1
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION
NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON INSTITUTIONAL
QUALITY AND INTEGRITY
(NACIQI)
June 23, 2016
Double Tree by Hilton Hotel
Washington Ballroom
Washington DC - Crystal City
300 Army Navy Drive
Arlington, VA 22202
Table of Contents
Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) 7
P R O C E E D I N G S
(8:34 a.m.)
MS. PHILLIPS: Good morning and welcome to the second day of the June meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. I’m Susan Phillips the Chair of the Committee welcoming you here today. We are going to start with introductions and procedures. One quick note to put on the record from yesterday -- there was a recusal on the American Bar Association Frank Wu. We didn’t put it on the record and I wanted to make sure that was clear. He did not participate in the vote in that matter.
This morning we wanted to start with introductions of the Committee. We will start I think on the reverse side with Kathleen if you could introduce yourself and your affiliation.
MS. ALIOTO: Kathleen Sullivan Alioto from Boston, San Francisco and New York.
MR. LEBLANC: Paul LeBlanc, Southern New Hampshire University.
MS. NEAL: Anne Neal the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
MR. O’DONNELL: Rick O’Donnell with Skills Fund.
MR. WU: Frank Wu of University of California Hastings College of Law.
MR. BOEHME: Simon Boehme.
MR. BOUNDS: Herman Bounds, Department of Education, Director of the Accreditation Group.
MS. HONG: Good morning Jennifer Hong, Executive Director and Designated Federal Official on the Committee.
MR. KEISER: Art Keiser, Chancellor at Keiser University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
MR. ROTHKOPF: Arthur Rothkopf, President Emeritus, Lafayette College.
MS. MORGAN: Sally Morgan, Office of General Counsel, Department of Education.
MS. MANGOLD: Donna Mangold, Office of General Counsel.
MR. STAPLES: Cam Staples, New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
MR. WOLFF: Ralph Wolff, former President of WASC, currently just an independent consultant.
MR. BROWN: Hank Brown, President Emeritus of the University of Colorado.
MR. ZARAGOZA: Federico Zaragoza, Vice-Chancellor of Economic and Workforce Development, Alamo Colleges.
MS. DERLIN: Bobbie Derlin, Associate Provost Emeritus, New Mexico State University.
MS. DERBY: Jill Derby, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.
MS. PHILLIPS: Thank you all and welcome. In particular thanks also to the Department staff who have been working to prepare for this meeting -- to just begin our work today I want to repeat a bit of the introduction in case those in the audience were not here yesterday. We have three different parts of our Agency Review Agenda this meeting. For the part that we enter this morning we had announced our plans to pilot a more systematic approach to considering a student achievement and other outcome and performance metrics in the hearings of agencies that come before us for consideration of the Petition for Recognition Renewal.
The approach that we are piloting at this meeting seeks to bring information about Agency standards and practices about student achievement into greater focus in our deliberations at Agency recognition and into our policy development discussions. It also draws in more information available like newly available in the score card and underscores the important role that recognized agencies play in insuring improvement among institutions they accredit that are at risk of falling out of compliance with Agency standards.
There are four focuses to this pilot 1: General Performance and outcomes of the institution that you agency accredits; 2: Decision activities of and data gathered by the Agency; 3: Standards and practices with regard to student achievement and 4: Agency activities in improving institutional and program quality.
Questions about the first three of these will be included in the review process prior to formal action and the last will be included after formal action is complete if it hadn’t already been addressed. So the review procedures that we begin this morning will include as always the Primary Readers introducing the Agency application, Department staff providing a briefing, questions for the Department staff by the Readers or members of the Committee, opportunity for the Agency to respond and questions of the Agency, particularly those pilot questions, third party comments, response to the third party comments and finally this discussion and vote and the final set of project questions. You will see me keeping on track on those issues because today is a day when we have considerable third party comment I will do the introductions for that as we come up of the directions of three minutes and how to use your mic and so forth.
