St. Andrews Presbyterian College and Scotland County

31 October 2009
After returning back to Scotland County yesterday after an extended out-of-town trek, this rainy morning pretty much describes how my head is wrapped around the recent news of St. Andrews Presbyterian College (SAPC) and how the loss of its SACS accreditation is going to affect the local community. I am struggling to see a break in that big cloud.

I might represent a very small percentage of Scotland County’s population who attended SAPC and stayed here after graduation; but, for sure, I represent a significant number of local folks who value the college’s presence in the community. Scotland County needs St. Andrews. And we need the college to thrive because it directly supports and contributes to our community economically, socially, and culturally.

While SAPC has taken critical action to keep its accreditation and to carry out contingency plans that will allow its students to benefit from federal funds, the forward thrust continues to be against rock walls of frustration and disappointment.

I believe that SAPC also recognizes that this burden is not isolated to its campus: The college is a vital asset to the county and its folk. According to the NC Department of Commerce, St. Andrews is the 4th largest employer in Scotland County.  SAPC’s website states: St. Andrews is one of the top five employers in Scotland County with an annual budget of $16 million. The college attracts more than 15,000 visitors annually to the county for various events such as open houses for potential students, the Scottish Heritage Symposium, equestrian shows and athletic events. SAPC’s economic presence in our community is, perhaps, more significant when one considers that Scotland County’s unemployment rate continues to be the highest in NC (Laurinburg Exchange).  That might appear to have no relevance in the discussion of accreditation challenges; but if you live and work here, those issues are pretty significant.

On a more academic note, George Leef of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy recently published an article about SAPC’s plight. Read Leef’s  A False Seal of Approval here.

 

on the night table

World Made Straight Ron Rash Picador, 2006
	The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens Vintage, 1990

 

this day’s inspiration from lady sharon in camelot

 

read Jim’s post on practicing religion non-communally

Jim has posted a good piece about keeping the faith in a foreign land. He and his family are in Turkey for a year and his piece “What would you do if you could not practice your religion communally?” presents some very interesting thoughts spiritual life and religion. Read it here.

 

on the night table

Serena   Ron Rash   Ecco/Harper Collins October 2008

 

a post on sapc: “One Accreditor’s Opinion”

David Moltz posted an article about St. Andrews Presbyterian College (SPAC) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) yesterday. The article is posted at insidehighered.com and is entitled “One Accreditor’s Opinion.” Read it here. 

I read the post this morning. It speaks about United Stated District Court Judge William S. Duffey, Jr.’s ruling to uphold SACS’ revocation of SPAC’s accreditation in repsonse to the college’s claim that SACS did not provide adequate notice of its compliance requirements and failed to provide notice to the college as to what it must do to bring itself in compliance. The college argued that the accreditation process did not offer “any benchmarks to determine compliance, referring to SACS’s standards as a “moving target” determined by the “subjective opinions of varying peer evaluators.”  Duffey’s opinion is that ”great deference” supports SACS’ authority in the accreditation process. His ruling states that SACS’  ”weight of authority” allows for maintaining “flexible standards;” he adds that SACS’s accreditation requirements are not “impermissibly unspecific.”  Moltz writes that Duffey “emphasizes a hand-off approach when the court considers accreditation cases.”

 

sapc…

I just learned that District Court Judge William Duffey granted the motion for summary judgment against St. Andrews. The Laurinburg Exchange  headline reads: St. Andrews accreditation denied

SAPC has appealed  that judgment to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the judge has granted a stay:  “The notice of appeal has been filed and the judge has granted a stay of the decision pending receipt of more formal briefs, which are due by the end of October…”

This accreditation thing with SACS is more than disheartening for those of us (alums, friends, faculty, community members) who have held that the academic and community strengths of the college far out-weigh its financial weaknesses. I am disappointed in Duffey’s ruling; but what frustrates me more is that the accreditation process (in the end) completely fails in balancing and supporting the initiatives taken to demonstrate the college’s financial commitment and its pledge to outstanding higher education standards. In this instance, the accreditation process has clearly failed SAPC’s current and future students.

 

on the night table

New Blood, Edited by Neil Astley, Bloodaxe Books 1999

 

on the night table

 

Olive Kitteridge

Elizabeth Strout

Randomhouse, 2008

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

 

on the night table

Poems and Prose Gerard Manly Hopkins Everyman’s Library, 1995	The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane Edited by Joseph Katz Cornell University Press, 1972