Colleges and universities are too often pressured by outside forces for political purposes, threatening institutional autonomy. Such has been the case at the University of South Carolina (USC), whose accreditor—the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC)—inappropriately interfered in its presidential search process. SACSCOC President Belle Wheelan claimed that Governor Henry McMaster had inappropriately influenced the USC governing board’s selection of a new president, despite the fact that Governor McMaster serves on the USC board. Ms. Wheelan’s action was so egregious that it has led the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity to form a subcommittee to study “the issue of accrediting agency oversight of governance and political influence.” ACTA wrote to the USC board to offer our support and resources on accreditation reform. This letter can be read in full below:
Dear Trustee:
Thank you for your service to the University of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) appreciates the dedication and sacrifices that board members make to ensure the integrity of higher learning institutions across the country.
We have been following closely the developments of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ (SACS) investigation of USC’s presidential search process. ACTA strongly believes SACS has overstepped beyond its role as a guarantor of educational quality and that it is intruding in what is strictly a matter of institutional governance.
ACTA has long recognized the systemic faults embedded in the higher education accreditation system. In Accreditation: A Call to Action for College Trustees (enclosed), we highlighted the ways in which federal law effectively allows accrediting agencies to interfere with trustee rights and discourage them from carrying forth their fiduciary duties.
Effective board leadership requires that trustees be active and engaged in their responsibilities.
To this end I am also including a copy of Governance for a New Era, a statement signed by 22 distinguished national higher education leaders led by City University of New York former board chair and Yale University president emeritus Benno Schmidt.
Warm Regards,
Michael Poliakoff
President
Gwenda Kaczor for The Chronicle Overhauling higher-education accreditation could be on the agenda for conservative lawmakers and policy mavens now that Donald J. Trump has been re-elected president.
Tremors from the election continue to ripple across the country, and the meltdown among the Democrats rages on. What is undeniable is that there is a real opportunity to make some much-needed reforms now.
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