On Wednesday, April 15, 2026, Whatcom Community College (WCC) held an accreditation meeting for students to meet with the WCC accreditation team. After the meeting, students reported feeling that their voices were heard, but time was short.
According to the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE), “Accreditation is a process used in the US to assure the quality of the education that students receive. It is a voluntary, nongovernmental, peer-review process that occurs regularly.” In simpler terms, accreditation is a review process to see if the college is meeting quality standards.
Southeast Missouri State University points out that accreditation is important for students since their “accredited credits have a much better chance of transferring over with you if you decide to keep going.” Also, if students seek federal financial aid, they must be enrolled in an accredited institution.
At Wednesday’s meeting, students were asked a list of questions and given the chance to speak directly to the board members.
“I think initially, most people feel really heard, especially with the conversations and questions that were asked and the conversations that we all had and experiences that we gave,” said Desiree Hammer, a ASWCC Senator. “I think only time will tell to see if we are actually heard in the sense of yes, we have a report that’s going to be given to people higher up, and we were definitely listened to, and they took notes today.”
WCC students Mercedes Kim and Anna (last name omitted by choice) also felt heard. However, issues arose when it came to the amount of time given for the meeting, which only ran for 50 minutes.
“I’m sad it was so short,” said Anna. “I felt that people had so much more to say, and contribute that was able due to time constraints”
Kim also noted that the meeting was too short and suggested that future meetings have more time allotted, which might have allowed for a wider range of students to be able to speak.
Ann Marie Karlberg, WCC’s Director for Assessment and Institutional Research, when asked about what the results of this meeting were let us know that the results were exactly what we would hope to hear!
“WCC had a successful visit!” explained Karlber. “WCC is meeting the standards and the results of the visit will be publicly released in August. Some general areas the evaluation team highlighted were WCC’s community characterized by genuine collegiality, collaborative engagement across campus, and a shared commitment to student success.”
Karlberg further explained that these meetings aren’t extremely frequent, but it’s important to remember that they want “students to attend because the forum provided a space for students to be open and honest about their experiences at WCC.”
So for now, students can sigh a breath of relief: their credits will continue transferring in and out.
