LETTER: How We Can Improve Our Standards

By Student Body President Zack Golden

George Mason University, like all other universities in the country, has to go through re-accreditation every several years. This re-accreditation acknowledges that Mason is meeting the academic standards laid out by our re-accrediting agency. Mason is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and we are currently starting the process for our 2011 reaccreditation. A new component of the reaccreditation process is the Quality Enhancement Plan.

The QEP is a focused plan that will be implemented over five years. The development of this plan is supposed to engage the Mason community, and achieve a specific goal that improves student learning. The QEP must be associated with enhancing scholarship at Mason, additionally it must have a clear and measurable outcome that is achievable for our university. Mason has set aside the resources to implement the QEP and set up a committee to draft, review, and finalize our QEP proposal.

So far, four proposals have been drafted. They all address different areas of enhancing student learning at Mason. The first proposal promotes student success through critical thinking. Another enhances the undergraduate experience through research and creativity. The third proposal examines what it takes to live in a global community and seeks to build an understanding diversity. The final proposal tries to engage Mason students in the global community. Each of these four proposals is extremely detailed in their goals and methods implementation. Each of them can be viewed at qep.gmu.edu.

The QEP committee is looking for feedback from the Mason community on the proposals. All members of the Mason community are encouraged to submit proposals, or send thoughts and opinions about the proposals that have been submitted. The proposals can be seen on the QEP Web site, and feedback should be sent to qep@gmu.edu. Student Government is currently working on a QEP proposal of its own to submit to the committee. The due date for submissions is this Friday, Nov. 7.

The QEP is a unique opportunity for students to influence Mason’s academic policies. As the beneficiaries of whichever QEP proposal is selected we, as students, should make sure to voice our opinions on the various proposals. If you think there is an area that needs improvement, submit a proposal to fix it, or email the committee and try to address it with one of the existing proposals. As students, we have a first-hand perspective on how to enhance our educational experience. Taking advantage of this opportunity will be beneficial to all members of the Mason community.