Consequences of losing accreditation

Chabot’s faculty and staff are working hard to make sure that Chabot does not lose its accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. The Accreditation Self-Study Committee has already submitted the self-study report to the district.

Now Chabot will wait for the study to be sent to WASC and for the accreditation committee to visit the campus in October. While the faculty and Self-Study Committee at Chabot seem confident that the college will pass, there are serious consequences if it doesn’t.

Right now, there are two local community colleges that are feeling those consequences: Diablo Valley College and Solano Community College. Both of these schools have been placed on the status of “show cause.”

“That’s just one-step above having the worst ranking you can get,” said Jean Dickinson, an instructor at DVC, via e-mail. “Which is to have your accreditation taken away.”

One junior college in California, Compton Community College, has had its accreditation pulled altogether. In July 2005, Compton’s accreditation was pulled and the state chancellor’s office took over the school.

Since August of 2006, Compton has been absorbed into the El Camino Community College district and is now a satellite campus.

DVC’s report as to why their accreditation should not be pulled is due to the committee in October. The faculty and staff have been working very hard to correct the issues that were found by the committee in their review.

“The surprise was ‘show cause,’” said Chrisanne Knox, director of Marketing and Communications for DVC. “Not that these things need to be done.”

Some of the things that the accreditation committee found were issues that had not been addressed since 2002, including Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) and updating many of its courses. DVC knew that these issues needed to be fixed, however they had other priorities recently in correcting the problems that led to the grade-changing scandal reported in the Contra Costa Times last year.

“On a limited budget, with limited resources, we can’t do everything,” said Knox. Unfortunately, if they want to stay accredited, they are going to have to do just that.

Solano Community College is in the same boat with DVC and they have even been required to create and publish a closure plan. The report details what will happen in the event that the college is not reaccredited. According to Dickinson, a closure plan has not been required for DVC, most likely because they are part of a district.

“If DVC loses its accreditation, it could become a satellite campus of one of the other two colleges in the district, Los Medanos or Contra Costa, with the likelihood being the former,” said Dickinson.

While there could be major consequences in the future, DVC Marketing Director Knox says she really isn’t currently seeing any negative ones as a result of the status change. She says enrollment has not declined and even morale among faculty remains high. “Everyone has too much to do to be down in the dumps,” she said.

That same sentiment is not shared at Chabot. According to Chad Mark Glen, the chair of the mass communications department and one of the co-chairs of Chabot’s accreditation self-study, if the school were to lose its accreditation it would be demoralizing for the faculty and staff.

“Every step of the way, as we went through the accreditation process it was about ‘how do we better serve the students?’” said Glen. Without being accredited, Chabot can’t serve its students in anyway.

If it is not reaccredited, Chabot cannot issue degrees and its credits would not be transferable to other schools.

The accreditation self-study and other recent reports regarding accreditation for each of the schools can be found on their Web sites.