In a move that appears more delay than deliverance, the accreditation agency that for the last two years has hounded City College of San Francisco with threats of a July 31 closure seems to have backed off—at least for the moment.
CCSF—one of the largest educational institutions in the state—was less than two months away from having its accreditation terminated and doors shut when, on June 11, the Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) proposed a new plan of accreditation “restoration.” If approved by the U.S. Department of Education and accepted by the college, the plan would allow CCSF two years to iron out its accreditation kinks, and allow for the school’s doors to remain open.
The announcement has left some pleased, some worried and many both.
“On some level this is wonderful news, because it gives people the confidence that City College is going to remain open, and accredited for the foreseeable future,” said Wendy Kaufmyn, member of Save CCSF Coalition, a group that has fought the commission on its disaccreditation threats. “But the concern I have … is we continue to be under their thumb over the next couple of years. We continue to be in a position where they try to mold us into the vision of what they want, which is not the vision of an open and accessible community college.”
Kaufmyn, who has taught engineering at CCSF for the last 31 years, isn’t the only one who harbors some misgivings over the proposal.
“Having more time is not a bad thing, we’re not against that. But we have serious concerns,” said Timothy Killikelly, the president of AFT 2121 the CCSF teachers’ union. “In some ways, it sounds like a way for [the ACCJC] to take the heat off of themselves by creating a process that’s creating more time.”
In 2013, a year after the ACCJC leveled a “show cause” sanction (the second-highest level punishment before actual disaccreditation) against CCSF, City Attorney Dennis Herrera and the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) and AFT 2121 filed separate lawsuits against the commission.
Killikelly’s chief worry about the ACCJC’s proposal is its language regarding what happens when the two-year time period has lapsed.
“If after this period the institution has not met all accreditation standards … the prior termination order would be activated without any opportunity for an appeal,” the proposal reads.
“It does seem that the college will have given up any right to a review or an appeal and its ability to go to court,” Killikelly said.
He also pointed to an op-ed piece written by Sherrill Amador and Steven Kinsella, the ACCJC’s chair and vice-chair respectively. Amador and Kinsella wrote in an April 12 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle that, “the college could take up to four years to fully recover.”
“If that’s true, and the college goes down this road … it’s going to be very problematic,” Killikelly said.
The lawsuits filed by Herrera and CFT and AFT 2121 coupled with multiple protests and rallies have garnered strong support for the college in its standoff against the commission.
“They did this to save themselves, not to save City College,” Kaufmyn said of the ACCJC. “If they didn’t do it, that would be the nail in their coffin.”
But the sanction and threat of disaccreditation that was handed down last June has done its damage. CCSF’s enrollment has dropped by at least 25,000 over the last two years. A community college that once boasted numbers north of 100,000 now has a student body population of about 77,000.
“Those students are gone,” said Edgar Torres, chair of the Latin American and Latino studies at CCSF. “No one talks about the collateral damage.”
But Torres concedes that there is some upside to the commission’s proposal.
“The biggest good part about it is that, I’m hoping, we won’t see another drop in enrollment in July,” Torres said. “I’m very happy that we can now start working and building it back.”