MacMurray College Accreditation upheld, 105 consecutive years accredited by Higher Learning Commission

By Gary Scott on July 13, 2018 at 9:49am

According to MacMurray College Provost Beverly Rodgers, MAC is Back.

MacMurray College President Mark Tierno has been informed by the Higher Learning Commission, or HLC, that MacMurray has been taken off probationary status. With this probation lifted, MacMurray extends their streak of consecutive years of accreditation.

HLC is an independent, non-for-profit corporation founded in 1895 as one of six regional institutional accreditors in the country. HLC accredits post-secondary education institutions in 19 states. MacMurray was added to HLC 67 years after the college was founded.

Provost Rodgers offers the history of how regional institutional accreditors came to be.

“In the earlier part of the 1900s, it became rather obvious that there needed to be some consistency in the marketing and educational expertise at colleges all across the United States. So, these regional bodies were set up to monitor what colleges said they were doing versus what they were actually doing in an attempt to achieve some consistency, so that students and their parents knew that they were getting a good education at each of these institutions that was accredited. The Higher Learning Commission is our regional agency.”

Although MacMurray was in a probationary period, it was merely a warning sign to make the necessary improvements to both the infrastructure and general daily life on campus.

Rodgers says that MacMurray needed the wake-up call to make the necessary changes.

“HLC has 5 criteria for accreditation. MacMurray had fallen short on some of those expectations, so we were placed on probation and we were given a period of time to meet the five criteria. After a couple of years of intense, full-campus work, we were taken off probation and fully accredited still. We’ve made great strides in strategic campus planning, what we’re doing with assessing student learning. It’s actually been a very good learning process.”

Rodgers assures students and parents that MacMurray will only continue to improve.

“Under President Tierno, we came together as a campus and as a community and developed strategic plans for all of the various areas, including my area of academic affairs. Everyone on this campus contributed in different ways, like focus groups. We also put together a campus master plan that will guide us in the future for things like renovations and additions, those types of things that we need to do in the physical area of our campus, and I’m sure that people – particularly those in Jacksonville – have noticed what’s been going on on our campus.”

The first online session of the 2018-2019 school year for MacMurray College will begin Monday, August 27th, with fall semester classes on campus starting Tuesday, August 28th.