ACCREDITING COUNCIL FOR INDEPENDENT COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS (ACICS)
So without further ado we are going to start up with our announced agenda for today. We are a bit behind two agencies will be coming up a little later today instead of yesterday afternoon but we will start this morning with Renewal of Recognition Petition for the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools otherwise known as ACICS.
The Primary Readers for his are Ralph Wolff and Frank Wu. Department staff is led by Steve Porcelli and others have participated as well. So with that let me ask if there are any recusals seeing none the Readers will please introduce the Agency Petition is that going to be Ralph?
MR. WOLFF: I guess that’s me. Good morning. I would like to give an introduction to ACICS. It was founded in 1912 so it is over 100 years old. It was granted initial recognition in 1956. In 1985 its scope was expanded to beyond associate bachelor’s degrees to master’s degrees.
In 2006 its scope was expanded for distance education. Its last full review was in 2011 and there were 12 areas of non-compliance renewed for 12 months and the proposed expansion of scope to include doctoral degrees was denied. In those 12 areas of non-compliance were several of the areas that are before us today. I will say that as far as I could tell in reading the transcript from 2011 not with the degree of severity that is reflected in the staff report before us today.
ACICS is a national institutional accrediting body for schools and colleges offering certificates and diplomas and as I said for associate bachelors and master’s degrees. It has 245 institutions, 674 additional locations, approximately 800,000 students served by its institutions.
According to the score card at the undergraduate level 74% are Pell students and 55% of the undergraduate students are under-represented students of color, thank you.
MS. PHILLIPS: Thank you Ralph. We move now to the briefing from the Department staff, Steve I believe you are going to take the lead on that.
MR. PORCELLI: Yes good morning. I am Steve Porcelli of the Department’s accreditation staff. The staff recommendation to the senior Department official regarding the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools or ACICS is to deny the Agency’s Petition for Renewal of Recognition and to withdraw the Agency’s recognition.
The staff recommendation to withdraw recognition was made because the Agency is not in compliance with the Secretary’s criteria for recognition and we believe that the Agency could not satisfactorily demonstrate compliance with all of the cited issues within the 12 month period provided by the regulations to do so.
This is particularly the case in view of the Agency’s very recent circulation of numerous revisions to its standards and practices that have not been fully approved by its members or implemented and proven effective. As well the Agency’s weak record in monitoring enforcement of its member institutions is a pressing concern. The major areas where ACICS was found to be non-compliant with the criteria at this time are fully described in the staff analysis therefore my presentation will only summarize those findings briefly.
Also I would like to stress that my presentation summarizes what ACICS would still need to have to do and to document that it is done and effectively but only if the senior Department official does not adopt the staff recommendation to withdraw the Agency’s recognition.
Those actions would include to address how well graduates succeed on licensing exams required for employment and to provide current documentation of positive relationships with state licensing related entities and nurse accrediting agencies to demonstrate that the Agency’s reserves and planning can weather highly probable, long-term decreases in budgeted revenue.
To document how the revised training program for all volunteers provides more focus on consistently recognizing problems and questionable practices at institutions, particularly concerning student achievement and to document that each volunteer has undergone the approved training process before fulfilling their assigned tasks.
To document the membership and activities of the Agency’s new Ethics Review Board, to document the integrity and sufficiency of the Agency’s data verification policies and procedures, to clarify and document the entire process for the recruitment, selection and verification of the qualifications and experience possessed by those selected for evaluation teams and decision-making bodies.
To ensure that the conflict of interest attestation forms required of Appeal Board members are clearly understood and consistently interpreted by those Board members, to provide clear documentation of consistent past practices, to ensure that members of the Intermediate Review Committee were free from conflicts of interest, to effectively demonstrate that the Agency has resolved the issue of widespread placement rate falsification and to explain the delay in implementing the verifications that ACICS promised to start in 2011.
