When a college locks horns with a regional higher education accrediting agency, the agency historically has usually prevailed. Officials at tiny Saint Paul’s College hope to be one of those exceptions next week when they face the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in an accreditation battle that could determine the institution’s fate.
On Monday, Saint Paul’s Interim President, Dr. Claud Flythe, is expected to lead a delegation of six university administrators at a special SACS hearing at which Saint Paul’s officials will argue for reversal of a June decision by the SACS Commission on Colleges to strip the Lawrenceville, Va., college of its accreditation.
SACS took the action against Saint Paul’s after determining the college had failed during a two-year probation period to sufficiently address a number of questions the agency had regarding the financial and academic viability of Saint Paul’s.
Although Saint Paul’s raised millions of dollars in the six months prior to the June SACS meeting and addressed other concerns raised by the agency, college officials contend the home-stretch good news, produced by an interim president, was not considered by SACS at the June meeting, a decision Saint Paul’s officials say means that the Commission on Colleges did not follow its own rules of procedure or that its action was arbitrary and unreasonable.
“If you look at the facts, we’re entitled to accreditation now,” said attorney Ashley Taylor Jr., the Richmond, Va., legal counsel retained by the college to pursue saving its SACS status and to explore other options ranging from merging to closing. “We’re fairly bullish” on the college’s prospects, Taylor said in a recent telephone interview as he and Flythe prepared for Monday’s hearing.
Taylor said the school had addressed SACS’s concerns regarding finances, terminal faculty ranks and improving its board. It simply had presented its documents in time for its updated status report to be considered by the agency at its June meting. Knowing the information was available, Taylor said SACS had the discretion to extend the probation status for a third year, allowing time for the new information to be considered at the December SACS meeting.
“They took a snapshot and it was an evolving picture,” Taylor said of what by June was a dated body of facts.
