You got summoned!

Hal writes:

Today and yesterday UW-Platteville was visited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), formally known as the North Central accreditation Agency. The role of this organization is to decide whether or not to continue accreditation of a college or university for a 10 year period. A lot of work goes into this process a couple of years prior to the arrival of the group. UW-Platteville became the first university to put all of the Self-Study Report online, so you can glance at it.

The HLC team was a group of eight individuals from across the US that are profs, provosts, and presidents of other schools. While visiting campus, they have the ability to "summon" anyone at will to ask questions about the self-study. Yesterday I received a call that one of the team members wanted to meet with me today. (And last night, I had a nightmare that I answered a question wrong and UWP didn't get accredited, but that's another story.)

Today I met with Dr. Neely from Eastern New Mexico University. Dr. Neely met with me to talk about the overall work with Academic Staff Senate (I'm the Vice Chair of the group). I'll admit that it was a mixture of excitement and nervousness that I was a part of this very important process. I can only hope that my answers were both truthful/reflective of the campus and at the same time were beneficial for the university.

Or, as I was teasing some of my RAs today, if I screwed up, their diplomas aren't worth anything. ;)