assistant to the President, Secretary to the Board, Pomona College

Graduate Students: UCen, Santa Barbara Harbor Room

            WASC Team Members: Dr. Mary Ann Mason, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley; Dr. Kenneth Doxsee,

            Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Professor of Chemistry, University of Oregon

Staff: UCen, Goleta Valley Room

            WASC Team Member: Ms. Meredith Michaels, Vice Chancellor, Planning and Budget, UC Irvine

WASC understands that not everyone who may wish to participate can attend these meetings, and it has established a confidential email account to allow faculty, staff, and students the opportunity to communicate with the team. The address is: wascf11ucsb@yahoo.com. This is a secure location to which only authorized WASC staff and team members have access. The emails will not be viewed by any representative of UCSB. Only comments made before or during the visit will be considered as part of the review process. Emails received after the visit will not be reviewed by the team. Email comments, along with other information collected and reviewed by the team, will be considered as the team develops recommendations for UCSB.  However, the team will not respond to individual comments.

During the WASC visit, members of the review team will be reviewing the campus’s progress on its goals for educational effectiveness. For more information about the campus’s initiatives in this area, please go to:

http://evc.ucsb.edu/wasc/steps/capacity.and.preparatory.review/final.pdf

If you have questions, please contact Accreditation Liaison Officer Mary Nisbet, Dean of Undergraduate Education, College of Letters and Science; Associate Accreditation Liaison Officer Margaret Weeks, Director of Academic Program Review; or Deborah Karoff, Executive Director, Academic Senate.

Thank you for your help with this important endeavor.