Accreditation agency lies to support ICE sting operation on foreign students

Accreditation of universities means that they self police and peer review each other to ensure there is a certain level of quality assurance. That they are real educational institutions that are not going to vanish.

I am in shock to learn that one accreditation agency was complicit in a terrible hoax.

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the US government, via Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), created a fake university, the University of Farmington.

Attorneys for the students arrested said they were unfairly trapped by the U.S. government since the Department of Homeland Security had said on its website that the university was legitimate. An accreditation agency that was working with the U.S. on its sting operation also listed the university as legitimate.

There is a lot going on in this story, and it’s not clear to me who this “sting” was intended to target. The story mentions “recruiters” have been charged, but their role is not clear.

But I am sort of stunned by the arguments the officials running it are making:

Attorneys for ICE and the Department of Justice maintain that the students should have known it was not a legitimate university because it did not have classes in a physical location. ...

“Their true intent could not be clearer,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Helms wrote in a sentencing memo this month for Rampeesa, one of the eight recruiters, of the hundreds of students enrolled. “While ‘enrolled’ at the University, one hundred percent of the foreign citizen students never spent a single second in a classroom. If it were truly about obtaining an education, the University would not have been able to attract anyone, because it had no teachers, classes, or educational services.”

But another part of the story says:

The school was located on Northwestern Highway near 13 Mile Road in Farmington Hills and staffed with undercover agents posing as university officials.

So it’s not as though this fake “university” was just a website.

In any case, I am kind of against the whole “They should have known” argument when this fake university was listed as accredited. This is supposed to be the whole point of accreditation: to protect people from scams. Accreditation should protect people from profiteering scams and government entrapment scams.

The accreditation agency that participated in this should be ready to answer a lot of questions. I think this was extremely problematic behaviour on the part of the accrediting agency. It calls into question every other accreditation decision. If a government can warp the accreditation process for a sting, what other ways can “accreditation” be had?

External links

ICE arrests 90 more students at fake university in Michigan

SACS speaks

SACS, the accreditation agency for UTRGV has released its document about why the institution has been placed on probation. There isn’t much in the way of new information in the document.

From what I have gathered in news reports, one potential issue is that after UTRGV was established in Fall 2015, the University of Texas Brownsville was apparently still “officially” still a degree granting entity. This was done because Texas Southmost College, which had been joint with UTB for some time, had no accreditation of its own, and keeping UTB going “on paper” allowed TSC to keep going. But the question was, “If UTB still existed, why didn’t students get degrees from UTB instead of UTRGV?”

Excerpts:

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley... was placed on Probation following receipt of self-disclosed information submitted as part of a withdrawn merger application
and receipt of a completed Institutional Summary Form. Prior to the institution’s next review by SACSCOC’s Board of Trustees in December 2017, a Special Committee will conduct an on-site evaluation of the institution’s compliance with the Principles of Accreditation(.) ...

Probation is the most serious sanction imposed by SACSCOC’s Board of Trustees short of loss of accreditation. ... The maximum consecutive time that an institution may be on Probation is two years. In December 2017, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will conclude 12 months on Probation. ...

What will happen in December 2017? SACSCOC’s Board of Trustees will consider the accreditation status of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley following review of a Monitoring Report submitted by the institution addressing the standards cited above for non-compliance, and the report of a Special Committee that will visit the institution in fall 2017. The Board will have the following options: (1) remove the institution from Probation without an additional report; (2) continue accreditation, continue Probation, authorize a Special Committee, and request an additional report; and (3) remove the institution from membership for failure to comply with the Principles of Accreditation.

Related posts

UTRGV placed on probation by accrediting agency
UTRGV’s accreditation probation details emerge
“We will...”

External links

Disclosure Statement Regarding the Status of UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS RIO GRANDE VALLEY

UTRGV’s accreditation probation details emerge

Local station KRGV and Inside Higher Ed report on what the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley has done to get into hot water with the accreditation agency, SACS.

And it’s not just the “timing issue” that president Guy Bailey claimed it was.

The SACC Coordinator of Communications Pamela Cravey explained a few.

“For failure to comply with principle 1.1 integrity, comprehensive standard 3.4.4 acceptance of academic credit, comprehensive standard 3.4.7 consortia relationships contractual agreement,” she said.

Inside Higher Ed calls the list of shortcomings “unusually long.”

(T)o judge by SACS's laundry list of areas in which the new institution is falling short of the accreditor's requirements and standards, UT Rio Grande Valley appears to be a work in progress.

A spokeswoman for SACS cited a full 10 major areas in which the new Texas campus had faltered, including such basic things as assuring that it “operates with integrity in all areas.” Other areas of difficulty included complying with federal financial aid audits and ensuring that the institution's degrees are based on instruction it offers itself (rather than by other institutions).

