SACS visitation continues despite weather
By Sarah Krebs
Staff Reporter

Icy streets and cold temperatures did not stop the visitors from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools from conducting the site visit this week.

All of the meetings with students, faculty and administrators were rescheduled and moved to a later time this week due to the weather, said Bonnie Melhart, director of the SACS self-study.

The visitors began at noon Tuesday and Wednesday by eating lunch with students and interviewing them and then worked until 5 p.m. meeting with faculty and administrators, Melhart said.

“They met with students from all disciplines,” Melhart said. “We had various kinds of people so we got some students here for lunch each day and we paired them up with the people they needed to speak with.”

Originally planned as meetings throughout the day, the easiest solution was to have all the students at lunch, Melhart said.

“We’ve done the best we can to get them to see the kinds of people they were going to meet with,” Melhart said. “They haven’t met with exactly the people we had lined up interviews with because some of them were far away.”

Though the visitors did not fully explore the campus, a few of them toured buildings such as the Sid W. Richardson Building, Mary Couts Burnett Library and the Moudy Building, Melhart said.

At 2 p.m. Wednesday, the SACS visitors met with about 15 to 20 faculty members, and by 5 p.m. they had all of the information they needed to write their reports, Bob Seal, associate director of the SACS self-study said.

“They read our self-study report before they came and they are basically verifying what we wrote,” Seal said. “Then in the end they will meet with us to tell us their findings.”

Visitors will give a copy of the report from their section to the chairman of the committee and Thursday they will present TCU with an overview of all the reports, Melhart said. The chairman will then combine the reports and TCU will receive it in writing in about six weeks, she said.

“They will make recommendations, which will indicate areas we must fix in order to be in compliance,” Melhart said. “They will make suggestions about things that they think we could improve but do not necessarily have to do.”

The reaffirmation of the SACS accreditation of TCU will be announced in December, Seal said.

s.d.krebs@tcu.edu