The Reaccreditation Steering Committee is urging all members of the Wellesley community to read the draft chapters of the College's self-study report on accreditation standards and pass along their feedback at this early stage of the process. The committee is currently reading the draft chapters and making revisions; the material is available in printed format now through the Office of the Dean of the College and will soon be available on the College's web site at www.wellesley.edu/Reaccreditation/home.html, with ways to submit questions and comments by e-mail.

"This is the phase where the community can look at the accreditation standards and our responses and offer their comments," said Nancy Kolodny, Dean of the College and a co-chair of the Reaccreditation Steering Committee. "Have we raised the right questions? Have we described the current situation accurately?... We really want to know if what we've written is what people really think is going on."

In the next two semesters, the committee will host a number of forums for students, faculty, and staff to discuss and build on the draft, similar to the all-college meeting on January 26 where attendees discussed Wellesley's identity as a women's college and the meaning of diversity on campus. Future forums may involve anything from revisiting committee structure to examining whether the Physical Plant is adequately staffed.

The final self-study report that emerges will go to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in December 1998 as part of the NEASC's required ten-year accreditation process. After that, faculty and administrators at other NEASC institiutions will conduct an on-site evaluation March 7-10, 1999, and make their own report. Individuals and groups will be able to meet with the peer evaluators then to offer further comments.

Finally, the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education will review both the self-study and evaluation reports and meet with President Diana Chapman Walsh in the spring of 1999 to make recommendations about accreditation status and areas needing improvement.

The NEASC is one of six regional accrediting organizations in the United States. Its purpose is to ensure member schools and colleges maintain certain standards of educational quality in mission and purposes; planning and evaluation, organization and governance; programs and instruction; faculty, student services; library and information services; physical resources; financial resources; public disclosure; and integrity. The NEASC Standards for Accreditation are also available from the Office of the Dean of the College, or online at www.mec.edu/neasc/stancihe.htm.

The draft chapters from the Reaccreditation Steering Committee correspond to each of these areas, in which the College is required to meet specific benchmarks. For example, under "planning and evaluation," the NEASC's requirements include the following: "The institution undertakes planning and evaluation appropriate to its needs to accomplish and improve the achievement of its mission and purposes." The draft chapter looks at various ways Wellesley pursues that requirement, but also raises questions for the community: How can members of the community participate meaningfully in the decision-making process? Should the College do more to evaluate student learning in ways other than grades? These are the issues on which the Reaccreditation Steering Committee wants feedback, Kolodny said.

Kolodny hastened to emphasize that there is no doubt that Wellesley will be reaccredited. However, this is an opportunity to look at all the work the College has done in the last ten years, take stock, and plan for the coming decade, I she said, adding, "We want this to be a broad-based effort."