The nation’s second-largest historically Black university received a laundry list of issues it needs to address in the next year to regain full accreditation, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools officials said at its annual meeting in New Orleans last month.
Texas Southern joined the nation’s largest HBCU — Florida A&M University — and Bishop State Community College in Alabama on the list of HBCUs placed on probation by SACS’s Commission on Colleges.
Twenty-six Bishop State employees have been charged with theft by the Mobile County District Attorney’s office for obtaining in excess of $200,000 in federal financial aid funds fraudulently, prompting the U.S. Department of Education to suspend financial aid awards to Bishop students. Enrollment has plummeted and many Bishop officials have been forced out, including former Bishop State President Yvonne Kennedy who announced her retirement in June.
Things have begun to turn around for the troubled two-year institution recently, as Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson has announced his investigation is nearly complete and the U.S. Department of Education has begun to reimburse Bishop State for the financial aid awards it had to pay out of its own contingency funds.
Nevertheless, SACS, though continuing the college’s accreditation, extended Bishop’s probation for failing to provide sufficient evidence that its financial resources are sufficient to meet minimum operating standards, among other deficiencies. Bishop State will undergo its next SACS review in the fall of 2008.
FAMU, which was put on probation last summer, has had its probation extended another six months to address several issues to gain full reaccreditation. Only one item on the school’s list of 10 areas of noncompliance — filling vacancies in its board of trustees — has been addressed, according to information received by SACS from the university.
Dr. Belle Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges, says the list of issues to be rectified may actually be shorter because of a clean audit FAMU received just before SACS met.
