Fate of SUSA lies in the hands of accrediting board

A visit last week by an advisory team of the National Architectural Accrediting Board, Incorporated (NAAB) will officially determine whether or not the Southern University School of Architecture will lose its accreditation.
According to NAAB, SUSA’s accreditation for its five-year Bachelor of Architecture program expired as of December 31, 2003. If not renewed, a suspension would last until December 31, 2005, when SUSA would be able to apply for accreditation again.
A student majoring in an architecture program in the state of Louisiana must have an accredited degree after participating in an internship. Without college accreditation, the student will not be allowed to “sit,” or take the licensing exam.
“The school needs to have re-accreditation by January 1, 2006,” said NAAB Executive Director Sharon Matthews. “If Southern is re-accredited within two years, then all students will be able to sit for licensing.”
In a letter dated July 15, 2002, the NAAB notified SU Chancellor Edward R. Jackson that unless a total of 13 deficiencies found during a March 2002 audit were corrected, SUSA would lose its accreditation.
Adenrele A. Awotona, Ph.D., dean of SUSA, said that the school has not lost anything and neither have the students.
“The key word is ‘unless,’” he said.
According to Awotona, the school corrected the conditions and sent a report dated June 16, 2003 to the NAAB with the corrected deficiencies.
Last August, the NAAB responded by requesting additional information and proposed to “conduct its own assessment of the reported responses to previously noted deficiencies.”
The letter did include that a visit would not guarantee a positive result and that the “program should continue to inform the students” that accreditation would expire on December 31.
It was not until Jackson received a letter dated December 18, 2003 from Matthews that proposed an advisory visit on behalf of the Board.
According to the letter, the visit was “necessary” for the purpose of reviewing information that could not be included in the written report (such as visual evaluations) and that a report based on the visit would then be made to the directors of the NAAB.
The letter stated that the Board might then: 1) affirm the July 2002 decision, which would mean accreditation ends December 31, 2003, or 2) offer the status of candidacy, or 3) decide to continue accreditation without interruption, or 4) consider some other course of action).
Awotona said that the letter nullified any notion of the school losing their accreditation because the visit had not been made until January 22-25 of this year. He said that since the NAAB did not convene but twice a year (February and July), the Board would not be able to come to a timely or absolute decision.
“As far as I am concerned, that (accreditation) process has not been completed,” Awotona said. “There is no way that anyone can say to me that we’ve lost accreditation until the process is complete.”
He said that the SUSA faculty had to hastily prepare for the visit made last week.
After the December 18, 2003 correspondence, most faculty and staff had already left for the Christmas holidays. They were notified of the visit by Jackson on January 15, giving them one week to prepare and because the students of SUSA had to display certain works, they basically had only one day to prepare after returning to school on January 20.
Even though changes have been made to SUSA, including new faculty, a full-time computer technician and three computer labs, the faculty responded in a letter to campus officials stating that more time should have been allowed before the visit, especially if the Board were meeting again in July.
“The team had a preference to visit as early as possible,” said Jackson. “We (Southern) were the ones who requested a visit, so having them visit in January allowed them to decide what to do.”
The next NAAB meeting is schedule for February 6-7, when the Board will come to a decision on SUSA’s future.
Charles Ashton Smith, SUSA assistant professor, said that his focus is particularly on the students.
“My concern is how does all of this affects the students and that no student gets left behind. That’s the main thing.”