Education Department earns top marks in accreditation process

The Rockhurst Department of Education has once again been granted full accreditation by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). This designation means the department has met a series of stringent criteria required of a school providing the coursework to qualify teachers for certification from the state of Missouri. This certification is required to teach in the state’s school system. Rockhurst met all eight of the standards for reaccreditation.

The accreditation process is very involved and includes self-study documents – where the department provide its own documentation about its coursework – a second validation for those documents, and finally a five-day site visit by DESE reviewers. At the end of that process, DESE accredited Rockhurst for a seven-year cycle, the maximum about of time allowed for an accreditation cycle.

“This is a stellar achievement for the education department,” says Donna Calvert, Ph. D., interim dean for the School of Graduate and Professional Studies. “Special thanks go to Mary Pat Shelledy, Ed.S., former interim chair of the department of education, for her planning and leadership; Pat Lucido, Ph.D., current chair, for her contributions; and to Mary Cary, the department secretary. This would not have been achieved without their dedication and efforts in the process.”