Is Gallaudet in Danger of Losing Its Accreditation?
By Shane Feldman on Fri 8 Dec 2006 |
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Amid the speculation about who will be chosen the next Interim President from the three finalists on Sunday this weekend, a critical piece of news has been overlooked by the Gallaudet community that warrants attention. Yesterday the Washington Post reported that the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) decision on Gallaudet University’s accreditation has been postponed.
My reaction: “Why is this important?”
So forgive me for delving into the details so we can understand the significance of this development.
The MSCHE is a “voluntary, non-governmental, peer-based membership association dedicated to educational excellence and improvement through peer-evaluation and accreditation.” Gallaudet University was first accredited by the MSCHE in 1957 and its accreditation was last renewed in 2001. All accredited colleges are re-assessed every ten years. Gallaudet is scheduled to be evaluated again in 2011.
In October, indisputably in response to the Gallaudet protests and Federal PART report, the MSCHE asked for details on plans to “assess and strengthen the effectiveness of institutional governance” and “further a climate that fosters respect among students, faculty, staff, and administration for a range of backgrounds, ideas, and perspectives”. This isn’t the first time that the MSCHE has raised the first issue; according to their website they expressed concerns about the University’s governance in their reaffirmation of Gallaudet’s accreditation in 2001 and again raised the issue in a 2003 review. Something has been wrong at Gallaudet for years.
I. King Jordan issued a public statement to the Gallaudet community about the MSCHE request stating, “I know you are aware of how important MSA accreditation is to the University and to our graduates as they seek employment and further education.” This clearly signifies the importance of accreditation to the integrity of Gallaudet’s degree and for graduates seeking higher education degrees.
In addition, the MSCHE says, “…the federal government requires that an institution be accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting organization in order for its students to be eligible to participate in the Student Assistance Programs in Title IV of the Higher Education Act, as amended (HEA).” In other words, without accreditation, Gallaudet students will be shafted when they look for financial aid.
“Ah, baloney!” you may say, “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Gallaudet‘ll never lose its accreditation.”
The MSCHE cautions against such overconfidence. On its website, the organization said, “yes, institutions can lose their accreditation”. Gallaudet should be concerned.
Last month the MSCHE acknowledged Gallaudet’s reply to its October request and continued to express serious concerns, reiterating its two concerns from its original report and added more. The MSCHE makes clear that it is now alarmed about (and I speculate what they may be thinking in parentheses):
(1) the effectiveness of shared governance including presidential search process,
(how can a presidential search process take only 30 days to complete?)
(2) nurturance of a climate that fosters respect among students, faculty, staff, and administration for a range of backgrounds, ideas, and perspectives,
(is an oppressive environment with audism/deafism/racism/anythingism prevalent on campus?)
(3) mission review and implementation of a comprehensive institutional strategic plan,
(where the heck is Gallaudet going from here?)
(4) implementation of a comprehensive enrollment management plan that addresses student recruitment, retention, graduation, and placement,
(how can Gallaudet find and woo high-caliber students who belong in college?)
(5) evidence of the academic rigor of the degrees offered,
(what can Gallaudet do to make sure that its degrees have value in the workforce) and
(6) procedures for ensuring that changes and issues affecting the institution are disclosed accurately and in a timely manner to the Commission.
(it looks like the protesters are not the only ones that the administration did not communicate with)
The MSCHE announced that it will send a small team to the campus by January to evaluate the institution and that Gallaudet is required to submit a report by March.
No doubt, whoever is selected Interim President of Gallaudet not only faces a daunting challenge in re-uniting the community and moving Gallaudet forward before the new permanent president is selected in two years. That person will also have to defend Gallaudet’s pseudo-track record, past decisions, and the current system which he (no doubt it will be a man) may have had nothing to do with. While many will cheer or jeer the new selection on Sunday at Elstad Auditorium, the risk of losing accreditation may not be getting the attention that it should.
To summarize…the fact that MSCHE hasn’t reaffirmed Gallaudet’s accreditation and will send a team to Kendall Green sends a very clear message:
Gallaudet is in danger.
