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UTM receives reaccreditation from SACS


Congratulations UTM! The University of Tennessee at Martin has just received reaffirmation of SACS accreditation.

What does this mean for UTM? Every 10 years, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges reaccredits universities that meet all the standards required by SACS.

If a university is not reaccredited, the federal funding available to the school will be very limited if any at all. A non-accredited school cannot offer any government grants such as a federal pell grant to its students.

How does the accreditation process work? The university prepares a booklet that examines its fulfillment of the requirements.

After the SACS board reviews the university’s booklet of guidelines, they send a site team to the campus to check and make sure that the university meets all of the qualifications. Then the board sends the school a list of follow-up recommendations.

The only thing the University needs to do to be in full compliance is to hire one more Ph.D. in Nursing and one Ph.D. in Criminal Justice over the next two years.

According to an email sent by Dr. Tom Rakes, “Receiving only one recommendation for follow-up represents almost total acceptance of our response to the visiting committee report and caps the success of the SACS reaffirmation visit.”

When asked how the accreditation benefits the University, Chancellor Nick Dunagan replied, “I think the real benefit for the University is the accreditation process makes you look at yourself [the University] and address the issues that need to be addressed.”

“I wanted to make sure that I completely understood Dr. Dunagan’s explanation of the accreditation process so I asked if it was “the big test” for the University,” said Dunagan. “He told me that in a way it was a big test to make sure that we as a university meet all the requirements and standards to help our students get the best education possible and in his opinion, “We got an A.”