<p>Some heads need to roll and jobs need to be lost for those bone-headed Tech administrators responsible for missing the data submission deadlines to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. This is an incredibly stupid self-administered and avoidable black eye to Tech (right after getting a Phi Beta Kappa chapter for its Arts and Sciences academic excellence last year). Here is an article today from Lubbock's home newspaper on the subject.</p>
<p>Accrediting group puts Tech on probation
ELLIOTT BLACKBURN
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL</p>
<p>A regional collegiate accrediting organization placed Texas Tech on probation Tuesday for failing to show that its curriculum produced college-level competency. </p>
<p>The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools' decision puts Tech at risk of losing its institutional accreditation, which can damage the university's credibility and risk state and federal funding. Texas Southern University and the University of Americas-Puebla also were put on probation at the association's annual meeting.</p>
<p>Commission President Belle Wheelan said the association monitored Tech for two years after reaffirming the university's accreditation in 2005 and apparently was not satisfied with documents it had received.</p>
<p>Whitmore </p>
<p>Wheelan believed Tech would come into compliance within the year.</p>
<p>"It's going to take a lot of work, but I have faith in them," she said.</p>
<p>Tech had not yet collected enough data to measure the general educational competency of its students that the association requires under what university President Jon Whitmore described as a new rule. </p>
<p>The issue was one of four reports the body requested after accrediting the university in 2005 and the only one Tech had not yet provided, Whitmore said.</p>
<p>Failing to fully meet such requests over a two-year period automatically triggers probation, under the association's policies.</p>
<p>Tech will have enough data in the spring semester to report to the association in September and be removed from probation in December 2008, Whitmore said.</p>
<p>"We'll have that data and we're not anticipating any problem, but the timing was just not right for the meeting," he said.</p>
<p>Probation is a serious finding of non-compliance and usually a last step before revoking an institution's membership in the accreditation association, according to the association's policies. Institutions can remain on probation for two years before they are removed from the association, according to the group's policies.</p>
<p>Tech programs remain accredited by 25 other such agencies, Whitmore said, and he had no concerns about what news of the probation so close to when college-bound high school seniors will decide which university to attend could do to next year's enrollment.</p>
<p>"As long as our accreditation is fully in place, which it is, I'm not anticipating problems," Whitmore said.</p>