My reaction might be summarized as: “Holy sh*t.” I mean, to be accused of a lack of integrity? Judging from the quote above, it appears to be section 1.1, which would make it literally the first thing on the list that universities are supposed to do. I have heard, but not confirmed, that there is a lower level of concern, “warning.” If there is, we kind of blew past that.

UTRGV is not the only university on the list, as Inside Higher Ed notes. There are nine others, but UTRGV is unusual in that it is part of a state university system, serves the most students, and was launched with very high goals of creating a new research university.

What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall of the University of Texas System board rooms these days.

At the start of the semester, the UT system was praising UTRGV for its first year, which it called “stellar.”

In the middle of the semester, we learn that the med school isn’t going well and UTRGV mispent millions of dollars.

At the end of the semester, we’re getting warning shots that our legitimacy as an institution is in question.

Update: The campus newspaper, The Rider, has published the full list of ten points of concern:

• Integrity (Principle 1.1)
• Acceptance of academic credits (Comprehensive standards 3.4.4)
• Consortial relationships/contractual agreements (Comprehensive standards 3.4.7)
• Institutional credits for a degree (Comprehensive standards 3.5.2)
• Institutional credits for a graduate degree (Comprehensive standards 3.6.3)
• Financial aid audits (Comprehensive standards 3.10.2)
• Substantive change (Comprehensive standards 3.12.1)
• Advertising, Student Recruitment, and Representation of Accredited Status policy compliance, (Comprehensive standards 3.13)
• Publication of accreditation status (Comprehensive standards 3.14.1)
• Recruitment materials (Federal requirement 4.6)

The Rider also reports the faculty senate will be meeting with the president soon.

Update, 9 December 2016: Local newspaper The Monitor wrote an unusually pissy editorial complaining that SACS should have released all the details of the concerns that put the institution on probation, and demanding more information.

Meanwhile, mark your calendars for 15 December, when SACS is planning on posting more about the issue:

(Pamela Cravey) said her agency will post “a public disclosure statement” on its website on Dec. 15 providing additional insight.

These statements include an update and explanation of actions taken and what it means for the institution, but the violations are not typically listed, based on statements currently available.

Another update, 9 December 2016: The Faculty Senate emailed the faculty today after meeting with President Bailey. They described the situation thus:

The concerns shared at this point in time center on the transfer of UTB students to UTRGV to meet the expectations of the timeline set by Texas legislature. It took longer for Texas Southmost College to gain independent accreditation than expected. If UTB had been abolished on August 31, 2015 (the date UTPA was abolished), all TSC students would have lost their financial aid. This meant that UTB could not be abolished until a later date even though it had no students. ...

We found President Bailey to be very straightforward about the situation. He provided us with detailed documented timelines starting in July 2013 through September 2016. Our institutions had been in communication with SACSCOC consistently throughout this process. He reassured us that there are no concerns with faculty, programs, students or financial aid.

Update, 11 December 2016: Local paper The Monitor has obtained new documents relating to UTRGV’s accreditation issues.

Because UTB would remain an accredited institution after the creation of UTRGV, there were discussions of transferring all UTB students to UTRGV to avoid “teach-outs,” which would be agreements with UTB and TSC to teach bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs at UTRGV. The next move would be to consolidate or merge UTB with UTRGV.

“Discussed the benefits of just moving all to UTRGV to avoid teach-out and facilitate the award of financial aid,” the log of a Feb. 23, 2015 meeting states.

This meeting was attended by UTRGV officials Bailey, Brown, Provost Havidan Rodriguez, and SACSCOC’s Armstrong, and Director for Legal Affairs Carol Luthman.

A year later, however, during a conference call between Brown, Donat and Armstrong, the SACSCOC officials seemed confused by what transpired during that Feb. 23, meeting.

“No UTB Students in fall 2015; this was not their understanding from the February 23, 2015 meeting,” states the log of a May 4, 2016 call. “Need to respond by clearly describing our understanding of the February 23, 2015 meeting and provide documentation that had been transparent on how UTB operates.”

It still doesn’t address why “integrity” is concern number one.

Minor annoyance: the story repeats the myth that UTRGV is the first university created this century.

Related posts

Show me what you value
Our med school is not going smoothly
Physics fraud
UTRGV placed on probation by accrediting agency

External links

UTRGV Reassures Students Probation Period Won’t Affect Them
A Watchdog Bites
UTRGV may have violated 10 standards on path to probation EDITORIAL: UTRGV probation questions need specifics
UTRGV probation fears dispelled

UTRGV placed on probation by accrediting agency

This is not good.

University president Guy Bailey sent an email to the campus today informing us that the university had been placed on probation by SACS, the regional accrediting agency.

