San Jose City College is an accredited institution, which makes it possible to offer students a more affordable means of completing CSU and UC transferable courses and without this accredited status it would not be possible for SJCC to offer these transferable courses.

A team of 13 peer reviewers, administrators from various community colleges, will be on campus from Oct. 11 through Oct. 13 to conduct a site visit—one of the phases in the process of reaffirming SJCC’s accreditation.

“It’s a peer review process that happens every seven years,” Vice President of Academic Affairs Duncan Graham said.

For three days, the team will be gathering information to assess how well SJCC meets the accreditation standards.

“The team evaluates the college to reaffirm the college is running right and offering high quality programs,” Graham said.  The team will be wearing lanyards to identify themselves.

Last time City College underwent this process in 2010, the college was placed on probationary status and remained so until July 29, 2015, after the college addressed all the administrative recommendations, according to a letter by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.

This time around, Graham is feeling good.

“We have a pretty good system here on campus; I think there are a lot of good things that have happened here,” Graham said. “I hope we can project a positive image.”

During the site visit, the college will host two open forums to hear from the campus community. Students who feel they have benefited from SJCC are encouraged to come to one of the open forums to comment.

“That would be a really strong opportunity for students to go and share positive experiences they have had here at San Jose City College,” Graham said.

The open forums will be held at the Student Center in room 204, Oct. 11 at 1 p.m. and Oct. 12 at 5 p.m.