“My thoughts on these issues are to wait and see. I am hopeful that there are no preconceived agendas by anyone in terms of what is going to happen with higher education.” Lomotey stated.
The Tucker Commission, with Gov. Bobby Jindal’s recommendations, is in charge of finding ways to align Louisiana’s job needs with college training, cutting those programs that have a poor performance rating and to establish LSU as a flagship university. Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker discussed the state having more four-year institutions than community colleges where in other states it’s the exact opposite.
“In most states, young people coming out of high school go to community college, finish their basics, and then go to a four-year school. We don’t do it that way and consequently, our system is far more expensive.” Tucker said during a radio interview with a New Orleans-based station.
The commission— originally called the Postsecondary Education Review Com-mission—was proposed by Tucker concerning graduation rates and looking for ways for higher education to get more accomplished using less money. Many speculate that this commission is a way to justify closing down many four-year institutions.
“There are many of those who believe that we have too many institutions and too many boards. To have three boards for a four-year institution is somewhat unusual; for example, Georgia has one board for all of their four-year institutions including its three HBCUs,” Lomotey said.
“So by reducing the number of boards, this could have an impact on Southern University. I mentioned also the interest in reducing the number of institutions and if this has any bearing then there will be questions of retention and other measures to determine the quality of an institution and which ones will be retained or let go.”
Colleges must go through the process of getting its accreditation reaffirmed every 10 years, and it will be ten years this upcoming spring semester since Southern University has done so. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, or SACS, is a board that accredits all colleges and schools in the southern region.
Lomotey and others have been taking steps to better prepare the campus for the upcoming review in 2010 for two years. Lomotey explains that the first step in reaffirmation in accreditation is to submit a document called a certification of compliance that outlines the school’s compliance with the designated guidelines setup by the SACS board. Then there is an off-campus review team to review this document and then there is an on-campus team that comes around March 2010 to follow up on the things listed in submitted certification of compliance by the school.
“There is also a new aspect of the SACS review called QEP, or Quality Enhancement Plan, every institution must develop a plan that is designed to improve the academic achievements of students on its campus which is also submitted in this process that has to be approved also.” Lomotey said. “Our QEP is dealing with writing across the curriculum, and so within the next couple of months faculty as well as students will hear more about this plan because the on-campus visitors will interview members of the student body, faculty/staff, and administration staff about the quality of the university.”
After this is complete the institution will have a chance to respond to these reviews in writing and in the annual SACS board meeting in December 2010 all institutions that were reviewed will be notified on their accreditation status publicly.
“I would finally like to add that we are very, very optimistic about our accreditation being reaffirmed. We have a few minor issues to deal with but we are in the process of addressing those” He went to state “Southern needs to watch this process carefully.”