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21 Comments
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While a graduate student at American University, I took a course in legal issues in higher education. We had a guest speaker from MSCHE to talk with our class about accreditation. This group visits colleges and universities and makes recommendations for change and improvement. They do not wish to appear punitive to any institution of higher education. I am not going to worry too much whether Gallaudet University looses its accreditation because it’s not going to happen, period. I am more concerned about how Gallaudet University could honestly articulate ASL in higher education to MSCHE since it continues to mumble the language and culture of the Deaf as part of its diversity and inclusiveness strategic plans.
Denial isn’t a river in Egypt.
If the MSCHE has been in touch with any university to express “serious concerns”, then that university had better act like their concerns are serious.
I don’t think a volunteer group would make a contact out of the blue. It would have been very inappropriate. Gallaudet University is due to make some reports to the Commission now.
Rob, that is very true what you say! The attitude is very important. If the accreditation agency senses an intention of cheating or hiding away crucial information, then it will take it as an attack aganst its prestige. This could be ugly. Of course, the work that has to be done is also important!
Carl S. the ASL dragon has a very bad habit of mocking at people he doesn’t like which is unprofessional therefore his telling us not to worry may be wrong.
He thought he knows it all, ah!
Carl,
It sounds like you find something wrong with the MSCHE and not Gallaudet.
Wouldn’t you want Gallaudet to find itself in compliance with these standards? Some of them are related to the protester’s greviances.
After reading the commission’s concerns I was actually left wondering if the administration and the Board of Trustees were TRYING to sabbotage the university. They didn’t bother to tell the commission about the bad DoE report?
My take on this: (1) the effectiveness of shared governance including presidential search process,
was actually that it meant, “How could you appoint someone so universally despised that she had already received two votes of no confidence from the faculty senate?”
I agree it’s unlikely that Gally will lose its accredidation. It will be put on probation first. But, IF it did, the university would very likely lose its federal funding. Pell Grant, VRS (or whatever it’s called in other states), etc isn’t going to pay to send a person to an unaccredited university. If Gallaudet lost its accredidation it would be a disaster of a magnitude that I don’t even want to think about.
who me?
Should the MSCHE be dissatisfied with the progress at Gallaudet, the next step would be a “warning”, according to this website. It is still a long way to losing accreditation, but it is a path that Gallaudet does not want to find itself going down.
Great post, Shane!
I appreciate your speculations in parentheses, which help me understand the nature of the MSCHE’s concerns.
This is probably a silly question, but don’t you think it’s a good thing that the MSCHE is investigating Gallaudet? Will they find out how corrupt President King Jordan has been and make him pay for it?
Juan,
Let’s assume that the MSCHE finds out that Gallaudet is corrupt and they “make him pay for it”, who do you think will be hurt, a retired IKJ or the Gallaudet community?
I think it would make IKJ look bad indeed but why should Davila have to defend Gallaudet himself when it wasn’t on his own watch?? I would rather “call back” IKJ to make himself explain himself.
Consequently, I have a follow up question here regarding this: Do you think IKJ retired soon because the insiders didn’t want Congress or other authorities to have him respond to the line of questioning? The timing of all of this makes me a bit (a bit) suspicious because now Davila is now pushed into this role and must defend the institution even when he wasn’t there when all of this crap was going on.
Makes one wonder, doesn’t it?
Let’s look at this from other perspective - I think it is about time for Gallaudet to wake up and take a hard look at some of their programs especially those professors who do not sign well. If MSCHE place Gallaudet on probation for Gallaudet to work on some specific areas, to me, it is a good news indeed. Acting on status quo will not help Gallaudet to raise their bars at all. Therefore, it is time for Gallaudet to revisit and raise the bars/standards.
Without doubt, this probably hurt Gallaudet but again, to me, nothing is more important than raising the expectations and standards at Gallaudet. From what I have seen, we need to work together, help and support Gallaudet more. And then they will be back even better!
Who say we have perfect world anyway?
Hey, Joey! It’s always great to view or read your comment from time to time!
Yeah, I agree. That’s what I thought. I think Gallaudet should not only take the pain, but also welcome it, perhaps even be grateful for it if it is going to be made more efficient. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
Agreed, Joey. Gallaudet has been too comfortable with their status as the “only higher education for the deaf in the world”. Some majors were merged into one department (History and Government Department”, or whittled into nothing, and criminal justice stuffed as a few modules in Sociology.
I hope there’s a way for a Deaf student who wants to meet academic goals without being restricted to what Gallaudet can offer other than a few consortium classes.
About professors and sign language capacity. How can hearing professors, especially those qualified to teach but has a shaky grasp in ASL? If there’s no available professor to teach classes because his contract expired from not improving ASL use? Other professors with ASL capacity deaf and hearing would have to take on additional classes with help from instructors. Some would have to extend their retirements. More factors to think about as well. I don’t envy the new person coming onboard but definitely wish the best of luck.
PS - i took advantage of Gally’s lax English and I had to “shape up” for graduate school where people took their studies more seriously.
‘99.
kaybee -
You just identified one problem that Gallaudet needs to face.
You wrote: “About professors and sign language capacity. How can hearing professors, especially those qualified to teach but has a shaky grasp in ASL? If there’s no available professor to teach classes because his contract expired from not improving ASL use? Other professors with ASL capacity deaf and hearing would have to take on additional classes with help from instructors. Some would have to extend their retirements. More factors to think about as well. I don’t envy the new person coming onboard but definitely wish the best of luck.”
It is time to raise the bars once again. Gallaudet needs to do more to promote the golden opportunity to work at Gallaudet University. The more pride and commitment Gallaudet do to ASL, more people will FLOW through Gallaudet! And that means the pool of applicants will grow. That also means the usage of ASL will rise and the accessibility issue will be better!
It is a simple formula of WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN situation for Gallaudet. We need to go out and support Gallaudet and raise the bars!
Joey, ‘89
Joey,
I agree, Gallaudet needs to beef up the sign language skills of professors; however, do you think that the MSCHE is concerned about that?
It appears that they are more concerned about larger issues than the signing skills of Gallaudet professors. Yet making improvements on a higher level (such as governance) could “trickle down” and influence the signing skills of Gallaudet professors.
Sometimes a “parental slap” on our face may help us to wake up to the reality. By this I mean a slap, which is real, but there is a caring parent behind it who wants us to improve ourselves.
Accountability is an issue for Gallaudet. Too many students are getting degrees that they did not earn. When your VR stops and it is time to graduate and that notion needs to be removed.
Most graduate schools are concerned because of rumors that are circulating about students who graduated from Gallaudet are not what they expect.
If Gallaudet can change to become a university that attracts quality students and in time the rumors will cease. Gallaudet does not need “warm bodies” to be admitted because of finances.
You’re right about accountability for not only Gallaudet as an institution but also professors. While a graduate student at American University, I was unable to identify myself with a professor influencing my academic discourse. Yes, there were several undergraduate professors I appreciated but they did not stand out very well in my graduate studies. In the course named College Teaching, I was asked to identify my undergraduate professor who offered me three learning stages: introduction of material, process of information, and self-mastery of subject matter. I was dumbstruck before I finally managed to explain that the third stage is often accomplished in written exams (I was test smart!) BUT never in ASL the language I grew up with. However, I was unable to identify any of my undergraduate professors in this particular course. Today I do have some affections especially for some Deaf professors and began to realize that they were there for the future of all the Deaf.
Shane–
Well written article!
I *KNEW* it was a matter of time before Gallaudet’s accreditation would be placed at risk. What a timing this is!
In response to your first question in parentheses:
I find it unbelievable that it would take only 30 days to find a president for the university. It shows me (and probably others such as MSCHE) that the university is looking FAST to find a replacement president. It normally takes a university MUCH longer to find a very well QUALIFIED candidate to lead the university to the forefront, assuming that president is going to be in that position for a VERY long time (King was in the position for a heck of a long time!).
