University probationary status recap

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Now that an accrediting agency has removed UTRGV from its probationary status, the university will concentrate on preparing the appropriate documents for reaffirmation in September.

Institutions accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) are required to go through a reaffirmation for accreditation every 10 years.

“We essentially have the accreditation cycle that UT Pan American had,” President Guy Bailey said in a phone interview with The Rider last Thursday. “UT Pan American would have been up for reaffirmation this past year, so SACSCOC gave us a one-year delay on that. We need to come up for reaffirmation next year, and again, this is just a standard thing that every university does every 10 years.”

SACSCOC, which is the regional body for the accreditation of degree-granting higher education institutions in the Southern states, removed the university from its probationary status last month.

UTRGV was first placed under probationary status on Dec. 6, 2016, by SACSCOC for not complying with 10 accreditation standards.

First year of probation

The 10 accrediting accreditation standards are

–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)

“When we were first placed on probation, I was not, of course, happy, but I was also not completely surprised because we had to change course; we had to change the way we were doing the consolidation of the two institutions,” Bailey said, referring to the merger of legacy institutions University of Texas at Brownsville and the University of Texas-Pan American.

He said the university had only three months to prepare before operating as UTRGV.

“When you have to do something with that short of time frame, you’re gonna make some mistakes; there’s gonna be some issues,” Bailey said. “I was not entirely surprised. … I knew that all you really have to do is address the issue. They are all addressable issues. It’s not a matter of overconcern. It’s just a matter of understanding that the work has to be done, and you have to do it. That’s what we did.”

As The Rider reported on Jan. 18, 2017, UTRGV administrators met with officials from SACSCOC to discuss the details of the 10 accrediting standards the university violated.

UTRGV also received a letter from SACSCOC in January 2017 stating that “the documentation submitted indicates that the [university] failed to provide timely and accurate information to the Commission, and/or failed to conduct a candid self-assessment of compliance with the Principles of Accreditation and to submit this assessment to the Commission. This is viewed as lack of full commitment to integrity.”

Addressing the issues

Bailey said after receiving the letter, UTRGV officials immediately began to address the issues.

“There were technical issues that had resulted from timing from the transition, so they were not difficult issues to address, but there were things we really had to address,” he said.

In a March 23, 2017, interview with The Rider, Bailey said some of the technical issues about the transition had already been resolved with SACSCOC. What the university was doing at that time was handling some of the communication issues, most of which had to do with the website.

From Oct. 16 to 19, 2017, a SACSCOC special committee visited the UTRGV campuses to discuss the school’s probationary status.

As The Rider reported on Oct. 2, 2017, Bailey said university officials successfully addressed each of the findings.

Probation continues

Although UTRGV addressed the 10 accreditation standards in 2016, the university remained on probation for one more year for failure to comply with a federal requirement about program responsibilities.

The university failed to comply with the agency’s Principles of Accreditation federal requirement 4.7, which was not one of the original 10 accreditation standards the university failed to meet in 2016.

Federal requirement 4.7 of the SACSCOC Principles of Accreditation states: “The institution is in compliance with its program responsibilities under Title IV of the most recent Higher Education Act as amended. (In reviewing the institution’s compliance with these program responsibilities, the Commission relies on documentation forwarded to it by the U.S. Department of Education.) (Title IV program responsibilities)”

In an email from Bailey dated Dec. 5, 2017, the president said the university was pending a SACSCOC review of a statewide single audit for Fiscal Year 2017, conducted by the Texas State Auditor’s Office.

As reported by The Rider on March 19, 2018, the audit, released on Feb. 22, 2018, was used to obtain an understanding of internal controls over compliance, assess control risk of noncompliance and perform tests of those controls unless they are deemed ineffective, and to express an opinion on whether the state complied with federal statutes, regulations, and terms and conditions of federal awards that may have direct and material effect on the Student Financial Assistance Cluster.

Oct. 9 to 11, 2018, a SACSCOC committee visited the campus to make a final determination on reaffirmation of accreditation.

UTRGV addressed issues regarding cash management process, special tests and return of Title IV funds, enrollment reporting and student loan repayment.

The SACSCOC committee’s report was “very encouraging,” according to the UTRGV president.

Probation lifted

On Dec. 11, 2018, SACSCOC removed UTRGV from its probationary status after the university successfully addressed the agency’s Principle Accreditation federal requirement 4.7.

If UTRGV is placed on probation for a second time in the future, Bailey said the university will undergo the same process.

“Most faculty understand the [SACSCOC] process,” he said. “I think students, in particular, worried about what it meant. If you’re a student, you don’t understand what probation means. We were always completely accredited. I think faculty understood that. I think most faculty understood that these were technical issues.”

After the announcement of UTRGV’s probationary status being lifted, Bailey told The Rider the university can now devote resources it has been using to get out of probation for other things.

“The school has always been accredited and it’s still accredited,” he said in a phone interview on Dec. 11, 2018. “What it means now is that we don’t have to continually be monitored by the accrediting agency the same way we were. … We’ve always been accredited and probation just means that you’re being watched carefully and you have to prepare reports and you have to be evaluated. So, all of that is gone.”