SACS releases Peer Review Consistency Study

http://www.sacscoc.org/pdf/COC%20Research%20Project.pdf

The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) has released to the public its long awaited internal study of differences between Off-site and On-site review results for 156 institutions seeking reaffirmation during 2005-2006. The study included 85 Level I and II institutions, and 71 institutions at Levels III-VI.

Of those areas of non-compliance, faculty qualifications again ranked highest (88% non-compliant) during the initial phase, but were cited less frequently during the On-site reviews (36%). Level I institutions saw the most dramatic change, from 97% non-complaint faculty (Off-site) to only 12% at the final C&R phase (for both Level I and Level II). No explanation was offered for these findings, and no other area of institutional non-compliance (other than the evaluation of college presidents) saw such significant reversals as it made its way through the accreditation review process.

These findings are consistent with previous studies, and point to the persistent nature of the out-of-field faculty problem in the South, especially at the community college level. A Baylor University study covering Level I institutions from 1996-1999 found recommendations for faculty non-compliance to be the most frequent infraction, at 84.6% (55 out of 65 schools).

The last time SACS conducted a comprehensive study of the faculty non-compliance problem was in 1967, when all colleges and universities accredited were surveyed. Predictably, the results showed that 2-year colleges (n=141) had the biggest problem meeting minimum faculty standards, with a 66.3% in-field compliance rate, and 4-year colleges (n=327) had an 82.4% in-field faculty compliance rate.

Althought no comparable in-house study has been conducted since then, additional evidence of non-compliance comes from a 1970 study by Joe Daniel Walters, Indicators of Quality Obtained from an Analysis of Southern Association Accreditation Team Visits to Selected Public Junior Colleges (University of Florida, 1970, unpublished dissertation).

Based on 191 Southern Association accreditation reports covering 126 public junior colleges over 1960-1969, Walters found the “Academic preparation” requirements for faculty to have “the greatest frequency for any single recommendation.”

Significantly, “The qualifications of faculty members received the greatest emphasis in total recommendations.” Specifically, compliance with the following minimum quantitative standard was lacking: “Faculty members must have a graduate major – at least 18 hours – in academic teaching areas.” (page 78, Table 7 on page 79)

It is, therefore, not inaccurate to state that, to the extent that others have inquired into the levels of academic preparation for junior or community college faculty, they have *all* found that formal compliance with the ‘best practices’ faculty standard to be a major problem, if not the *biggest* compliance problem confronting those institutions accredited by the Southern Association.

The in-house report by SACS comes on the heels of the December 2006 decision by Southern Association delegates to remove faculty qualification requirements entirely from their newly revised accreditation manual, Principles of Accreditation. The reasons for this are unclear.

Glen McGhee, Director of the Florida Higher Education Accountability Project (FHEAP), was quite upset by the report.

"Folks reading this report should be asking: whatever happened to minimum faculty qualifications in the South? This is a very important study, because when it is viewed in context with other similar studies, shows how ineffectual the Southern Association has been at raising faculty standards across the board. Apparently, SACS as thrown in the towel and given up."

"We should notice that – after more than a century of unsuccessfully trying to implement faculty standards in the South, SACS has finally decided to call it quits."

"But this, of course, flies in the face of SACS’ gatekeeping responsibilities delegated to it by Congress," says McGhee.

"The out-of-field problem is acute in the South, especially here in Florida, due to the push for dual enrollment courses taught in the high schools for college credit, where it is very hard to find instructors that meet the best practices faculty standard that SACS has now abandoned. This should be a major concern to those responsible for quality education in Florida, as well as for the taxpaying public. We all experience the negative impacts of this, since the next generation of students will not have the assurance of quality education. It’s the students that are particularly hard hit by this kind of laxity."

"We take the common sense approach – that when the taxpayer pours billions of dollars into higher education, there must be the assurance of quality – and it is the gatekeepers such as SACS whose job it is, and they need to start doing it, instead of shirking their responsibilities."

REFERENCES

Van D. Miller, The Specific Criteria Cited Most Often by Visiting Committees to Level I Institutions, Baylor University dissertation, 2000), pages 47-48.

Eldridge Scales, Academic and Professional Preparation of Faculty in Higher Institutions of the South, Commission on Colleges, SACS, 1969. pages 2 and Table III.

SACS releases Peer Review Consistency Study (2007)

http://www.sacscoc.org/pdf/COC%20Research%20Project.pdf

Joe Daniel Walters, Indicators of Quality Obtained from an Analysis of Southern Association Accreditation Team Visits to Selected Public Junior Colleges (University of Florida, 1970, unpublished dissertation).