To demonstrate that the Agency took follow-up action on evidence, that the placement rate data submitted by institutions was unreliable and to provide current documentation of the Agency’s policies and practices to address the non-compliant issues. To specifically explain what actions the Agency took with respect to each state or federal lawsuit initiated for the benefit of students against its institutions within the last five years and to demonstrate that the Agency’s actions were appropriate and effective.
To fully implement the Agency’s plans to more consistently review and identify at-risk institutions and to develop and implement its strengthened expectations for visiting teens to more consistently uncover fiscal and administrative problems while on site.
To fully implement the Agency’s new and strengthened initiatives regarding misrepresentations to perspective students and abusive recruiting and to regularly verify that each institution’s recruitment process is complying with the Agency’s new requirements. To continue implementing the Agency’s strengthened process for obtaining and evaluating the record of student complains for each institution and to compile evidence that its strengthened process is effective in practice, to apply the Agency’s revised Title 4 compliance policies and to document the Agency’s effectiveness in monitoring compliance with them.
To clarify the policies and procedures relative to the Agency’s new data integrity standards and the new site team reviewer who has been added to focus on data integrity and to demonstrate that the Agency has applied these standards, to provide evidence that the regular on-site visit process currently and consistently obtains sufficient information to determine if the institution complies with the Agency’s standards.
To demonstrate that the Agency has a reasonable basis for determining that the information used for making accrediting decisions is accurate. To clarify how the Agency holds institutions accountable for insuring integrity in their data submissions and to explain the ACICS verification processes and to provide documentation demonstrating that the Agency has applied its standards.
To apply the Agency’s revised monitoring requirements and to document the Agency’s effectiveness in enforcing them and to document the use of all of the monitoring mechanisms that the Agency included in its original Petition narrative. To document that the Agency’s enforcement of timelines for coming into compliance with ACICS standards meets all of the Department’s requirements to document that the Agency’s proposed language revisions regarding the enforcement of timelines are clarified and strengthened and also finalized and implemented.
To include a maximum time period in the Agency’s policy on good cause extensions and the need to document that the Agency took immediate adverse action when an institution did not bring itself into compliance within the specified period. To demonstrate that the Agency has a systematic reoccurring process to identify issues occurring at problematic institutions outside of its normal standards review process and to provide an updated campus effectiveness plan and to provide evidence of a standard’s revision resulting from the review of one.
To develop a written policy that would enable the Agency to consistently determine whether a new comprehensive evaluation is required. To revise the Agency’s policies on teach-out plans to specifically include all the teach-out plan triggers contained in the Department’s requirements.
And finally to insure that Agency’s criteria comply with the Department’s fraud and abuse requirements and to document that the Agency complies with those requirements in practice. As just summarized our review found that the Agency is not in compliance with the Secretary’s criteria for recognition and we believe that the Agency could not satisfactorily demonstrate compliance with all of the cited issues within the 12 month period provided by the regulations to do so.
Therefore as stated earlier, we are recommending that the senior Department official deny the Agency’s Petition for Renewal of Recognition and withdraw the Agency’s recognition. The staff recommendation is based on our review of the Agency’s Petition, documentation, third party comments and observation of an Agency decision-making meeting.
Together with my colleagues Valerie Lefor and Chuck Mula we would like to be happy to answer your questions regarding the Agency’s compliance with the criteria for recognition. Gail McLarnon our Senior Director of Policy Analysis, Development and the Accreditation Groups is here to answer your questions about other matters, thank you.
MS. PHILLIPS: Thank you Steve, questions for staff by the Primary Readers?
MR. WOLFF: Thank you I must say that’s an exhaustive list of issues so it seems to me that there are some issues that are more documentary in character than if recognition were continued could be fulfilled. To me going through the staff analysis the nub of the matter seems to be around 602.16 Rigor of the Standards 602.18 Enforcement of the Monitoring and 20 -- Enforcement of the Standards.