Los Medanos College President Bob Kratochvil received an action letter in February from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges stating a follow up report be submitted to the commission by Oct. 15 and LMC should host a visit by commission representatives.

LMC will be hosting two of the original members of the accreditation team in November of this year.

“They are coming to validate our response to the recommendations,” said LMC Vice President Kevin Horan. The two members, Jenny Langrell and Irene Melgrin, will be visiting campus.

The recommendations made by the accrediting commission included a reference to the LMC Brentwood Center and another, which focused on improving the effectiveness of the resource allocation process. Recommendation response teams were formed and met frequently between February and May to draft responses to the recommendations.

Recommendation one, regarding the Brentwood Center stated, “In order to meet the eligibility requirements and accreditation standards, the team recommends that the college ensures it is meeting identified needs of students at the Brentwood Center including the quality and availability of student services, technology, facilities, and library support services. In addition, it must demonstrate that these services and resources, regardless of location or means of delivery, support student learning and enhance student achievement, fulfilling the mission of the institution’.

To which the recommendation response team proposed, ‘The college is implementing a number of solutions intended to provide greater assurance of equitable access to services, while also enhancing the experience of the students attending the Brentwood Center’.

The enhancements to the Brentwood Center include hiring a second full-time counselor, a full-time financial aid assistant, extended bookstore services at the beginning of each new semester and a newly hired full-time assessment center coordinator among other additions.

Recommendation two states, ‘In order to improve the effectiveness of its resource allocation process, the team recommends that the college close the loop by systematically assessing the effective use of financial resources allocated through the resource allocation process, and use the results of the assessment as the basis for institutional improvement’.

The recommendation response team developed and piloted a three-year “look-back” process to evaluate all funded RAP proposals: “Year 1” is the year in which the resources are requested; “Year 2” identifies when the resources are received and implemented; and “Year 3” is the year in which the impact of the resources is assessed to determine whether the expenditure improved student success and/or institutional effectiveness.

The final draft of the responses was submitted to the Chancellor and Governing Board in August of this year and was approved in October.