Below is the official press release pertaining to Brewton-Parker College and the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges. Since 2008, Brewton-Parker has had struggles with its accreditation status with SACSCOC, culminating in being placed on probationary status with SACSCOC in 2010. Dr. Ergun Caner was appointed president in December, 2013 and began his duties January, 1, 2014. Caner immediately began to work on the SACS issue knowing only a few months away in late April, a visiting team from SACSCOC would come for the final time before giving an up or down vote to recommend to their board of trustees whether Brewton-Parker should remain a member of the accrediting agency recognized by the US Department of Education.
The President put together an administrative team to deal with the issue as well as made some excruciating decisions about both internal control policy and personnel heading up some of the areas of concern. While both the administration and trustees remained convinced Brewton-Parker College had met every concern expressed by the previous visiting SACS committee, April came and the result did not favor Brewton-Parker. The committee informed the president it would recommend to the full board that Brewton-Parker College should be removed from membership. Nor did Brewton-Parker's final appeal issued by Ergun Caner and his team make any difference to the visiting team's recommendation. Hence, in June 2014, Brewton-Parker College received official notice that the college would be removed from membership, and the college had 10 days to officially appeal the decision.
From April until December, 2014, Brewton-Parker College insisted it met the qualifying criteria the Principles of Accreditation requires of its members. On Saturday, December 6, 2014, Dr. Caner and his SACS compliance team met a final time with the SACSCOC Committee on Compliance and Reports to present new verified material evidence demonstrating Brewton-Parker College’s compliance with the Principles of Accreditation. This time, Caner and his team offered the material evidence to finally demonstrate Brewton-Parker's compliance.
Hence, SACSCOC publicly released its findings about Brewton-Parker College and several other schools before adjourning at noon today in Nashville. Brewton-Parker not only was reaffirmed in its accreditation, the "on probation" status was removed.
Finally, I trust all those who attempted to bury Brewton-Parker College in the ash heaps of the past, publicly dissing the school, ridiculing the efforts of many Brewton-Parker educators and administrators, some even chiding those communicating Brewton-Parker's status as being dishonest concerning the public claims the school was making about its accreditation will learn to be more reserved before jumping to false and even harmful public conclusions concerning a matter about which they have little more than pure gossip to go on.
Download 12-9 SACSCOC Reaffirms Brewton-Parker College Accreditation
You may also read it online at bpc.edu
Were the original concerns legitimate?
Posted by: JND | 2014.12.09 at 03:11 PM
Big congrats!!! when I think of what your president was going through during this time, my admiration for him has grown by leaps and bounds.
Posted by: Lydia | 2014.12.09 at 03:28 PM
Thanks, Lydia. It's been low but he continues to stand tall.
JND, I'm sure the concerns expressed by the visiting committee were legitimate from their standpoint. BPC's consistent claim since April has been, "We are compliant with the Principles of Accreditation. Please inform us specifically how we are not." The full board pressed us to find new evidence to substantiate our claim. We did.
What is more, perhaps the chief piece of evidence substantiating our consistent claim of compliance was our newest composite score of 1.8 for the 2014 fiscal year calculated by the US Dept of Ed, evidence not allowed since the deadline date passed to submit new evidence for review. However, as it turns out, we didn't have to submit it. Our case was apparently made without it.
Posted by: peter lumpkins | 2014.12.09 at 06:24 PM
Congrats
Posted by: Bill Mac | 2014.12.09 at 06:38 PM
Praise His Holy Name. He's still God in the valley.
Posted by: Max | 2014.12.09 at 09:28 PM
Touche!
Next they'll be questioning the integrity of SACS....lol
Sounds almost as if complaints against the school had been filed under a wrong institutional name.....lol some more.
Posted by: Scott Shaver | 2014.12.10 at 09:17 AM