Starting on Feb. 28, a team of faculty and administrators from peer institutions will visit Main Campus and seven other Temple locations in Pennsylvania. The four-day visit marks the beginning of the critical peer evaluation stage in the reaffirmation of the university's accreditation, the process of voluntary self-analysis and regulation that assures the quality of American colleges and universities.

The team from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education — an association of more than 500 schools located primarily in the Mid-Atlantic — will meet with Temple faculty, staff and students at all levels; tour facilities; and attend performances and exhibits in the arts.

"This visit is a wonderful opportunity to showcase Temple's progress since the last Middle States visit in 2000: the implementation of a new GenEd program; the emergence of a vibrant residential campus community; the arrival of hundreds of new faculty members; the completion of new homes for Fox, Medicine and Tyler; and so much more," said Associate Vice Provost Jodi Levine Laufgraben, director of Periodic Program Review at Temple. "It's also a chance to discuss what the university can do better."

The nine-member Middle States team will be led by University of Delaware President Emeritus David P. Roselle, currently the director of the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate in Delaware. In addition to Main Campus, Roselle and his colleagues will visit the Health Sciences Center, Temple University Harrisburg, Temple University Center City, the School of Podiatry, Temple University Ambler, Temple University Fort Washington and Lehigh Carbon Community College (where Temple offers a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology). Roselle has already visited Temple University, Japan Campus, the university's campus in Tokyo.

Schools that apply for accreditation must meet the commission's standards in areas such as mission, goals, institutional planning, resources and resource allocation, leadership and governance, administration, integrity, institutional assessment, educational effectiveness, student admissions, student support services, faculty, educational offerings, general education and assessment of student learning.

A month after visiting Temple, the Middle States evaluation team will issue a report on the status of Temple's compliance with the commission's standards. The university will receive the commission's formal statement on Temple's accreditation later in the spring.

Temple's Middle States Steering Committee — a group of more than 50 Temple faculty and staff co-chaired by Professor Corrinne Caldwell of the College of Education, Professor Michael Sitler of the College of Health Professions and Robert Stroker, dean of the Boyer College of Music and Dance and interim dean of the Tyler School of Art — has been working since fall 2007 to help the university navigate the accreditation process. The committee recently completed the first major milestone in the accreditation process — the creation of a rigorous, comprehensive self-study. The final version of the self-study and more information about the accreditation process are available at www.temple.edu/middlestates.