SIU SDM Receives CODA Full Accreditation
Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine has received a full accreditation report from the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA), which completed its site visit to the Alton campus in November 2019.
“Full accreditation with no reporting requirements is the best possible report,” said SDM Dean Bruce Rotter, DMD, who noted that the School has been continuously accredited since the mid-1970s. “We are grateful for our wonderfully talented faculty and staff, and their dedication to the School.
“There is so much time and effort put into preparing materials for the site visit and meeting with the site visit team. Meanwhile, everyone kept normal School operations functioning smoothly while the site visit occurred.”
CODA accredits dental schools and programs, including advanced dental education programs and allied dental education programs in the U.S. The commission functions independently and autonomously in matters of developing and approving accreditation standards, making accreditation decisions on educational programs, and developing and approving procedures that are used in the accreditation process.
All accredited programs receive a follow-up site review every seven years. The SDM last received a CODA site visit in 2012.
The site visit evaluation’s purpose is to obtain in-depth information concerning all administrative and educational aspects of a program. The site visit permits a team of CODA-appointed peers to assess a program’s compliance with the accreditation standards and with its own stated goals and objectives. The site visit verifies and supplements the information contained in the comprehensive self-study document completed by the institution. Every effort is made to review all existing dental and dental-related programs in an institution at the same time.
CODA was established in 1975 and is nationally recognized by the United States Department of Education (USDE) as the sole agency to accredit dental and dental-related education programs conducted at the post-secondary level. CODA’s mission is to serve the oral healthcare needs of the public through the development and administration of standards that foster continuous quality improvement of dental and dental-related educational programs.
