Year one complete, Atlantic Union College seeks accreditation
LANCASTER, MA – After a promising first year, the restarted Atlantic Union College can at least make one claim to potential accrediting agencies, its president proudly points out.
“We’re operating – we meet that first criteria,” said Avis Hendrickson, seated in her office inside the Haskell Hall administrative building on campus Thursday morning.
Now, Atlantic Union, which reopened last summer after closing in 2011 because of financial troubles and loss of accreditation, needs to show that it’s actually serving students. In order to become re-accredited with a national institution, the small Seventh-day Adventist college has to prove it has graduated 10 students and placed them in jobs relevant to their degrees, according to Ms. Hendrickson.
While it didn’t need it to reopen its doors a year ago, Atlantic Union wants to become accredited to enable its students to obtain federal financial aid, as well as legitimize their degrees from the institution in the job market. The college has just started reaching out to accrediting agencies, Ms. Hendrickson said, including the regional New England Association of Schools and Colleges and national Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools.
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