Broward College gets stinging review from accreditor

Scott Travis, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
·7 min read
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Broward College has received a scathing preliminary review from its accrediting agency, which reports the school may face deficiencies in numerous areas, from faculty credentials to student resources to oversight from its Board of Trustees.

The college failed to meet or failed to turn in required documentation in 22 out of 40 areas measured in an April review by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, commonly referred to as SACS, according to a preliminary report obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel through a public records request.

The report lists dozens of faculty members and administrators who hadn’t met the qualifications of their job. This included former President Gregory Haile, who didn’t have the 15 years of senior-level higher-education experience outlined as a requirement, the report said.

Haile abruptly resigned last month for unrelated reasons, and last week, the college’s Board of Trustees appointed as acting president retired administrator Barbara Bryan, who meets the experience requirement.

The accrediting agency is visiting the college this week to see if it has fixed the problems identified. Depending on those results, the agency will decide in December whether to issue sanctions, such as a warning or probation, said Belle Wheelan, president of the accrediting agency.

Serious or repeated findings can cause a college to lose its accreditation, which would make students ineligible for financial aid. But that is rare and not expected for Broward College, Wheelan told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in a recent interview.

“It is highly unlikely that they would be dropped from membership just because of these 22 issues, but they could be put on sanctions, which would not impact financial aid,” Wheelan said. “The college would still be accredited. They would just be in a little trouble from us.”

The poor results surprised Jeanne Christ, a Broward College business professor and advocacy chair for the college’s chapter of United Faculty of Florida.

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“It’s like having the answers to the test. You know what they’re looking for and know what to expect,” Christ told the Sun Sentinel. “We know what the criteria are, so for us to find out we have failed miserably is shocking.”

It’s unclear how many of these issues the college has already resolved. College officials have declined to discuss any specific findings with the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

“For the next few days, President Bryan and the team are fully focused on accreditation and not taking interviews,” college spokeswoman Joslyn Cassano told the Sun Sentinel on Friday.

Some of the findings are likely easy to fix, such as the college failing to post certain policies or data on its website.

Others could prove more challenging, such as faculty teaching classes or administrators performing tasks for which they may not be qualified.

The report lists more than 75 regular or adjunct faculty members who teach classes but may lack the proper degrees to teach the classes. In many cases, college policy allows work experience to offset certain degree requirements, but the college didn’t provide proof of this, the report said.

Christ told the Sun Sentinel that said some faculty have been told this year they can no longer teach certain classes due to a lack of proper credentials. She said faculty weren’t told this was due to an accreditation finding.

“Several faculty who had been teaching in languages or who had been teaching marketing courses or certain English courses, all of a sudden the classes were no longer there,” Christ said. “They were not offered those classes to teach and nobody knew why.”

She said faculty used to have easy online access to a credential form that listed which classes they were eligible to teach. But those were taken down, leading to confusion as to whether the credential forms have the most updated information, Christ said.

The SACS review found similar problems with those in administrative and supervisory roles.

For example, the program manager for the college’s aerospace science bachelor’s degree has an associate’s degree in aviation management as well as other degrees in unrelated fields, the report said.

“It was not clear how an [associates of science] in Aviation Maintenance qualified them to coordinate a bachelor’s degree program in Aerospace Science,” the review states.

The review found that the resumes for four administrators — dean of business affairs, dean of student services, vice president for information technology and senior vice president of facilities management — didn’t appear to have the educational degrees required under the job descriptions.

Several administrators also lacked the minimum years of experience listed on the college’s job descriptions, including former President Haile, who worked as a lawyer before being appointed president in 2018.

The report said SACS didn’t actually require the college to submit Haile’s credentials for review, but the college did anyway — thereby alerting the accreditor that he didn’t have the 15 years of senior-level higher-education experience listed in the president’s job description.

The report also questioned Haile’s role related to college fundraising.

Reviewers “found that the President has ultimate responsibility for control over the institution’s fund-raising activities,” the report said. “However, evidence (such as sample minutes, correspondence, etc.) was not provided of the President exercising this responsibility.”

The accreditor said the college was also non-compliant in a number of other areas crucial to its core mission, including ensuring students receive the resources they need for success.

While the college described to the accreditor a detailed approach of how it ensures students get a quality education, evidence that planning and evaluation are “ongoing, comprehensive, and … research-based is inadequate,” the report said.

The college also failed to offer a “coherent rationale” as for as what classes students need to complete for certain degrees, the report said. Reviewers also were unconvinced that the college offers “adequate and appropriate” library services, ensures of credits transferred from outside institutions are appropriate and ensures its distance-learning programs maintain the same standards as in-person classes.

The Board of Trustees’ oversight was criticized as well.

“While the institution provided evidence of the Board’s responsibility for fiduciary oversight, it did not provide evidence of the Board exercising this responsibility,” the report said.

The review period came mostly before Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed three new members to the five-member Board of Trustees this year. In recent months, the board has scrutinized the operations of the college and Haile’s leadership, leading to tensions that many believe contributed to Haile’s abrupt decision on Sept. 13 to resign.

Alexis Yarbrough, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, said in a Sept. 27 interview that one of the major problems she saw was that “no one was fully responsible for accreditation,” and that Provost Jeff Nasse would be overseeing the effort.

Bryan told the trustees during her Oct. 3 job interview that she has a lot of experience dealing with reviews by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

“I have spent 30 years on SACS visits. I’ve already reviewed the schedule for the upcoming visit,” she told the trustees. “I think I can help, and I want to help.”

The accrediting body has faced a major backlash in recent years from DeSantis and other conservative lawmakers. They have targeted SACS as part of what they see as their “war on woke” in higher education.

The Legislature passed a law in 2022 forcing colleges and universities to change accreditors each cycle. This year, the DeSantis administration filed a lawsuit challenging federal government requirements to use regional accrediting agencies.

Critics of SACS have expressed concern that the agency investigated the University of Florida for an initial decision — later reversed — to bar three professors from serving as expert witnesses in a voting rights case against the state.

DeSantis also alleged in June the agency threatened the accreditation of Florida State University by arguing that DeSantis ally Richard Corororan, then education commissioner, shouldn’t serve on an education board that would confirm the FSU president since Corcoran was himself an applicant.

Corcoran later resigned as education commissioner, and a DeSantis-controlled board of trustees recently appointed him as president of New College of Florida.

Former Education Chancellor Henry Mack, who was Broward College’s first choice to serve as acting president, called SACS a “horrible, horrible organization that we have been forced to be part of,” during an April meeting of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative higher education group. He received applause by some audience members by saying Florida was “divorcing itself” from the agency.

Mack was offered the Broward College job Oct. 3 but dropped out after he and the college couldn’t agree on contract terms. Bryan, the second-place finisher, was then given the job.