Higher Education Quick Takes

President Obama has signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to work to support tribal colleges and universities. The executive order notes gaps in educational attainment between Native American and other students, and the role of tribal colleges in closing those gaps.

Academics worried about the various reform ideas being proposed in Florida (such as ending anthropology programs) may not like the latest proposal to come up. Mike Haridopolos, who is finishing a term as Senate president, told The Orlando Sentinel that higher education needs more cuts, and that public campuses can consolidate based on the ideas behind trading baseball cards. "I would prefer that the college presidents sit around a table and literally start trading like baseball cards some of these majors,” said Haridopolos. "If they have a program that is kind of underserved, why don’t they just talk to other universities and see if they have the same kind of program?... Why not consolidate them on one campus, and then say ‘I’ll take your British history program, and you’ll take our medieval studies program.'... I just think that’s a common-sense way of doing things."

The college commission of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed two colleges on probation and imposed lesser sanctions against numerous others during its just-concluded meeting in Orlando -- with many of the accreditors' actions related to financial woes. A prominent exception is the commission's decision to impose a six-month probation on Our Lady of the Holy Cross, which was investigated outside the regular accreditation review cycle after the order of nuns that governs the nonprofit corporation that controls the college abruptly dismissed its Board of Regents and its president in August. SACS cited violations of several of its standards related to governance and external influence, said Belle S. Wheelan, the accreditor's president, who added, "We just don't know who's running the place right now." A spokesman for the college, Stephen Morgan, said the community of Marianite nuns had scuttled the board because the regents were deeply, and irreconcilably, divided over the performance of Holy Cross's former president, the Rev. Anthony De Conciliis. He said college officials were confident that they ultimately could explain to the Southern accreditor why the corporation board's actions were legitimate under SACS's policies on tiers of governance. Morgan acknowledged that the accreditor's action could affect the enrollment of students potentially transferring to Holy Cross.

In other actions at its meeting, the Southern accreditor placed Florida Christian College on probation, citing standards related to financial stability and resources. It also warned numerous other colleges because of concerns about their financial states and/or their overemphasis on part-time professors, including Edward Waters College, Fisk University, Fort Valley State University, Greensboro College, Lon Morris College, Louisiana College, Montreat College, Mount Olive College, Savannah State University, Stillman College, Texas State Technical College-Harlingen, and Virginia Intermont College.

The Southern accreditor also removed four institutions from probation: Bennett College for Women, Notre Dame Seminary (La.), Sul Ross State University, and the University of West Alabama, and dropped several institutions from warning status, including Barton, Brescia, Carson Newman, Criswell, and Miami Dade Colleges, Pamlico Community College, South Plains College, Tennessee State University and Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Jon Huntsman has tried to stand out in the Republican presidential field by, among other things, arguing that scientists should be trusted on issues such as evolution and climate change. Huntsman also has yet to experience a surge in his standing in the race. The Washington Post and others speculate that the latter fact may explain an evolution of Huntsman's position on climate change. After earlier saying that Republicans cannot be seen as the "anti-science party," he is now questioning whether researchers have demonstrated the validity of climate change. "There are questions about the validity of the science — evidence by one university over in Scotland recently,” he said Tuesday, referring to the leaked e-mail messages that were dubbed a scandal but that several scientific inquiries have said don't change the consensus that climate change is real. Huntsman denied he was changing his position about trusting scientists, but said that “I think the onus is on the scientific community to provide more in the way of information, to help clarify the situation. That’s all."