LLCC is mid-cycle in our Reaffirmation of Accreditation with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). For an AQIP pathway institution, this means submitting a Systems Portfolio for review. The year-three portfolio is formative for the college, designed to provide feedback on which of our improvement efforts have been effective and which need more attention prior to submitting the year-seven portfolio. Feedback on our Systems Portfolio comes to us in the form of a Systems Appraisal Feedback Report, a byproduct of the Systems Appraisal process. In the appraisal, a peer review team (1) looks for evidence that the Criteria for Accreditation and the core components are met and (2) verifies the continuing improvement efforts at the College via review of the six AQIP Pathway Categories. A copy of our portfolio and the appraisal feedback report can be found on the LLCC Employee Portal.

Overall, the College received strong remarks for all the core components of Criterion One – Mission and Criterion Two – Integrity. Our response to Criterion Three – Teaching and Learning: Evaluation and Improvement was found to be a mix of strong and sufficient ratings. The peer review team did express concern with our response to one specific core component of Criterion Four – Teaching and Learning: Evaluation and Improvement, and this finding led to an unclear rating for one core component of Criterion Five – Resources, Planning and Institutional Effectiveness. This means that college wide we need to give more attention to making data informed decisions and systematically documenting that process. It also means that we need to greatly speed up implementation of the academic assessment program, and we must have more faculty and programs involved in that process. These concerns are highlighted in the Strategic Challenges sections of the Systems Appraisal Feedback Report with additional comments provided in Appendices B and C.

The Systems Appraisal process is intended to foster institutional improvement, but it is not prescriptive about what actions we take. We will begin our next steps on Institutional Improvement Day, Friday, October 6. It is important that each member of the college community spend some time reviewing both the Systems Portfolio and the Appraisal Feedback Report. The entire college community will need to work together over the next four years to insure we are prepared for our next Systems Portfolio in 2021 and Reaffirmation of Accreditation in 2022.