The reasons for this are not clear. When I went to the SACS website, there are no details about this that I could find. Bailey referred to some “timing issues” around the separation of legacy university, UT Brownsville, from Texas Southmost College. But how that split affects the sort of things accreditation is supposed to measure, like financial stability, instructor qualifications, adequate assessment, it not at all clear.

UTRGV has to stay accredited. It’s just non-negotiable for students, faculty, and administration. A non-accredited university is just a diploma mill, and has no real standing.

More details are supposedly coming next month. So this is a story to watch closely.

External links

Accrediting agency places University of Texas Rio Grande Valley on probation

Grades and learning

On our campus, there is discussion about more evaluation of teaching and learning. We recently got an email encouraging faculty to incorporate assessment of student learning and assessment of teaching improvement into our faculty evaluations. This is partly driven my accreditation agencies, who require us to create “student learning outcomes” for our department and for each individual class.

The response of many faculty: “Why do we need a separate evaluation of student learning? That’s what grades are for.”

Of course, many faculty will also bemoan that students who passed their English courses can’t write. They’ll complain that grad students whose undergrad GPA was more than 3.0 perform horribly on their preliminary oral exams.

There’s some interesting locus of control psychology going on here, I think.

External link

Measure it

Texas Higher Education and Creation Research, Part 37

Pharyngula blog points out the newest dodge the Institute for Creation Research is using to get around the lack of accreditation for the Master’s degree: just claim they don’t need it.

At this point, they’ve abandoned any pretense that they’re anything but a diploma mill.

Texas Higher Education and Creation Research, Part 27

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is predictably upset about not being allowed to offer Master's degrees in science education.

They have now issued a press release announcing that they have put their entire application on-line. The title of this press release?

"Academic freedom in the balance."

I'm going to give a serious answer before tossing off a one-liner.

Academic freedom is an absolutely essential part of academic life, much discussed, but it is easily misinterpreted. In the United States, pretty much the gold standard for defining academic freedom was made back in 1940. My own institution still refers to it in our handbook of operating procedures. It's a statement from the American Association of University Professors. It's short, readable, and online here.

The statement is all about protecting teachers. It describes academic freedom in terms of a relationship between individuals and their institutions. Everything concerns what an individual is allowed to say without risk of losing her job.

This is substantially different from what ICR is talking about, which is a relationship between an institution and an accrediting agency. Accreditation is a very different matter than tenure. So really, crying "foul" about academic freedom misses the mark.

That's the serious answer.

The one-liner is that "academic freedom" is not code for, "Validation of any random idea that you happen to have have."

Administration ate my brain

Or at least, administration is eating my time. Since Monday... let's see...

I've been dealing with documentation concerning our university's reaccreditation (Hi SACS!). We need to have "student learning outcomes" for our students, measures of how well those outcomes are achieved, two year's worth of the measurements we took, a list of changes we made in response to those measurements, and what changes we plan to make in the future based on those measurements. It's a bit difficult to do when -- in the case of our graduate program, which I oversee -- you're talking about 0 to 2 students graduating in any single semester.

Then the page proofs for the new graduate catalogue appeared on my desk, with a very short turnaround time and many, many errors and missing classes and things in need of updating.

I managed to get those two things squashed this morning, thankfully. But the fun continued. I just got out of a Faculty Senate meeting. Lots of review of our university's Handbook of Operating Procedures.

And looking at my desk, I can see at least two more forms and paperwork asking me for information.

I really want to get back to my manuscript, which was coming along so nicely before classes started up again.

Oh yes.... first post with new version of Blogger.

The cost of being recognized

Most scientific research is done at universities who train doctoral students. But have you ever thought about what sets apart universities from the “diploma mills” who spam your e-mail, offering to give you a Ph.D. without ever attending a class?

Part of the difference is accreditation, which is essentially a review system that says, “Yes, this institute meets the minimum accepted standards for its field in teaching and awarding degrees.” There are various accreditation agenies associated with different regions. Texas, for instance, is part of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

I discovered that starting the accreditation process for a new degree plan will set you back U.S. $8,000. That’s the application fee. If you make it to the point of inspection, that’ll be another U.S. $2,500, thank you.

Of course, something like that is a drop in the bucket for most institutions, but still, it's hard not to see something like that and evaluate it in terms of your personal finances.

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Journal entries are being slowed, of course, by teaching. On the plus side, a new crop of students means new possibilities for getting research help. The University has a program called the “Undergraduate Research Scholars Award,” geared mainly at first-year students. I’m planning on putting in an application for that, which could let me have my first minion – I mean, research assistant.

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Pages read of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory: 702. Hey, I’m past the half-way mark!