To avoid devastating results, The University of Memphis facultyand staff are working hard to meet the late summer deadline forgetting re-accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges andSchools, officials said.
If the school isn't re-accredited, "students won't be able toget federal loans," said co-chairmen of SACS reaffirmation processDan Poje said. "The reputation of the school will be ruined."
Poje said schools that aren't re-accredited usually go bankrupt,but he is confident that is not going to happen to The U of M.
The Sept. 10 deadline includes 72 accreditation standards auniversity must meet.
Poje said he feels two of the most important standards are thatThe University have qualified faculty who have been screened tomake sure they have the proper degrees and that The U of M has awell- committed defined mission statement.
He said the mission statement was recently revised to emphasizethat The U of M is an urban institution strongly committed to thecommunity.
The compliance report, on which more than 250 University facultyand staff members have been working, is the backbone forreaffirming the accreditation. The process usually occurs every 10years.
"A major deadline is imminent, and any documents or otherassistance needed for the Compliance Report should be promptlyprovided," President Shirley Raines wrote in an e-mail.
The process has changed since the last time The University wasre-accredited. It has shifted to an electronic procedure, whichbrings on new responsibilities and challenges for those working onthe report.
Documents that support the reaffirmation must now enter the Website, authorities said.� There cannot be any flaws in thesystem when they reach the reviewers at SACS.
Because of the importance of the report, Raines asked facultyand staff to be sensitive and cooperative with anyone at SACS whomay request reports, documents or assistance over the next fewweeks.
Officials at The U of M will not know for over a year if theyare to be re-accredited. In December 2005, the report will bereviewed at the annual SACS meeting in Atlanta, officials said.
Until then, there are many steps The U of M will have to gothrough to reach that final one. They will have to do everythingfrom having off-site reviewers evaluate the document The Universityturns in at the end of the summer to having SACS visit The U of Mcampus.
Now, faculty and staff are concentrating on getting the reportfinished early, said Poje.
He said the penalty for missing the Sept. 10 deadline would be"egg on our face."
