Any decline in the accreditation standards of American higher education is a matter of grave concern, not only to students and taxpayers, but to lawmakers and educational policy operatives as well. For this reason, the decade long decline in the Southern Association’s faculty competency standards is worth special attention, not just as a “quality of education” issue, but as a consumer protection concern too.

 

Our starting point will be the Southern Association’s 1998 Criteria for Accreditation, a publication required by Congress, which accreditors must have in order to be recognized by the US Secretary of Education. Institutions that are accredited by an accreditor that lacks the Secretary’s recognition would not be eligible for access to Federal Title IV student loan guarantees or financial aid. The Criteria for Accreditation contains standards used by the Southern Association to accredit its institutions, and has recently been updated. It is the three-step process of modifying the faculty qualification standards to which we turn now. There are perhaps a dozen or more specific standards pertaining to faculty qualifications for those instructors teaching and oversight at the community college level in the 1998 Criteria for Accreditation. The minimum faculty standards that are obligatory are clearly designated by the “must” statements in which they appear, and are differentiated by less stringent standards, as indicated by “should” or “may” statements.

 

For example, “Institutions must ensure that each faculty member employed is proficient in oral and written communication in the language in which assigned courses will be taught. (Sec 4.8.1)

 

According to Section 4.2.3 of Criteria for Accreditation:

“For each major in a degree program, the institution must assign responsibility for program coordination, as well as for curriculum development and review, to persons academically qualified in the field. At least one full-time faculty member with appropriate credentials, as defined in Sec. 4.8.2 must have primary teaching assignment in the major. In those degree programs for which the institution does not identify a major, the above requirements apply to a curricular area or a concentration.” (page 28)

Section 4.8.2 is rather specific in its demands:
“Both full-time and part-time faculty must meet the following criteria for academic and professional preparation.”

 

Sec. 4.8.2.1 applies to those teaching in Associate degree programs, such as are typically found at a community college, where faculty “must have completed at least 18 graduate semester hours in the teaching discipline and hold at least a master’s degree with major in the teaching discipline, or hold the minimum of a master’s degree with a major in the teaching discipline. In exceptional cases, outstanding professional experience and demonstrated contributions to the teaching discipline may be presented in lieu of formal academic preparation in the above areas. Such cases must be justified by the institution on an individual basis.” (page 43)

 

“It is the responsibility of the institution to keep on file for all full-time and part-time faculty members documentation of academic preparation, such as official transcripts and, if appropriate for demonstrating competency, official documentation of professional and work experience, technical and performance competency, records of publications, certifications and other qualifications. … In all cases, faculty members must have special competence in the fields in which they teach.” (4.8.2.1, page 44)

 

Furthermore, “Faculty members who teach basic computational and communication skills in non-degree occupational programs must have a baccalaureate degree and, ideally, should have work or other experience which helps them relate skills to the occupational field.”

 

Thus, although certain “exceptional cases” are permitted, these are hedged in by a number of stringent obligatory standards in the Criteria for Accreditation, and pertain to both full-time and part-time faculty.

 

Of special importance is this particular obligatory accreditation standard:
“Institutions which enter into programmatic partnerships with secondary schools which result in the award of college credit, such as technical and dual enrollment programs, must ensure that the credit awarded is at the collegiate level and is in compliance with the Criteria and with Section IV in particular. Partnerships must be evaluated regularly by the participating institution of higher education. The participating institution must assume full responsibility for the academic quality and integrity of partnerships as measured by the Criteria.” (4.2.3, page 29. See Note 1. below.)

 

The second step in the chronology regarding faculty qualification standards is described in this way by Belle Wheelan, the head of SACS Commission on Colleges.

When the Commission approved the move from the Criteria for Accreditation to the Principles of Accreditation, it removed the mandate that a faculty member meet the credential requirements of 18 graduate hours and a master’s degree and other credentials specified for teaching at the various degree levels. Instead, those former credential requirements were reclassified as “guidelines” … . While many institutions have chose[n] to continue to rely on the credentials outlined in the guidelines, the Commission no longer requires it. (Source: SACS Proceedings, Spring 2006, Vol. 56, Number 2, page 5, with emphasis in the original. Available online.)

 

Thus she explains her agency’s retreat from mandating minimum faculty standards for the institutions that SACS accredits. The point I am making is that the SACS’ membership has effectively diluted or degraded what were formerly mandatory minimum faculty standards in the Criteria for Accreditation by first declassifying them in the transition to the Principles of Accreditation (2001) where they have been reduced to non-obligatory guidelines. While these faculty standards remain “best practices,” they can no longer be enforced as previously.

 

The third and last step in this process involves removing them entirely from the Principles of Accreditation and relegating the “best practices” to the institutional Resource Manual as a voluntary guideline by the SACS vote of December 2006, where they now remain.

 

This describes an almost ten-year long process of intentionally reducing what were formerly “mandatory” faculty preparation standards, to what are now voluntary guidelines. It is this process that I am calling ‘SACS decade-long slide into mediocrity.’

 

In addition, this history of the demotion or down-grading of SACS’ faculty “best practices” is part of the reason “why there's a perception among [US DOE] staff that we're no longer concerned about compliance. Believe me, we are.”

 

These are the words of Belle Wheelan before the Federal committee charged with regulating the accrediting agencies. “We still will look at faculty credentials” said Dr. Wheelan, “We still look at finance. ... We have even found from our analysis of the off-site committee, the one that really digs down and looks at compliance, that it is still finances and faculty credentials for which most institutions have the difficulty [sic].” (Transcript of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) meeting of June 5, 2006. Volume I transcript, page 52)

 

But as described above, anyone reviewing the history of SACS’ easing of faculty qualifications, SACS’ Peer Review Internal Study (2007), and looking at the Dec 2006 member decision regarding the relegation of faculty “best practices” to the Resource Manual, would come to another conclusion. And this conclusion is that SACS has indeed “thrown in the towel and quit trying” to influence the quality of faculty at the institutions it accredits.

This is not just my interpretation, but it is also apparently the interpretation of the US DOE staff when they reviewed SACS in 2006: "... [SACS is] so thrilled with their new system that it may be a little hard to draw it back a little bit and say, you know, even though you love this new system where you focus on your Quality Enhancement Plan -- that there really are -- accreditation is about meeting basic minimal standards, and they're going to need to ensure that those basic standards are being examined by the institutions, and that the agency is basing its decisions on that. And that is really a major -- that's really probably a more difficult issue than it appears to be because the culture now is they're just so enamored by this focus away from compliance and this focus on what Department staff has found ... " (AAEU Staff, page 44 of NACIQI June 5, 2006 transcript)

 

April 2, 2007

 

Glen S. McGhee, Dir.,
FHEAP

 

Note 1. FHEAP’s ongoing investigation into dual enrollment programs across the state of Florida, and in other states of the South, has shown that the application of accreditation standards to dual enrollment programs has been haphazard at best. See, FHEAP Blog and web links, “Dual Enrollment Overhaul in Florida?” March 5^th, 2007.

 

 

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