Gallaudet University has been taken off probation by its accreditor, months before the action was expected.

Gallaudet, the nation’s only liberal-arts institution for the deaf, was placed on probation in July after it was found to be out of compliance with eight of the 14 standards of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Higher Education. An accreditation team visited the campus in October and decided that the institution had moved into compliance on one additional standard.

Following the visit, the university’s president, Robert R. Davila, issued a letter to the university that said Gallaudet still had “a long way to go to fully resolve all concerns of the commission.”

Therefore, the vote to remove Gallaudet from probation caught even the university by surprise. “While well deserved, this was a decision we didn’t expect until the spring of 2008,” Mr. Davila wrote Thursday in a statement to the university. “This decision reflects a community, including the Board of Trustees, faculty, teachers, staff, students, and alumni, that has come together and exceeded all expectations, internal and external.”

An official at the accrediting agency confirmed the action to The Washington Post, but the commission issued no further explanation of its action. —Martin Van Der Werf