The PANANOLE News: FSU-Panama Student E-Zine

     The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) is one of only six regional accrediting organizations approved by the US Department of education. It is a non-governmental and non-profit organization whose membership is voluntary. SACS is in charge accrediting colleges and schools in the eleven U.S. Southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Most universities are members because it is an organization that helps improve the services universities are offering by giving recommendations (what they expect) and suggestions in a final report that is delivered to a special commission on the main campus.

     Once a university is accredited, every 10 years there is a reaffirmation. Next week three representatives from SACS will be visiting FSU-Panama: one person is an official from SACS, and the other two are from other universities of the SACS region. They will be here for four days, inspecting our resources, the faculty, staff, facilities, library, students, and seeing how the mission of the university is being fulfilled. Dr. Carlos Langoni, Acting Rector, said they might want to have some group interviews with faculty and students. They want to know what is really going on to get an overview of the normal operations. This is why it is very important to be honest. They are not here, however, to listen to complaints. They want to see if the university is delivering high quality education.

     The work of the SACS team has not only been a four-day job: they have being searching for and accumulating information for two years. Their visit is to confirm that the information they have gathered is correct. After the visit they will write a summary report that gives an overall view of operations at FSU-Panama and send it to an evaluation committee, which in turn will write a final report and send it to the FSU main campus. Eventually that report will come back to us. The team’s final report will contain all the suggestions and recommendations, and, of course, FSU-Panama’s reaccredidation.

     If you want to learn more about SACS, visit www.sacs.org.

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