Balancing Academic Rights and Responsibilities

February 26, 2020

HEADLINES

Balancing Academic Rights and Responsibilities (University World News, February 15, 2020) “In my judgment, there are two core purposes of higher education in the United States, and perhaps elsewhere. They are education for democratic citizenship and the creation of knowledge to advance the human condition, which significantly involves developing and maintaining a democratic society. These purposes can be powerfully achieved through university-community partnerships.” This is an edited version of the author’s keynote to the CHEA International Quality Group Annual Meeting: A Global Quality Forum on 30 January, 2020.”

This College Was Accredited by a DeVos-Sanctioned Group. We Couldn’t Find Evidence of Students or Faculty (USA Today, February 15, 2020) “Reagan National University was supposed to be a place of higher learning, but it was unclear how it awarded degrees. By all appearances, at present, it has no students, no faculty and no classrooms. An agency meant to serve as a gatekeeper for federal money gave the university approval to operate anyway.”

Hampton Pharmacy Program Loses Accreditation (Inside Higher Ed, February 13, 2020) “The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education decided to revoke the accreditation for Hampton University’s pharmacy program at the council’s January meeting, The Daily Press reported. State law requires pharmacists to have a degree from an institution accredited by the council. Hampton, a historically black institution in Virginia, is planning to implement a teach-out plan, allowing current students to graduate from an accredited program.”

College Lobbying Declined After Earmarks (Inside Higher Ed, February13, 2020) “While lobbying Congress may have dropped off, efforts to influence the U.S. Department of Education and other agencies has continued, if not increased, at a time when agencies consider changes to policies around accreditation and how campuses deal with allegations of sexual assault and harassment.”

Radical Proposal Would Fold Florida Poly into UF, Merge New College with FSU (Florida Politics, February 11, 2020) “A plan put forward by the House Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee would hand the keys to Florida’s two smallest public universities over to the state’s flagship institutions. The boards of trustees for UF and Florida Poly would be required to send a merger application to the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, an accrediting body for universities throughout the southeastern U.S.”

Merger in Rural Minnesota (Inside Higher Ed, January 10, 2020) “A community college district in rural Minnesota plans to merge accreditation and other services to combat enrollment drops.”

Bill Would Increase Accreditation Transparency and Strengthen NACIQI (New America Blog, February 10, 2020) “The Accreditation Reform Act aims to strengthen the quality assurance system for colleges and universities.”