The College of Educational Studies

The College of Educational Studies

The College of Educational Studies received full accreditation for all seven of their credential programs for the maximum period of seven years from the Commission on Accreditation (COA) on March 18, 2011 in Sacramento, CA.  This concludes a series of events that culminated with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CCTC) visiting the CES in early February, 2011.  At the conclusion of the CCTC visit, the eleven member review team made a unanimous recommendation to the COA for full accreditation. Within the report, the CCTC team wrote “What brings all these individuals together as a “unit” is a unified vision of education as the means for changing the world—a vision to which every member is fully and deeply committed.” Dean Cardinal praises the quality work by the faculty and staff of the CES and for the extraordinary effort by Dr. Dianne Ferguson, Director, Program Improvement and Accreditation.

This is the first time an institution has attempted to not use the Commission’s program document approach. The CES developed a proprietary system called Program Improvement System for the CES (PISCES) which now serves as the primary program improvement system for seven state credential accreditations, four national accreditations, WASC and Chapman’s own program review system.  It is a bold approach but as Dean Cardinal suggests “We are better now than we were last year and we will be better next year than we are today. Our PISCES is the vehicle that allows for us to test our new ideas, keeping what is demonstrated to work and discarding the less effective features of our program. This ensures the optimal use of our energies toward the path toward excellence.”