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Our Purpose
The fundamental purpose of the Self-Study is to document Dalton State Colleges fulfillment of the Criteria for Reaccredidation by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of College and Schools. Accreditation by SACS is a mark of excellence for a college. Reaccredidation by the Commission on Colleges is required every ten years and gives assurance that an institution has a purpose and resources, programs, and services which are sufficient to accomplish its stated purpose.
Our Self-Study is being conducted by Dr. Frank Beesley, Director, and a Steering Committee made up of the chairs of the nine separate investigatory committees each consisting of faculty, staff, students, and alumni. The Self-Study involves a rational, systematic, and comprehensive evaluation of the educational quality of our school. A by-product of the Self-Study will be recommendations for future improvement.
How does institutional effectiveness fit into the Self-Study process? Institutional effectiveness is pervasive throughout the Criteria for Accreditation and is part of everything we are about. Institutional effectiveness requires continuous assessment, resulting in ongoing comparison of institutional performance to institutional purpose. The relationship between institutional effectiveness and institutional purpose is critical throughout the Self-Study process.
Institutional effectiveness is an excellent example of a management concept called continuous improvement, in which every manager and employee looks for way to improve operations. Continuous improvement rejects the view that an activity is A good enough.@ New ideas are tried and old ideas are challenged. Ineffective programs and services must be abandoned while developing new programs and services that work better. All this must be done while operating with limited resources.