UPDATED: Tuesday, July 31, 2018 at 12:15 a.m.

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education recently reaffirmed Syracuse University’s accreditation, allowing SU to continue federal financial aid, according to a campus-wide email sent Thursday afternoon.

Middle States is a nonprofit accreditation organization that reviews all aspects of various colleges.

Universities must go through the accreditation process every eight years to ensure they are meeting its set of standards. Standards vary from topics such as ethics and integrity policy to the university’s student experience. The federal government relies on organizations such as Middle States to evaluate universities and help determine whether they earn federal funding.

Chancellor Kent Syverud announced in the email Thursday that Middle States commended the university on its reaccreditation efforts, which have been in the works for more than two years.

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SU organized a Middle States Reaccreditation Steering Committee, headed by Rochelle Ford, a former professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications who has since started a new job at Elon University; Jeff Stanton, a professor in the School of Information studies; and Libby Barlow, vice president for institutional research and assessment.

This team, along with other university community members, wrote a report that included recommendations on SU’s academics and the student experience. The report was also used to identify areas that SU could better align with its Academic Strategic Plan, Syverud’s academic vision for the university, which includes improvements to the student experience, internationalization, commitment to veterans and innovation, among other things.

The Middle States site team, made up of leaders from SU’s peer institutions, visited the campus in March to meet with students, faculty, administrators and staff. Ford said in March the team planned to meet about 300 people. The site team asked members of the university community about the student experience, budget and strategic planning, among other things, Ford said at the time.

The next evaluation visit will occur in the 2026-27 academic year, Syverud said in the email.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the status of Rochelle Ford’s employment at SU was unclear. She was named dean of Elon University’s School of Communications in April.

Published on July 26, 2018 at 4:42 pm

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert