Updates from Marty Hittelman regarding Board of Governors and Accreditation proposals

Community College Consultation recommends removal of ACCJC in Board of Governors Regulations

On October 16, 2014, the Community College Consultation approved a recommendation that the Board of Governors remove the reference to ACCJC as the accrediting agency for community colleges in California and allow the Chancellor to appoint a new accrediting agency with the approval of the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors will consider the recommendation at its November 17, 2014 meeting at the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District.

The Consultation Council is chaired by the state chancellor and meets monthly to review and evaluate new policy proposals.

The proposed change to California Code Regulations., Title 5, Section 51016, would, if approved, read “Accreditation shall be determined only by an accrediting agency recommended by the Chancellor and approved by the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors shall approve only a regional accreditor recognized and approved by the U.S. Secretary of Education under the Higher Education Act of 1965 acting within the agency’s scope of recognition by the Secretary.”

Possible Accreditors:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA)

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) is an independent corporation and one of two commission members of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), which was founded in 1895 as one of six regional institutional accreditors in the United States. The Higher Learning Commission accredits, and thereby grants membership in the Commission and in the North Central Association, degree-granting post-secondary educational institutions in the North Central region. Currently, more than 1,000 institutions are affiliated with the Commission.
They are located in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska. New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities

The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) is an independent, non-profit membership organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the regional authority on educational quality and institutional effectiveness of higher education institutions in the seven-state Northwest region of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

CCSF Trustees Reinstatement?

The Board of Governors is also scheduled to hear a proposal by Chancellor Harris with respect to returning the elected CCSF Board of Trustees to power. In earlier action, the elected board was removed by the Board of Governors and a Special Trustee was appointed to run the college. This was done by Harris to appease the ACCJC in order to have CCSF continued as a college. This approach failed as ACCJC voted to remove the accreditation of CCSF anyway. The college would have closed in July 2014 except for the court case now pending in San Francisco filed by the City Attorney of San Francisco. The judge in the case has approved an injunction against ACCJC that ordered the ACCJC to not take any further action to close CCSF until after the conclusion of the trial.

The trial is set to begin in San Francisco Superior Court beginning October 27, 2014. The case is expected to last 5 days.