FGCU has just been notified that the university is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). In our continuing effort to keep the university community fully informed of our progress in achieving accreditation, we are sending this Accreditation Report to all students, staff, and faculty within the hour of our notification.

The accreditation action was taken at a biannual meeting of the Commission on Colleges in Asheville, North Carolina. Dr. Jack Allen, Associate Executive Director of the Commission on Colleges, notified FGCU of the Commission’s action during a 1 PM conference call today. 

Accreditation is retroactive to January 1 of this year, which means that the effective date of accreditation is only three semesters following the fall 1997 opening of the institution. Gaining accreditation that quickly is highly unusual, and Dr. Adam Herbert, Chancellor of the State University System, has stated that it appears FGCU is breaking all previous records in achieving accreditation so quickly. 

The ambitious timetable for accreditation was first described in the 1992 Ten Year Development Plan for a New University in Southwest Florida, which projected the January 1, 1999 accreditation date. The plan was created by a group of Florida educators, chaired by Dr. Roy McTarnaghan, who later became our founding president.

Formal planning for accreditation began during the 1996-97 academic year, prior to the formal opening of the institution. Within two months of opening the university had submitted an application for candidacy and was visited by an accreditation candidacy committee. Following a very favorable committee report, FGCU was granted accreditation candidacy in December 1997, retroactive to the opening of the institution. 

In January of 1998 the university was authorized to do a self-study and be visited by an accreditation committee. Over a hundred faculty, staff and students served on fourteen study committees in an intensive self-study process with an ambitious timeline. Although self-studies of this type normally take two years to complete, FGCU’s Self-Study Report was published in the fall of 1998, and an accreditation committee visited the university in January of this year, just one year after the process was formally begun. 

The report of the accreditation committee was unusually favorable, including a number of commendations and only ten recommendations. During the last few months the university responded to the visiting committee findings in an Institutional Response report. That report, the Self-Study Report, and the report of the visiting committee, were all considered during COC deliberations at the Asheville meeting. 

Effective immediately, all appropriate university publications and all transcripts issued by the university will include a statement required by SACS which begins “Florida Gulf Coast University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. . . .” 

This accreditation affirms Dr. McTarnaghan’s vision and leadership, and was accomplished, as he would say, “on time and on task.” The entire university community is to be commended for reaching this milestone.
 

If you have any questions concerning accreditation, please contact Joseph Ravelli, Sanford Colley, or Cathy Duff in the Office of Planning and Evaluation.