After receiving recommendations from an accreditation team, the Board of Trustees is deciding on a process to evaluate Whitworth’s efficiency in making the campus a welcoming community for international and non-Christian students.
“Our regional accreditation conducts a site visit every 10 years to Whitworth,” said Barb Sanders, professor of education and chairperson of the Steering Committee.
A member of the accreditation team will return in one year, which is common when the committee gives the institution recommendations. The member will write up a report on how Whitworth has progressed specifically on the first three recommendations.
The committee gave Whitworth three recommendations to improve during its visit last October: that all academic programs have a system to assess end-of-program outcomes, that a formal process be implemented for evaluating the performance of the Board of Trustees and that the university reevaluate their approach to meeting the needs of ethnic, international and non-Christian students.
Whitworth is addressing each of these recommendations. Departments all over campus are reviewing student learning outcomes. Whitworth is developing an organized system for departmental assessment plans which will then be reviewed by faculty committees.
Junior Carolina Broemeling, an international student from Concepcion, Chile and president of the Latin America Club, has been at Whitworth since her freshman year.
She said in an e-mail interview that the International Education Center hosts a trip to Camp Spalding the weekend before school starts.
New Act Six students and the Cultural Diversity Advocates also attend.
“These two groups of students are Americans, so here is one way that Whitworth tries to include international students in the Whitworth community,” Broemeling said.
Activities such as the International Banquet and Cultural Awareness Week allow international students to share a bit of their culture with campus.
She said it has been difficult to find other students on campus from Latin America.
“I have talked to some people from the international office so they can recruit students from Latin America, but so far, there are only three to four students from Latin America, and that is including myself,” Broemeling said.
Broemeling said activities for international students are generally hosted either by the International Club or the International Education Center.
She also said departments should have events that encourage international students to participate.
The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, NWCCU, is a non-governmental group that conducts a process of evaluating places of higher education, validating their credits and the quality of education.
The accreditation committee recognizes a university for their performance, integrity and quality of the school’s education, ensuring that a student’s credits from Whitworth would transfer successfully to other accredited schools.
Esther Louie, assistant dean for intercultural student affairs; Lulu Gonzales, coordinator for intercultural student affairs; Harry Daniels-Schatz, assistant director for international admissions; Sue Jackson, director of international education center; and Sanders met last week to begin the process of developing a way to measure the effectiveness in meeting the needs of Whitworth’s diverse groups.
“We are still in the beginning processes of getting the right people together,” Sanders said.
Whitworth’s next accreditation site visit will be in 2013.
Contact Michella Sutherland at michella.sutherland@whitworthian.com.
University looking at efforts to ensure students feel welcome
Published: Monday, March 9, 2009
Updated: Tuesday, March 10, 2009
 "Photo: Sebastien BiJoux/Whitworthian")
Sebastien BiJoux/Whitworthian
Students congregate at the Global Hearth Theme House on Feb. 5 for the first International Club meeting of the semester. The university is evaluating its approach to minority groups.
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