Friday, July 8, 2011

Small Southern Schools Struggle to Survive

In Louisiana, a Small College Gives Itself a Makeover
Centenary CollegeCentenary College of Louisiana, a small liberal-arts institution that's been in shaky financial shape, is giving its curriculum a big makeover, cutting 22 of its 44 majors.
By Lawrence Biemiller
Can small liberal-arts colleges go on being all things to all people in an era of reduced resources and increasing competition? At least one—Centenary College of Louisiana, in Shreveport—has decided it can't. After years of running deficits and watching enrollment falter, it's cutting the number of majors it offers in half, from 44 to 22, and focusing its curriculum on what it sees as the challenges of the 21st century.
More: http://chronicle.com/article/In-Louisiana-a-Small-College/128087/
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Looking back:

Hiwassee may go out with a squeak instead of a roar

Jim Castagnera



A year ago, in a magazine article titled “Mice That Roar,” I reported, “If the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) gets its way, Hiwassee College has no future.” SACS was intent on yanking the rural, religious college’s accreditation.
On April 14th the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over much of America’s southland, moved the accrediting organization one very big step closer to having its way with the 500-student, sectarian school.
The three-judge appeals panel made short shrift of Hiwassee’s legal arguments, and affirmed summary judgment in SACS’s favor. In a two-page opinion, the justices first disposed of Hiwassee's claim of a private right of action against the accreditor. Relying on its own 2002 precedent, the court held that no such private right exists in the Higher Education Act. (The Supreme Court has long held that students and parents have no such cause of action against their colleges and universities under the HEA.)

Hiwassee also argued that SACS is so entwined with the U.S. Department of Education that it is, in effect, a government actor. If so, said the college’s advocates, the “due process” clause of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment applies and has been violated by the accreditor’s rough treatment of this mouse of a college. Not so, said the appellate court: “The overwhelming majority of courts who have considered this issue have found that accrediting agencies are not state actors.”

Lastly, in a final snap of the mousetrap that may break the plaintiff-college’s back, the court concluded that, “SACS complied [with any common law duty it may have] in terminating Hiwassee’s accreditation.”

With that opinion, the appellate judges dissolved the emergency legal stay, which, since last year, has prevented SACS from stripping Hiwassee’s accreditation.

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United States Court of Appeals,
Eleventh Circuit.
HIWASSEE COLLEGE, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
THE SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 07-13033.
April 14, 2008.

Background: Private college sued accrediting association for alleged violation of its constitutional and common-law due process rights and Higher Education Act (HEA), based on association's withdrawal of its accreditation of college. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, No. 05-00951-CV-JOF, 490 F.Supp.2d 1348, J. Owen Forrester, J., granted summary judgment for association, and college appealed.


Holdings: The Court of Appeals held that:
(1) there is no implied private right of action under HEA;
(2) as a matter of first impression, association was not governmental actor bound by Due Process Clause; and
(3) association had complied with any common-law due process requirements that may have applied to it.

Affirmed.
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Hiwassee today:

Welcome to Hiwassee College, home of the Tigers! I, and our faculty and staff are dedicated to your success through providing you with an excellent higher education experience in a Christian environment. Hiwassee College is a place where you will grow intellectually, socially and spiritually.

We think you will find our new website and our social media an excellent representation of the spirit, mission, success, and life on our Southern Smoky Mountains campus. When browsing through our new site you will be able to quickly review the academic, athletic, alumni, and student expressions of what it means to live, work, play, and pray at Hiwassee College.

Our faculty is committed to teaching. They are focused on making students successful using the most effective tools in the classroom and in the community around us. Our faculty is constantly seeking ways to utilize our 400-acre campus as a teaching tool. We are examining ways to be a sustainable campus through the use of alternative energy sources and Green initiatives, while protecting the integrity of the land. We are growing our student work/study program so our students will have every opportunity to fully participate in this incredible adventure while supporting their academic pursuits.

We have an extraordinary alumni group who are active, dedicated, and frequently join us on campus. We are very fortunate that so many alumni live in East Tennessee, but many often travel significant distances for special events. The alumni have been a tremendous source of strength in our past and will certainly be a critical part of our future.

We value partnering with the community through sharing resources and facilities. This summer we are opening our pool for our summer campers and for our community. When school starts back August 24th it will be ready for our new and returning students. We are enhancing our student life activities by adding a new nine-hole disc golf course, opening our tennis courts, and hiring a new Dean of Students and an Associate Dean for Student Activities. We believe both of these individuals will bring a great deal to enhancing our student life on campus.

There is a great deal of new activity taking place on our mountain view campus and I hope you will join us! This is an outstanding opportunity to learn in a setting that provides you great classroom opportunities to learn, to become friends with students from many different locations, to hike the Smoky Mountains, whitewater raft one of our many rivers, enjoy our area lakes, or take a mile-high, scenic ride on the Cherohala Skyway. We look forward to hearing from you or seeing you on campus! There is no better time to start your higher education experience than now, and there is no better place to begin than Hiwassee College!

See you soon!


Robin Tricoli
President
http://hiwassee.edu/presletter.shtml

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To me, the resilience of these small Southern schools is nothing less than remarkable... perhaps even heroic.

More about Hiwassee in:

http://books.google.com/books?id=u8qmtO4zuYcC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=castagnera+hiwassee&source=bl&ots=E008TdT9Ud&sig=pqI7xVa2reJQHiENurbPM0TVAZ0&hl=en&ei=Y9gWTuqOAeHc0QHavPlm&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=castagnera%20hiwassee&f=false

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