TCU’s reaffirmed QEP status was discussed Friday afternoon at a town hall meeting.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC or SACS) reaffirmed TCU’s 10-year accreditation last week. TCU complied with all 98 of the SACS standards with no recommendations.

“Accreditation by SACS-COC is an important component of our university’s academic stature,” Chancellor Victor Boschini wrote in an email.

“It means that TCU has a purpose appropriate to higher education and the resources, programs and services to accomplish that purpose,” said Bochini.

In an on-site visit last spring, SACS determined TCU did not meet four of the 98 standards required for accreditation.

Dr. Ed McNertney, faculty co-chair of the reaffirmation process, said that some of the problems were with the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), which needed to be revised, submitted and implemented.

McNertney and Dr. Catherine Wehlburg, associate provost for institutional effectiveness, held a town hall meeting Friday to discuss the details of TCU’s revised QEP titled Discovering Global Citizenship: Building the Foundation for Comprehensive Internationalization.

Discovering Global Citizenship, or DGC, is a five-year plan designed to internationalize TCU through various programs and events on campus. It is comprised of four student-learning outcomes and six global citizenship initiatives.

Each year, DGC will host programs and events that focus on a different region of the world. The focus for Fall 2013/Spring 2014 is Africa and the Caribbean.

DGC will also assess students on four levels: foundational, engagement, understanding others and action/application.

Wehlburg urged the TCU community to get involved in the plan.

“TCU’s mission statement is pretty clear about what we want students to be able to do,” said Wehlburg. “This is a very concrete way of looking at global citizenship.”