SACSCOC reaffirms Maryville College accreditation with no further actions required
Dec. 18, 2024
At its Dec. 8 meeting, members of the board of trustees of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) reaffirmed the accreditation of Maryville College.
While the affirmation was expected, to receive it with no formal recommendations for change and no expectations of a follow-up is further proof of the College’s commitment to higher education and the programs that make the institution so respected nationwide.
“It is rare for a college or university to receive no recommendations — this is the best possible outcome from a SACSCOC review and visit and is a great testament to our overall institutional health, as well as our solid preparation for the review and visit,” said MC President Dr. Bryan Coker in a memo on Tuesday to the MC community. “Accreditation is vital, as an affirmation that a college or university provides a quality of education that the general public has the right to expect and that the educational community recognizes.”
SACSCOC is an internationally recognized institutional accreditor for colleges and universities in the Southeastern United States, where it evaluates “institutions that award associate, baccalaureate, master’s or doctoral degrees,” and its practices “serve as the common denominator of shared values and practices among its members,” according to the organization’s website. Recognized by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, it oversees roughly 750 public and private degree-granting institutions, and the Commission on Colleges has been in existence since 1912. The reaffirmation process takes place every 10 years and involves an in-depth self-study that requires months of preparation that culminated last March in a visit with an 11-member external review team, Coker added.
“The preparation for the review process and visit was extensive, with many months of gathering and producing reports and data to satisfy SACSCOC requirements, as well as the development of a comprehensive Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), focused on our new academic advising program,” he said. “While we received very positive feedback following the March visit, no reaffirmation of accreditation is official until the SACSCOC Board of Trustees meets and takes such action.”
At the Dec. 8 Board of Trustees meeting, Maryville College was one of 33 institutions for which reaccreditation was confirmed and one of only two schools in Tennessee, alongside Austin Peay State University. Much of the work to prepare for the SACSCOC visit and inspection, Coker added, was carried out by Dr. Jerilyn Swann, who serves as associate academic dean and director of institutional research at MC and shepherded two committees through the preparation process that operated concurrently a full 18 months before the organization’s site visit.
“I want to congratulate and sincerely thank Dr. Jerilyn Swann for successfully leading our SACSCOC reaccreditation efforts, and all others who played a role in this very positive outcome, including Denise Cantrell, Dr. Heather McMahon, Saij Miller-Wildsmith, Karmen Stephenson, and members of both the Accreditation and QEP Committees,” Coker said. “Reaccreditation is truly a campuswide effort; thus, we should all take satisfaction and pride in this unqualified reaffirmation by SACSCOC.”