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Appropriate Panelist Behavior

1. Conduct yourself professionally. Throughout your appointment as a member of an External Review Panel, remember that you are representing your institution, the Committee on Accreditation, and the American Library Association. Remember that, to many whom you meet, you embody our profession.
    
2. Think about any contact with those associated with the program you're reviewing. From the time you're named as a panel member until COA has rendered its decision to the program, think carefully about any formal or informal contact with any administrators, faculty or students from the program. When in doubt about pending contact, ask your panel chair what is appropriate.
    
3. Your panel chair is the official contact. Remember that any contact with the program is through your panel chair, unless your chair has given you specific directions to contact someone in the program (e.g., to make a plane reservation).
    
4. Do not make pronouncements for COA. The Committee on Accreditation makes the recommendations; the panel does not. Don't make any pronouncements. Do talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the program.
    
5. Remember that the process is confidential. Do not discuss the details of the program presentation and the visit. After the process is over, it's fine to make factual statements about the program (e.g. the number of students it has). It is not appropriate to talk about who said what about whom.
    
6. Leave your personal agendas behind. For example, if you're a practitioner who is an adjunct faculty member in one program, do not impose on the program you're reviewing what you would like your home program to be.
    
7. Understand that the process is not prescriptive. You are measuring the program against its own mission, goals, and objectives. You are providing a quality assessment to help strengthen the program you are reviewing.