“ First, we have to show that our mission statement guides our decisions,” she said.“ Second, we have to act with ethics and integrity. The third and fourth criteria deal with teaching: Are our students learning? Do they have good outcomes? Are they able to match to residencies? The fifth criterion deals with planning and institutional resources.”
Bucklew said the school’ s high performance prompted the commission to allow WVSOM to choose an open pathway for its next accreditation cycle. Institutions permitted to gain reaccreditation through the open pathway are considered to have few accreditation concerns, more financial stability, and a stronger culture of compliance.
“ The open pathway requires an institution to determine a strategic initiative and report the progress of that initiative to the HLC. The timing is good because we’ re already in the process of doing that as part of our strategic planning,” Bucklew said.
Machelle Linsenmeyer, EdD, WVSOM’ s assistant vice president for institutional effectiveness and academic resources, said the successful reaccreditation will lay a foundation for the school’ s continued growth.
“ Accreditation shows that we are a school with processes in place and continuous quality improvement projects that meet the standards not only of our programmatic accreditor but of an institutional accreditor,” Linsenmeyer said.“ We’ re thrilled that we got the highest recommendation, and we now have the opportunity to move forward with the open pathway, which is important for the expansions we want to make for new opportunities at WVSOM.”
The programmatic accreditor for the school’ s Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program is the American Osteopathic Association’ s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation. WVSOM has continued accreditation status for the program through academic year 2029-30.
Linsenmeyer noted that Bucklew’ s predecessor at WVSOM, Mary Norris, PhD, who retired in early 2025, was instrumental in the accreditation process.
“ Dr. Norris worked closely with the on-site teams who wrote the assurance arguments and collected supporting evidence, was the editor for the final report, and oversaw the logistics of the site team visit including close communication with site visitors throughout the process,” she said.“ I’ m thankful to her, our teams, and everyone at WVSOM for successfully navigating this process.”
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West Virginia Medical Journal • September 2025 • 29