Forums with Academic Quality Improvement Program representatives at Seward County Community College/ Area Technical School for an accrediation survey allowed people to ask questions directly to the AQIP representatives. Dennis Shaw of Des Moines Area Community College and Brenda Sanchez of Independence Community College are the two AQIP representatives who toured campus and met with faculty, committees, students and community figures. Some of the people that were in attendance at a forum Monday were high school principals, superintendents, business members, alumni of SCCC/ATS and faculty. The representatives interacted with the people in attendance by allowing them to bring up their concerns and thoughts, concerning the college. A topic that was throughly discussed was the merger of the college and the technical school. Community involvement by SCCC/ATS was discussed and analyzed. The responses were positive on most of the issues that were brought up during the meeting. On Monday, the representatives also had a lunch meeting with a group of students. The AQIP representatives remained on campus on Tuesday, to tour the Technical School campus and to talk to staff members. In the faculty and staff meeting, the representatives received input and talked to the attendees about the AQIP checkup. In the meeting, representative Shaw talked to the faculty and staff in attendance about how successful the visitation was. “If a campus adopts the mind set that ‘we’re always going to improve,’ it’s an exciting thing,” Shaw said. The merger of the college and the technical school was also discussed in that meeting. “The community really sees the value of the college,” Shaw said about how the college is involved with local schools, business and other colleges. The representatives were satisfied with the overall improvement at SCCC/ATS. “I’d like to say, we have seen quality improvement here,” Sanchez said. The representatives will send a report to the Higher Learning Commission. Seward will know the results of the report by November.