Prescott, Arizona — With plans of becoming a teacher, Yavapai College’s Director of Academic Initiatives Megan Crossfield obtained a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and then secured a master’s in education with an emphasis in counseling and student personnel. She’s in the final stages of pursuing a doctorate in higher education leadership, which she hopes to complete in January or February.

Crossfield has been working in the field of higher education since approximately 2013, all at community colleges.

“I love working in community college because it's open access,” Crossfield said. “If there's any student, anyone that wants to further their education, gain additional skills, get promoted at a job, advance, make life changes, anything really, and it's accessible to them, then there's no reason for a student to not be able to come to a community college.”

Starting at Yavapai College in October 2021 as the Manager of Academic Initiatives, Crossfield oversaw the college’s open educational resources (OER) initiative and managed a $2 million open textbook pilot grant—a federal grant through the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) funds.

In May 2025, Crossfield was promoted to Director of Academic Initiatives and took on the critical role of Accreditation Liaison Officer (ALO). This represents one of the most important functions at Yavapai College, as Crossfield is responsible for ensuring compliance with state, regional and national policies, procedures, and accreditation standards.

“Megan has done a terrific job during her time with Yavapai College as evidenced by the successful steps we’ve undertaken as an institution with regard to adhering to the accrediting processes under her guidance,” said Yavapai College Acting President Dr. Doug Berry. “A great example is when the college requested approval for our optimized 92-credit Bachelor of Applied Science in Business degree, which can be completed in three years, and we were the first community college in the nation to go through that rigorous process and offer an optimized bachelor's degree.”

Yavapai College is accredited on a ten-year basis by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). Accreditation verifies that the college meets established standards of quality and remains engaged in continuous improvement.

Accreditation is a comprehensive review of the college’s mission, educational quality, institutional effectiveness, integrity, resources, and commitment to improvement. Yavapai College provides evidence demonstrating how it fulfills the HLC’s accreditation criteria and assumed practices.

“The HLC is important because accreditation is looking at continuous improvement,” Crossfield said. “It's making sure that we have methods and philosophies and processes in place for us to look at what we're doing and how can we improve, because education should always be improving.”

Crossfield explained that the HLC, by ensuring that Yavapai College has processes in place for continuous improvement, is also ensuring that what the college offers is high quality.

“We have ways of reviewing and ensuring that what we're doing is quality and meeting the needs of our students,” Crossfield said. “Because of those two pieces, continuous improvement and ensuring quality, it allows us to have access to federal financial aid. Students can apply for federal financial aid to pay for education. If we don't have accreditation, then there's not access to that type of aid.”

Being an accredited institution also signals credibility to employers or other institutions to which students may be transferring, Crossfield said.

“For example, by getting an associate's degree at Yavapai College as an accredited institution, students can transfer to another accredited institution and that institution recognizes the accreditation, allowing students to transfer their courses or their credits.”

HLC is an independent agency, founded in 1895. They accredit degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States. HLC is an institutional accreditor, accrediting the institution as a whole.

Yavapai College is just finishing its year three and will be entering year four of the 10-year accreditation cycle. Crossfield cites a very successful multi-location visit this past year—the HLC dispatched a peer reviewer to look at some of the college’s other locations beyond just the Prescott campus.

Now that the college is about to enter year four of the accreditation cycle, it’s coming up on its assurance review, Crossfield said. It's a mid-cycle review where Yavapai College prepares an assurance review, which is an argument—a narrative in addition to evidence to demonstrate that the college is meeting the core criteria.

“That evidence can constitute a website, a policy, a process, a handbook, emails, memos, anything that can substantiate and show that we have it, we use it, and that we know it's effective, or we have a process to assess whether it's effective.”

She cites as an example that four years ago Yavapai College wrote about and discussed the then-new College Council as its participatory governance. Now that the college is undertaking its mid-cycle review, the peer reviewers will expect the college to talk about the College Council and demonstrate how it's effective.

Because her role as Accreditation Liaison Officer brings her into contact with so many different people and programs across Yavapai College, she cites the open and collaborative culture of the institution as not only an element that helps her do her job successfully, but also as one that keeps her here.

“It’s a great place to work. The people here work really well together. There are a lot of open doors and willingness to support, which has been a really great experience over the past five years.

Yavapai College operates seven campuses and centers throughout Yavapai County and offers over 100 degrees and certificates, six baccalaureate degrees, student and community services, and cultural events and activities. To learn more about Yavapai College, visit www.yc.edu.