The accreditation team visiting campus delivered its exit report at 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 22 at the Interim Theater on West Campus.

The report lasted 12 minutes and ended in applause from the room’s standing-only crowd.

“We all should be proud as a college,” Superintendent-President Dr. Andreea Serban said outside the theater following the meeting.

Eighty people spent a year and a half to complete the report that was sent to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges prior to the team’s arrival. Serban cited their efforts.

Eleven members from administrative and faculty positions at community colleges around the state made up the accreditation team, and Serban said their findings “reaffirm how great the college is.”

“Nine commendations are a true acknowledgement of, first of all, the excellent work of the self study that’s been done over the past 15 months,” Serban said. “But it’s also an acknowledgement of the overall great work the college has done over many years, over many different areas.

“It’s great for us as a college, particularly in a time where colleges up and down the state have been sanctioned,” she said. “It’s an accomplishment.”

The school received a total of nine commendations, which are praises from the accreditation team for excelling in a specific area.

Having its accreditation renewed means City College can stay an internationally recognized institution of higher learning.

The school is up for reaffirmation every six years.

According to City College’s Web site, being accredited “is a quality assurance process that gives us the opportunity to engage in institution-wide dialogue and self-evaluation activities in order to gain a comprehensive perspective of our college.”

The team visited Oct. 19 through Oct. 22 conducting interviews with several campus committees, faculty, staff, and students.

Commission members interviewed Atty Garfinkel, vice president of the Associated Student Senate, along with the senate’s president Emily Harrington, and Student Trustee Nicole Ridgell, among others.

“I was pleased with the overall response,” Garfinkel said.

The review team also held two open meetings for the campus community Oct. 20 and Oct. 21.

At the closing meeting, Dr. John S. Nixon, president of Mt. San Antonio College and chair of the review team, referred to the accreditation process as a “process of reaffirmation.”

Nixon also reminded attendants that the exit report is a “closure of the visit, not the process.”

The team returns with their findings and confidential recommendation regarding City College’s status to the accrediting commission.

The recommendation will then become public sometime before February 2010.

Nixon first thanked the college for its hospitality. He particularly thanked the culinary department’s students for food “exceptionally made and served.”

He then went through a list of both commendations and recommendations for the school’s work toward achieving standards set by the accrediting commission.

For Standard II, known as Student Learning Outcomes, there were no recommendations for improvement. That’s when people cheered.

City College also performed well under Standard I, which concerns planning and self-evaluation. The school received commendations for that as well.

The Luria Library staff was mentioned for creative use of technologies in reaching out to students.

Nixon even liked the Buzz Shack coffee cart, saying that he may have to “steal that idea” for his own school.

Dr. Susan Walsh, who co-assessed City College for Standard II, told Academic Senate President Ignacio Alarcón that “your college is a college with a heart.”