April 13, 2022
CAEP site review team visits College of Education
This semester, a site review team from the Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation (CAEP) visited the College of Education at East Carolina University to assess programs as a part of the 7-year accreditation cycle.
“This was our first visit with CAEP that also included advanced (graduate) preparation program,” said Dr. Holly Fales, director of assessment, data management and digital learning.
Fales’ team in the Office of Assessment, Data Management, and Digital Learning (OADD) began preparing for this visit in 2019 and partnered with departments and programs across the college, including Educator Preparation, Clinical Experiences, and more.
“The visit was very successful,” Fales said. “The site review team said the virtual visit was well-coordinated, comprehensive, and attended the standards of both initial and advanced programs. They noted the profound impact of the COVID-19 on our university and our partners, and our resilience and response to the pandemic enabling us to continue to offer a high-quality preparation program.”
There were 146 individuals who participated in the CAEP visit, including 65 educator preparation faculty/staff, 29 student participants, and 22 program graduates.
“The site review team said that our candidates and graduates expressed a high-level of satisfaction with our program and the support they received from faculty during the program,” Fales said. “They said that our culture of assessment and data-driven continuous improvement was apparent in our self-study report and confirmed by the site visit. Finally, they said that we have highly functioning, effective, and mutually beneficial partnerships with districts and schools throughout the region.”
The CAEP board will meet in the fall to make accreditation decisions and will notify ECU of their official accreditation status at that time. Meanwhile, Fales’ team will continue to work on timelines and action items for advanced programs including gathering data, admission planning and assessment validation.
“My plan is to reflect on the overall process and start developing protocols to ensure that we continue to capture necessary data for all initial and advanced standards and complete an annual analysis of the data,” Fales said. “We also want to capture key program improvements based in relation to the standards. In our next accreditation cycle, advanced programs will not be in a phase-in timeline so we will need at least three years of data for all advanced standards.”