The College of Education is on probation for accreditation. They will retain their accreditation right now, but will be reevaluated in two years, when they will have to submit a report on the particular problem the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education has found.

The problem NCATE found with the College of Education is a weakness involving the assessment of students as they leave and that they have received.

NCATE has an individual within the state who acts as a consultant and sends a group sampled from numerous national members, who evaluate the college every two to five years.

Its goal is to make sure all of its colleges meet certain standards and criteria, including the quality of the faculty and curriculum, what to address and how to assess students.

Dr. Michael Hickman, head of the department of teacher education, said the important thing is that the college has retained its accreditation and is ready for the next evaluation.

“The bottom line is that we’ve retained accreditation and will just have to submit a report on this particular weakness in two years,” he said.

He said NCATE serves as a great help to the college and helps them maintain their standards and gives them a better perspective in comparison to other colleges.

“Before we went with NCATE, we ran around finding everything. Now we realize this is an ongoing process,” Hickman said.

He said he is taking steps to make sure NCATE will find no further problems with the college.

“My feeling is that I would like to tell NCATE to send a team here any time,” he said.