The Accreditation Steering Committee hosted a barbeque Friday Oct. 26 after a week-long visit from The Skyline College Accreditation Visiting Team.

Members of the Steering Committee enjoyed a barbeque with fellow faculty, staff, and students to celebrate all the hard work that was put into the self-evaluation and the process of preparing for the Visiting Team.

“It was an effort by the college,” said Ray Hernandez, co-chair of the Steering Committee. “It was collaborative work including students; it was a two-year process.”

While the team was on campus they talked to over 100 faculty, staff, and students, according to Hernandez. The meetings themselves are a part of the review process, because they are used to show the Visiting Team that what they received in the self study is an honest reflection of the school.

According to Donna Bestock, co-chair of the Steering Committee, the team that visited the campus will now make their suggestions to the commission, who will then review all the materials provided and decide whether or not to accredit the school.

If the commission does find something worrisome, they will ask for a mid-term progress report.

Although the Commission will not tell the school whether they are accredited until January, members of the Steering Committee are confident that the school has been accredited.

“Students should be confident,” said Bestock. “[The Visiting Team] found a collaborative process; it was evident that there was effort in the past two years; doing things in the eleventh hour is not how Skyline works.”

They felt welcome on campus according to Hernandez. What they found while they were visiting was reflective of the self study that was prepared for them, and that is what they are looking for.

While the team was here, there were two forums that open anyone to come in and voice any concerns or praises. Both of those forums were held as scheduled, but not many people showed up to them, which Bestock and Hernandez see as a positive sign.

“The open forums are to show that the college is functioning; [the fact that] no one went is a good thing, it means there aren’t many complaints,” said Hernandez. A week that had the potential to be very stressful was actually quite the opposite for Hernandez, who said that the work that was previously done left him confident that Skyline would be well represented to the team.

Bestock said that one of the things the team liked was the collaboration of people all over the college, even the work between herself and Hernandez. While Bestock has had experience with accreditation before, this was the first time that Hernandez was involved in the process.

“What they found when they were here was an expression of collaboration, collegial diversity, even within the team of Ray and myself,” said Bestock. “They could see that we were not just trying to put on a show.”

One of the greatest compliments that Bestock said was when she was being asked by some members of the team whether they could take some of the processes used by Skyline to their colleges because they worked so well.

The barbeque that was held was a good way for students to mingle with faculty and staff, and it was a celebration of a job well done by everyone involved.