UNA is in the process of developing its final draft of the quality enhancement plan as the university nears its 10-year reaffirmation review by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

This past summer, the QEP team created a rough draft of the plan, which strongly focuses on research literacy, and presented it to officials involved with SACS for further suggestions and feedback before the revised version is presented in October.

According to Dr. Phil Bridgmon, chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and member of the QEP team, UNA’s primary goals for SACS reaffirmation are to deliver adequate support for student success and ensure students are research literate by generating quality literature through information gathering and analyzing within their career fields.

Dr. Lisa Keys-Mathews, associate professor of geography, was recently named director of the QEP and worked this summer to create Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate about the process with a larger audience.

“There is a misconception about research literacy,” she said. “It’s all about our students becoming good problem solvers. That’s what employers are looking for. They are looking for graduates who have problem solving abilities, can look at a process and understand how it was built, how data is collected in (their) particular discipline, understand how library resources are used and be able to write about it in a fashion suitable for (their) discipline.”

The renewal of UNA’s SACS accreditation is a process that takes several years to complete. The QEP team will submit their official plan that focuses on UNA’s goals for improving research literacy in January, a few weeks prior to the on-campus SACS visit in late February.

Keys-Mathews and Bridgmon worked together to broaden the QEP awareness campaign throughout the summer. Bridgmon said they plan to hold sessions with student groups to boost participation when the QEP revisions are completed later in the semester.

“We are encouraging students to become familiar with the QEP because we predict it will have a very important effect on the campus and student learning,” Bridgmon said.

Caleb Banks, a student representative for the QEP, said the SACS accreditation process affects students of all ages and academic disciplines at UNA.

“Students are going to hear a lot about it in the coming months,” he said. “Once everything is finalized, students will be made fully aware of it and will have access to all the information as needed.”