This week, I head to the Syracuse Abroad Florence Center to help prepare our Florence Center faculty, staff and student colleagues for the visit from the Middle States site team chair James Bean, provost of Northeastern University, from February 25-27.

While in Florence, Provost Bean, accompanied by Michele Wheatly, Syracuse University’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, will evaluate our Florence Center to determine to what extent the strategic plans, practices, experiences and operations align with the main Syracuse campus.

He will meet with faculty, students, staff, internship coordinators, host families and University partners.

Of course, we will treat him to some amazing Tuscan cuisine.

In preparation for this visit, the Syracuse Abroad staff worked on a briefing packet that highlighted how we now approach assessment and help ensure quality and consistency. Like the main self-study report, available at middlestates.syr.edu, we have used the Middle States Accreditation as an opportunity for reflection on how we operate, for peer review by our colleagues on campus and off campus through the site team volunteers, and for forward momentum to make improvements.

The faculty and staff through Syracuse Abroad contribute so much to the student experience in and out of the classroom that they are truly exemplars of our being One Global University.

Rochelle Ford, Ph.D., APR
Professor and Chair, Public Relations
Tri-chair, Middle States Steering Committee
rlford@syr.edu