Pima College should stay under sanction, reviewers say

Pima Community College has made notable improvements after four years under accreditation sanctions, but not enough yet to qualify for a clean bill of health, a review team has found.

The team is recommending the school remain under sanction for another six months due to ongoing concerns with how PCC assesses the quality of student learning.

The result was not what college officials expected: Chancellor Lee Lambert has been predicting for months that the sanction would be lifted by the school’s accreditor, the Chicago-based Higher Learning Commission.

Lambert, in an email to college supporters, said although that didn’t happen, the areas of improvement the team cited in the draft report are “good news” for the college.

“The report validates every effort we have made to strengthen Pima’s commitment to students and the community,” he wrote Wednesday.

“While the college had hoped to come fully off sanction, we are heartened and encouraged by the significant progress to date.”

PCC has been under accreditation sanctions since 2013 for not meeting or for barely meeting quality standards for the management and governance of an educational institution.

A 2015 review found many improvements but noted 11 areas in which PCC was at risk of continuing problems.

The latest review found PCC has fully addressed five of the 11 problem areas. The changes cited included better employee training, a stronger human-resources system, a reliable complaint-handling system, improved internal understanding of the school’s mission and increased attention to integrity and fair and ethical behavior.

In five other areas, PCC has improved but still needs work, the reviewers found. The areas in need of further attention include support for student learning and effective teaching and better tracking of student success indicators such as completion rates and employment results.

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The current team’s findings, and the college’s written response to the findings, indicate some confusion on the team’s part about the extent of progress made in certain areas.

For example, the team’s report asserts repeatedly — and mistakenly — that the college completed an extensive administrative restructuring in July. It cites that accomplishment as supporting evidence that PCC now meets quality standards for institutional planning and for having appropriate degree programs.

In fact, the reorganization was not completed, the college said in its written response. Some phases are finished, but the restructuring “is still ongoing,” it said.

PCC Governing Board Chairman Mark Hanna, in an email statement on behalf of board members, said the board is “disappointed” the sanction wasn’t lifted but is proud of the work done by college employees to get the school this far.

“We are certain that the remaining issues the HLC report points out will be resolved in a timely fashion,” Hanna said.

College officials had expected to attend a hearing of the accreditor’s institutional actions council, at which PCC was to plead its case for why the sanction should be removed.

But the hearing isn’t happening, school officials said. The accreditor doesn’t always hold hearings when the commission staff and the review team agree on the recommendations, they said.

Instead, PCC’s case will be heard by the accreditor’s Board of Trustees. A final ruling on the review team’s recommendation is expected in February.

If the recommendation is approved, PCC will have until September 2017 to prove that it has filled two “critical” assessment-related jobs and that the new hires are actively working to improve the school’s internal systems.

The college has tried in vain for more than 18 months to fill one of those jobs, a director of assessment position responsible for creating better systems to track educational quality. School officials say they are making progress in both job searches.