To your second question: Has there been a formal federal or privately sponsored study done to find any instances of audism, oralism, yadda yadda on Gallaudet campus to warrant an action plan to mitigate this problem at all? If none was commissioned, then how does one KNOW if there is indeed such a problem on campus? Or is it cliques of people crying up an imaginary problem?
Response to fourth question: You and I know VERY well that RIT/NTID is doing a bang up job in recruiting deaf students away from Gallaudet in part because of RIT/NTID’s strong technology program. Today, many high paying jobs are going to those that have strong technology-based degrees. Look at the numbers and look at the differences in both university’s backgrounds. Gallaudet isn’t, by far, a technology-based university. They are MORE of a traditional liberal arts university like Columbia University. Many deaf students today that I speak with are MORE interested in technology than with liberal arts as many of them grew up on technology and the internet. They were immersed in it from the day they were born (if you don’t understand what Im saying here, then you are lost indeed)!
Secondly, many more students today are mainstreamed (and getting better education now than ever before; and additionally, enrollment at many deaf institutions today have been declining seriously for some time now) and are looking forward to attending much more prestigious unversities today since they were comfortable using interpreters in their mainstreamed classes.
In short, they aren’t just content with attending Gallaudet getting a substandard education. They want more than that; they want a degree that has some serious value to it.
With the accreditation crisis at hand here, you can bet big bucks here that the value of a Gallaudet degree has indeed declined. Can someone tell us WHY for real that the graduation rate at Gallaudet University is at an all-time low? That should raise every kid’s parents’ eyebrows when they see this fact. I wouldn’t dare to send my own children to Gallaudet with that fact in my face. Deaf culture be damned. What really counts here is the employment picture here. Deaf culture isn’t going to help the employment picture for my kid, its the value of the degree. Without that, then my kid is going to be unemployed for a long while–prompting the need to get onto SSDI. Does the public want that? Do I want that for my kid–I don’t think so! What a morale buster that would be.
Response to the fifth question: Very good question indeed and it really needs to be looked at. The lumping together of degrees in one department, the abolishing of degrees in another, and so on just is insane and stupid. It only raises red flags to MSCHE because that shows them that Gallaudet is either eliminating the degree programs due to declining interest in that degree program or due to lack of funding to hire professors in that field or lack of qualified professors to teach that field, and so on. Gallaudet needs to really hammer out a very solid degree-granting program because its critical to their success in the future and further enhances the degrees’ value in the workforce.
Already, I am seeing that many students are frustrated when they first step into Gallaudet with the intention to major in a a particular field only to find out a year or more later that its been abolished or downgraded or merged with an other irrelevant major that has no bearing on their current major. They would have no choice but to get their education elsewhere or even cross-enroll at another consortium member nearby Gallaudet. Frustrating indeed and its pointless to cut and slash meaninglessly. No need for Gallaudet to be like “Chainsaw Al” Dunlop who did that at Sunbeam many years ago. In fact, he destroyed two companies doing just that strategy.
I, honestly, think that Gallaudet needs to strengthen their academic program by adding a whole new field of degrees based in technology ala RIT/NTID if they want to seriously compete for student bodies away from RIT/NTID. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out but if Gallaudet wants to stay purely a liberal arts school, its going to continue to struggle to maintain enrollment numbers. Its a fact of life, I surmise here. I could be proven wrong–it’ll take time to find out.
I honestly think that if Gallaudet gets their first warning from MSCHE, many professors are going to probably (if may be a far-fetched idea but it COULD happen) jump ship to another university because not a lot of professors are going to want to stay at a university that stands to lose their accreditation. Many professors would be alarmed knowing that their careers are going to be in peril from this fiasco.
Indeed, Gallaudet is in danger! It takes a strong, wise, and capable leader to steer Gallaudet away from the waterfall over the cliff to a more safe and strong ground.
I know it will take years to strengthen Gallaudet’s academic program; its not an overnight thing here.
[…] In the video, we learn that his first priority is to focus on the Middle States Association accreditation. See my prior Blog on this topic “Is Gallaudet in Danger of Losing Its Accreditation?” to understand the significance of this problem. […]