PRAC minutes for February 24, 2011

Attendance: Susan Clerc, Karen Cummings, Tom Radice, Charlie Dellinger-Pate, Susan Felsenfeld, Marybeth Fede, Tricia Lin

Absent: Scott Graves, Patricia Kahlbaugh

The committee met to discuss the expedited review submitted by the School of Education. This School successfully completed a national external review by NAEYC in 2008. To fulfill the self-study requirements, the National Recognition reports from this accrediting body were submitted to PRAC, along with the abbreviated self-study checklist that was developed by PRAC. A general discussion about the expedited checklist ensued and several suggestions for improvement were brought forward. These suggestions included: 1) adding Standards 16 and 17 to the checklist, which will require Departments to comment on program strengths and weaknesses and to describe their action plan; and 2) providing Departments undergoing an expedited review with the full checklist to use as a reference. The committee concluded that further discussion will be needed prior to making any formal changes to the expedited checklist.
The PRAC committee then reviewed the NAEYC reports and PRAC checklist submitted by Education. After discussion, the majority in attendance agreed that all standards had been met. Dr. Maria Diamantis and Dr. Laura Bower came to our meeting at 10:15. At that time, a recommendation for continuing approval was communicated. The Committee solicited feedback from Drs. Diamantis and Bower about their experiences with the expedited review process. These experiences were generally favorable. During that conversation, it became apparent that three appendices that would have been helpful to PRAC had not been submitted. These supplemental documents were requested by PRAC and were subsequently forwarded by Dr. Diamantis.

Meeting was adjourned at 10:50.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Susan Felsenfeld