Another Baptist college has run afoul of the accrediting agency SACS. In a letter dated July 9. 2014, SACS has alleged non-compliance with their Principles of Accreditation in at least 6 areas and Louisiana College now bears the burden of proving why its membership in SACS should not be withdrawn. They are back on SACS probation.
Here is a link to the full letter from SACS, released by LC today. (LC SACS (here is another version in case the letter happens to disappear from LC’s site).
The six areas with which SACS has a problem are:
PR 1.1 – Principles of Integrity
SACS accuses LC administration of:
- “pervasive culture of avoidance of transparency”
- “conflicting documentation of facts”
- “unauthorized use of restricted funds”
- “forged documents in a submission to SACSCOC”
- Several other misrepresentations of SACSCOC communications
This entire section is troubling to say the least. A Christian school ought to operate with such high standards of integrity that such accusations would be absurd, but that kind of culture evidently did not exist under the Aguillard administration. We can hope that the college will take definitive steps to correct this. This is basic Christianity we are talking about here. Honesty and integrity.
CS 3.3.4 – External Influence
SACS is concerned that the Louisiana Baptist Convention, and in particular its Executive Director, Dr. David Hankins, exerts too much influence over the college.
Jay Adkins has written extensively on this topic.
CS 3.2.9 – Personnel Appointment
SACS observed that a whistleblower (I don’t know which one) was singled out for an interim (and very negative) staff evaluation, after that person had previously received perfect evaluations.
CS 3.2.10 – Administrative Staff Evaluations
Another deeply disturbing charge – that LC submitted at least three staff evaluations with FORGED signatures to SACS and raises the idea that perhaps content was altered in the evaluations, though that is not clear.
CS 3.10.3 – Control of Finances
There are some questions about financial controls, though frankly this is less clear to me than other sections. Maybe some of our accounting experts can explain this better. Issues were raised about the use of restricted (what we call designated) funds, about credit card expenditures, and about control of scholarship accounts.
I’m not sure whether they are seeing misuse here, or just failure to adequately account for expenditures.
FR 4.7 Title IV Program Responsibilities
This has to do with deficiency findings in the administration of the Student Federal Financial Assistance Program. Again, I’m not sure if this is an accusation of malfeasance or just accounting failure. But I’m pretty sure it’s pretty important to comply to the government in financial aid matters.
Frankly, I’d rather watch the Red Sox beat the Good Guys in Pinstripes than wade back into the Louisiana College/Louisiana Baptist Convention nightmare. But this is news and there aren’t many places that Baptists can go to get news these days.
I hope that Louisiana College will admit its mistakes and stop trying to cover up what has happened; stop claiming “exoneration” and simply come clean. Fix the problem. The Board of Trustees has a lot of work to do to restore the credibility of this college.
The last sentence in the whole PDF document is the most concerning, to me: “In all cases, the institution bears the burden of proof to provide evidence why the commission should not remove it from membership.” This is tough spot to start from: demonstrate that you are fixing all of this, or you’re done for. If that’s what it means, then LC could address 90% of the charges and still be in trouble with SACS. And there’s a Gordian knot of sorts to deal with: if they mess about too much with the involvement of state convention people, especially the… Read more »
In the SBC, we select and elect the trustees and then the entities operate somewhat autonomously (under certain parameters, of course).
LC could probably follow that model. Elect the trustees but give them freedom to run the school without direct LBC interference.
I think LC would claim that’s what they do–with the LBC Exec as ex officio on every board for CP receiving entities. And given that it takes some capacity to be convincing to get a state exec position, it’s easy to see how long-term state execs on a board would easily gather power, even if informally. I think that’s the kicker here: LC needs to boot that permanent role for the LBC Exec. Doesn’t matter who it is, even if they hire Dave for the job once Dr. Hankins retires, they need to stop that practice. But if the LBC… Read more »
To answer the above question, in 2012 the LBC gave $3.3 million to LC.
I do not pretend to be a lawyer, but I quickly consulted google and it said that forgery is a felony in all 50 states.
That’s part of what makes this mess interesting:
To convict on the felony, you would have to positively prove forgery.
But based on that letter, if it is accurate and binding, LC has to prove to SACS that the apparent forgeries are definitely NOT forged.
A reasonable doubt that would keep you out of prison for forgery may not be enough to keep your accreditation.
