How We Are Navigating Accreditation as a Small Team (And What We’d Try to Do Differently)

When the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) reaffirmation cycle officially began for our institution two years ago, I anticipated a demanding process, but I didn’t fully grasp just how much of the work would fall on the shoulders of a team of just 3.5 people. Of that small team, only two of us focus exclusively on accreditation and assessment (Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment, or IEA), while the remaining 1.5 serve as institutional research analysts and programmers (IR). As the Assistant Provost overseeing Institutional Research, Effectiveness, and Assessment and serving as the institution’s SACSCOC Liaison (I’m counting myself in the IEA category here, just for illustration, but I also balance IR efforts.), I found myself juggling a wide range of responsibilities: responding to data requests, drafting compliance narratives, crosswalking institutional policies to accreditation standards, and mobilizing campus stakeholders. And all of this happened while still managing the daily operations expected of a fully functioning IR/IE office.

Now, with the Compliance Certification on the near horizon, I can honestly say: we’re surviving. But if I had to do it all over again starting from our initial orientation session in 2023, I’d approach a few things very differently.

Wearing All the Hats

In theory, accreditation is a shared institutional responsibility. In practice? It often feels like a solo act. From demonstrating student learning improvement in Standard 8.2.a using our internal six-phase model, to documenting faculty credentials for Standard 6.2.a, we quickly found ourselves immersed in the complexities of compliance, navigating documentation, interpretation, and storytelling. When our SACSCOC Vice President reminded us that 91% of institutions are found non-compliant on 6.2.a during the off-site review, we knew we had to be meticulous. That meant crosswalking every faculty transcript to each course they taught and, in many cases, sleuthing through course descriptions and CVs to justify qualifications in Column Four like academic detectives.

And the work didn’t stop there. For Standard 10.1, we partnered closely with Academic Affairs to verify that published academic policies were not only accessible, but actively implemented. For Standard 12.5, we reviewed and redacted sensitive student complaint records to demonstrate how institutional processes are followed through and documented. Each standard brought its own maze of operational nuance, requiring both strategic coordination and an unyielding attention to detail.

The Reality of a Lean Team

While the ideal scenario would involve a dedicated compliance office, a policy analyst, a research team, and an administrative assistant, the reality was that we were a two-person operation doing the work of many. The compliance narratives, policy inventories, strategic plan crosswalks, and multi-year data visualizations didn’t generate themselves. They were designed, reviewed, and revised by two people balancing accreditation with every other institutional responsibility. The phrase “do more with less” became a daily reality, as we juggled faculty roster audits, program assessment reviews, QEP development, and ongoing requests for data and dashboards.

We were fortunate to have engaged partners across campus, but the central coordination, writing, and quality control remained on our desks. And though we have powered through, it became clear that sustainability requires more than determination and deadline management. It requires process, clarity, and shared ownership. 

What We’d Do Differently

If we had the chance to start over, there are several strategies we’d implement earlier and more deliberately. In no particular order, here are my top six items:

1. Normalize Shared Ownership Early One of the greatest lessons that we’ve learned: compliance needs to be socialized, not siloed. For example, when writing for Standard 4.2.c on board self-evaluation or 4.2.d on the avoidance of undue influence, we realized too late that governance policies, though publicly posted, weren’t necessarily familiar to stakeholders. If we had started “compliance literacy” conversations earlier with our Board liaisons and executive team, our documentation would have been smoother, and the burden lighter.
   
2. Archive as You Go We can’t overstate the importance of documentation hygiene. Naming conventions, date-stamped versions, and evidence tagging will save you when trying to locate a signed MOU from five years ago for Standard 13.7 on contractual relationships. Next time, we’d like to formalize a shared evidence matrix earlier, complete with hyperlinks and file locations. Work with your Academic and Student Affairs personnel to figure out a mechanism for gathering evidence on-going. Figure out a process that works for you and get started early.
   
3. Lean Into Visual Tools Accreditation isn’t just about meeting standards, it’s about showing you’ve done so. We embedded organizational charts, flow diagrams for our assessment processes, and multi-year charts showing trends in various forms of student, faculty, and retention data. These visuals will help with our arguments, as we hope they will help non-IR readers digest the data-heavy standards like 8.1 and 8.2.b.
   
4. Document the Process, Not Just the Product For Standards like 5.4 on qualified administrators, we didn't just drop in CVs and job descriptions. We have provided a table including the incumbents’ summarized responsibilities and qualifications.  We have also explained our internal evaluation processes, including our new Kuali-based annual review workflow for academic administrators and provided evidence of these ongoing evaluations. This is not only satisfying the standard, but it also gives us a blueprint for future hiring and onboarding practices on the academic affairs side of the house.
5. Ask for Help, Even If You Think You Shouldn’t Even in a small IR/IE shop, you’re not truly alone. We have leaned on peers from AIR, SAIR, our home state and system, SACSCOC workshops, and the Assessment Institute to gut-check our approaches. Our conversations with mentors and colleagues have helped us rethink how to phrase narratives, structure appendices, and even defend our decision logic.
   
   Also, if you have access to an advisory visit leading up to your off-site/on-site visit from your accreditation Vice President, look into that for your campus. We completed this, and it was worth the money and time to have our SACSCOC VP come to campus and provide guidance on the process ahead of our submission. We received valuable feedback that we hope will be a catalyst to our success.
6. Identify an Editor Early One of the most helpful takeaways, which we realized a bit too late, was the need for a dedicated editor early in the process. When you’re embedded in writing dozens of narratives across multiple standards, it’s easy to lose consistency in tone, structure, and formatting. We are finding ourselves making last-minute edits to harmonize voice, correct cross-references, and align citations across standards like 4.2.c, 6.2.a, and 13.7.

Having an objective, detail-oriented reviewer outside of the core writing team (someone with fresh eyes) will help you catch inconsistencies and polish language well before the final submission crunch. Next time, we’ll formally identify an editor from the start and integrate editing checkpoints throughout the drafting phase, not just at the end. It’s a small step that can make a huge difference in clarity and professionalism.

Final Thoughts

Accreditation is more than a checkbox, it’s an opportunity to reflect, improve, and align institutional priorities with practice. Navigating this process has been, quite honestly, a trial by fire. But we’re emerging with stronger systems, deeper cross-campus partnerships, and a clearer voice in institutional strategy. And next time? We’ll work smarter, not just harder.

If you’re at the start of your own accreditation journey, give yourself the gift of time: time to build a sustainable process, to identify your core team, and to create space for collaboration. Most importantly, don’t try to do it alone. Accreditation may demand institutional accountability, but it thrives on shared commitment. Lean on your colleagues, build coalitions early, and trust that even in a small shop, meaningful progress is possible when the work is grounded in purpose and shared with others.