On a table with a wooden backdrop, a toy forklift drops wooden block with the letter E on it next to blocks with the letters R, U, and L on them to form the word RULE.

Proposed Federal Accreditation Rule Threatens Shared Governance

BY GRANT MINCY Buried inside the Department of Education’s proposed Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) rule sits a single provision, § 602.23(j), that reads on the surface like a narrow housekeeping matter. The provision tells accreditors not to second-guess how a state appoints the members of a public college’s governing board. Appointment mechanics are properly…

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The Floor Is Being Removed: SACSCOC, Auburn, and the Dismantling of Faculty Governance

BY GRANT A. MINCY Last year, when Tennessee’s HB2194 threatened to eliminate faculty peer review from tenure termination proceedings across the Tennessee Board of Regents system, those of us challenging the bill had a meaningful argument available: The bill created accreditation risk. SACSCOC’s Principles of Accreditation—especially principle 6.4 on academic freedom and principle 6.5 on…

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SACSCOC Draft Principles Reveal CPHE is Not the Only Threat to Independent Accreditation

BY KATIE RAINWATER In 2011, Eric Barron, the then-president of Florida State University, gave a presentation to FSU’s board of trustees. His talk concerned how Florida could adopt and exceed the “7 Breakthrough Solutions” that the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a conservative, market-fundamentalist think tank, had put forward to reform higher education. The seventh…

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CPHE Standards and the Threat to Independent Accreditation

The following is a letter submitted by Nancy MacLean, a fellow at the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, to the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE) concerning the CPHE’s proposed evidentiary guidance for accreditation standards. The CPHE is a new accrediting body aimed at first implementing their standards at certain public universities…

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The Time to Act Is Now: Accreditation Edition

BY MATTHEW BOEDY Every AAUP member should be concerned about the new accreditation group recently birthed in Florida. This week Louisiana became the seventh state to say it was joining. While only for now targeting states in the South the group’s business plan shows its strategy is to take on as clients public schools in…

Conservative Christian Cancel Culture at Cairn University

BY JOHN K. WILSON Cairn University has announced the elimination of the School of Social Work, prompting the following letter from the National Association of Social Workers:  The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and its Pennsylvania Chapter have grave concerns about Cairn University’s sudden dismantling of its social work program because of University President…