The University of Arizona. 

 Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Daily Star

As the University of Arizona pursues switching accreditors, some faculty members are raising concerns about their involvement in the process.

“To date, planning for this major educational and academic change has not included informing, deliberations with, or approval by the elected faculty governance body, the Faculty Senate,” wrote Leila Hudson, elected chair of the UA faculty, in a letter dated Jan. 5, 2023 to Jamienne Studley, president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College & University Commission. “The General Faculty is, thus far, not yet fully informed about nor formally represented in this accreditation process through its elected representatives and institutions.”

The Higher Learning Commission has accredited the UA for more than 100 years. Late last year, however, the UA submitted an application to become accredited by WSCUC. The California-based accrediting body also accredits the University of Arizona Global Campus, the online university formerly known as Ashford University, which is still working to get the accreditor to remove a notice of concern related to student retention and graduation rates. The UA, fully aware of the notice of concern, acquired the assets of Ashford in 2020 and rebranded it as UA Global Campus. At that time, UA officials said they intended to keep UA Global Campus a separate entity, governed by a separate board.

But that changed in early 2022, when the UA announced its plan to integrate the online school — and its roughly 27,000 students — into its operation and make UA Global Campus a branch campus. At the time of that announcement, numerous members of the Faculty Senate expressed concern that they had not been properly consulted in the decision to integrate UA Global Campus and demanded a risk-assessment of the deal, which the UA has not provided.

Now one year later, the UA is moving full-steam ahead in its plan to integrate UA Global Campus.

In November, the Arizona Board of Regents approved a $45,000 incentive for UA President Robert C. Robbins if he brings UA Global Campus under the full authority of the UA by June 30.

Soon after that, the UA applied to switch accreditors, because, according to UA spokesperson Pam Scott, the university “believes that (WSCUC) is better suited to our mission, values, purpose and strategic plan.”

An accreditation team from WSCUC visited the campus last week to conduct a review, which included time for faculty, staff and student input. But the accelerated timeline of the accreditation switch — both the announcement and the visit last week happened in between the scheduled December and January Faculty Senate meetings — frustrated some faculty.

“Consequently, our university’s elected faculty representatives were structurally prevented from deliberating a critical decision impacting academic, educational and faculty personnel issues — accreditation — their statutory duty,” Ted Downing, a faculty senator, wrote in an email to his colleagues in the Faculty Senate one day before the accreditation team visit. The scheduling, Downing wrote, “shows a flagrant disregard for the Senate, colleagues, and statutory, mandatory obligations as an elected faculty member.”

‘Quid quo pro’?

In addition to concerns about shared governance, Hudson, the chair of the faculty, also wrote in the Jan. 5 letter to WSCUC that some members of the Faculty Senate have a concern that WSCUC “may be entangled in a quid pro quo or a conflict of interest due to its status as the accreditor for (UA Global Campus),” which still has a notice of concern.

In response to the Arizona Daily Star’s questions about this possibility, a spokesperson from WSCUC said that “if the University of Arizona is granted accreditation by WSCUC, it would be required to secure approval for any structural changes it sought to make,” and WSCUC would review those changes. “There are too many possible forms of arrangements and outcomes that could be brought to the Commission for approval for WSCUC to speculate on the outcome, conditions, or consequences.”

The accreditor added that, so long as UA Global Campus and the UA remain separate entities, the online school’s notice of concern “would not be affected if the University of Arizona were to be granted accreditation by WSCUC.”

At a meeting of the Faculty Senate on Monday, members publicly discussed their impressions of the accreditation process so far. While several shared the concerns raised in Hudson’s letter to WSCUC, Tessa Dysart, who serves as secretary of the Faculty Senate and as a member of a UA Global Campus integration working group, shared a different view.

“We are not necessarily universally thrilled about the accelerated timeline on UAGC integration, but we understand it’s happening and why it’s happening,” Dysart said. “We want to make sure that it happens the best possible way that includes faculty participation in critical decisions.”

Others have ‘active role’

Several days before WSCUC’s site visit last week, Dysart and Caleb Simmons, who is also a faculty senator and a member of the UA Global Campus working group, sent a letter to the accreditor, disputing some of the points Hudson’s Jan. 5 letter raised, including a perceived lack of shared governance.

“We have taken an active role in reviewing the accreditation application and offering constructive feedback,” Dysart and Simmons wrote in a letter dated Jan. 13. “We are faculty who will constructively engage with the administration, consistent with the spirit and letter of the Memorandum of Shared Governance.”

A WSCUC spokesperson declined to answer further questions about the particulars of either letter as it is the body’s policy to “not comment on the substance of a review while it is underway.” The accrediting agency plans to consider the UA’s application, which includes the reports made from last week’s site visit, at a meeting scheduled for Feb. 22-24.

But at the close of Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting, UA Provost Liesl Folks gave some insight into how, from her perspective, last week’s visit went. “We clearly made a profoundly positive impact on the reviewers,” Folks said, “and they went away with an extremely positive view of the institution.”

The University of Arizona once had a live "Wildcat" mascot; however, the current mascot ─ with a few changes that include wife, Wilma, along the way ─ Wilbur the Wildcat has been a favorite around Tucson for more than 60 years.

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Kathryn Palmer covers higher education for the Arizona Daily Star. Contact her via e-mail at kpalmer@tucson.com or her new phone number, 520-496-9010.