I think you might be right theoretically, Drew, but I doubt that many prosecutors are going to worry about a forged employee evaluation signature unless money changes hands. I’m pretty sure no one is going to jail over this.
However, the SACS people might tend to be unforgiving!
My guess is that LC’s path out of this is not denial, but to admit the failures and to give solid evidence of turning over a new leaf. I’m guessing that they cannot continue to operate in their current mode and keep their accreditation.
~~~Another deeply disturbing charge – that LC submitted at least three staff evaluations with FORGED signatures to SACS and raises the idea that perhaps content was altered in the evaluations, though that is not clear.~~
I confess my ignorance, because I do not understand how forged signatures on staff evaluations correspond with felony theft charges. What has one to do with the other?
Thanks
Forgery is its own felony case.
In Arkansas, forging a commercial document or contract is a Class C felony.
Louisiana law it’s the misrepresentation with intent to defraud, and it looks like it’s graded on a scale of defraud for what value–forging a signature to get a quarter is not as bad as forging one for millions of dollars.
But now, I’m off the phone with legal counsel about other matters, so I’m back to google and guess.
The second charge is troubling for this reason, it does not bode very well for Christian education. I will tell you that in the not to distant future I can imagine a situation where religious institutions wont be able to maintain regional accreditation.
There has certainly been a continual issue here, but I think that SACS has been willing to allow religious schools to go so far and then not cross a certain line.
I suspect that Dr. Hankins’ direct involvement in LC affairs (based on reports, articles, and blogs) is the issue.
But you may be right.
I think there was a great deal of pushback when someone suggested in a major academic setting that no religious institutions should have accreditation–it was connected to Wheaton a few months back. (see here: http://faithandamericanhistory.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/598/ I think there is a legitimate concern going forward, but I expect that long before confessional faithfulness costs schools accreditation, we’ll see government interference instead. My pessimistic 8-ball suggests that the freedom to discriminate based on religion will disappear from Federal Law first, and then it won’t be SACS threatening your accreditation, it will be the DoJ suing you out of existence for insisting on… Read more »
Doug,
No doubt you are probably right. I personally have always held that the only educational institutions that the Convention ought to be involved are seminaries. I believe in BSM ministries by the way. But there have been far too many universities who were started and subsidized by Baptist dollars who later went liberal and eventually eliminated all influence of the denomination in the university…(See Brown University or the University of Chicago or Mercer)
That drift problem is a major one, and those aren’t the only examples. I think there was one in Florida, not sure about Alabama. I think the question at hand for many of these institutions, though, is that since we have them, how do we handle them? I’d vote “nay” to investing in starting another Baptist college here in Arkansas, but I also would not willingly just sever ties with either OBU or Williams. And many of these schools got a start because seminary education was a distant impossibility or because, like here in Arkansas, for many ages self-supporting ministry… Read more »
Good points, John.
I am afraid that perhaps the tendency toward theological drift in Baptist colleges has caused some kind of backlash. Maybe we have overcorrected, with entities attempting to prevent drift by over-control.
Doug,
The SBTC doesn’t own institutions, but we do provide financial support for Criswell College and Jacksonville College. Our governing documents permit no more than 15% of our budget to go to institutional support.
Dave
I think you have made a salient point. Historically it seems to me that Baptist have had a hard time avoiding extremes in some situations.
JOHN, perhaps SACS is attempting to preserve Christian higher education by calling on the college to correct unethical (possibly illegal) practices? certainly SACS has its own reputation to maintain . . . if they ‘look the other way’ in the case of Southern Baptist colleges when there is blatant corruption, then the SACS will lose credibility as a responsible organization. Southern Baptist colleges should be GRATEFUL for the supervision, not fearful for the future of Christian colleges . . . and anyway, if those charges are even remotely true, then the ‘future’ is here isn’t it, and the term ‘Christian… Read more »
Well, they play Huntingdon College on Saturday in their season opener. Here’s wishing them well. I always root for the Baptists over the Methodists—with the exception of Duke and Wake Forest. SACS is like the NCAA of academics. They might slap a temporary probation on you, but ultimately, they’re not going to shut down the institution. Accreditation lost eventually leads to accreditation regained. I’m sure we are all praying for Interim President Smith and the LC leadership team as they put the worms back in the can. We can be reasonably sure that they have a better plan for doing… Read more »