Only a year after being taken off of warning, the college’s accreditation may be at risk once again, according to a letter from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).
The letter, which can be found on the college website, lists six recommendations that the college must address by October or else face possible sanction.
Jeanie Nishime, vice president of student and community advancement, said the problem is the college is within the two-year period previously given by the ACCJC to meet its accreditation standards.
“You get what they call the two-year rule to alleviate the situation,” Nishime said. “But we were on warning before, so it’s cumulative, you don’t get another two years.”
The recommendations given by the ACCJC include the integration of program review, planning and budgeting, Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) and finance management plans for the EC Compton Center.
“We satisfied that requirement (in the last review), but we need to consistently show that we are sustainable in terms of the program review, planning and budget cycle,” Nishime said.
The matter of program review planning and budgeting has long been a thorn in EC’s side, appearing in accreditation recommendations as far back as 1990, she said.
All colleges are required to meet the ACCJC’s proficiency level of implementation for SLO’s by fall, which may be difficult for the Compton Center, Nishime said.
According to an October 2011 status report on the Compton Center’s eligibility for accreditation, this criterion has only been partially met, with the expectation that proficiency would be met at the end of 2012.
“Every course and program has an SLO, but we’re probably not where we should be in terms of assessment of those SLO’s,” Nishime said. “It would require close scrutiny in order to make the fall deadline.”
While Nishime assures students that the college is fiscally sound, the ACCJC letter mentions that conditions at the Compton Center directly impact EC’s accreditation status.
The Compton Center, formerly Compton Community College, was stripped of its accreditation in 2005 due to financial difficulties and administrative corruption, Nishime said. At that point, it became a satellite to EC in an attempt to avoid closing down the Compton Center.
Since 2005, the Compton Center has experienced an unusually high rate of turnover of its chief executive officer, something that’s made fiscal stability a challenge, Nishime said.
Another difficulty with the Compton Center is that EC’s administration does not directly oversee its finances–that task falls to the Compton Community College District.
