The University of Alaska president announced Monday night that he’s recommending that the University of Alaska Anchorage close its School of Education, after losing national accreditation in January.
UA President Jim Johnsen plans to make his recommendation to the UA Board of Regents on April 8 to close UAA’s School of Education by July 2020. His plan would discontinue the seven initial licensure programs for UAA’s education department, effective Sept. 1 this year.
On Jan. 11, UAA was informed that its education department lost the national accreditation for its initial licensure programs from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, or CAEP. In its review, CAEP found that UAA failed four of the five categories in which it was assessed.
Representatives from UAA and the university system as a whole said that the main reason for accreditation loss was a lack of data on the progress of students in the education department.
“What came out of the evaluation was that UAA was not demonstrating that,” said Paul Layer, UA vice president for academics, students and research. “That is not to say that students weren’t meeting those standards, but the program did not demonstrate to the satisfaction of the accreditor that we were meeting those objectives.”
Under Johnsen’s recommendation, UAA education classes would be discontinued on Sept. 1, and Anchorage students would have to take education courses with instructors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks or University of Alaska Southeast, both of which have accredited education departments.
Layer said this would be offered in a mix of online courses and teachers from UAS and UAF traveling to teach in Anchorage. He said UAA’s current nursing program is an example of how the three different colleges can coordinate in such a way.
“Those students who are based in Fairbanks are taking UAF general ed and biology classes, but they are students in the UAA nursing program, and their degree will be from UAA for their nursing program, even though they may never set foot in Anchorage,” Layer said.
Layer said that there is only one degree program at UAA that won’t be offered in the same way: the bachelor’s degree in early childhood education.
“UAF will offer a program that will lead to the same certification for teachers when they graduate, but it will have a different title and a slightly different emphasis,” Layer said.
Some UAA education courses are still accredited. After students in those programs finish, the entire UAA School of Education would close July 1, 2020.
The decision of whether or not to allow UAA to pursue re-accreditation of its education department is up to the UA Board of Regents.
In a statement, UAA Chancellor Cathy Sandeen said she has “complete confidence the school’s faculty would successfully achieve accreditation based on the significant progress they have made toward compliance with CAEP standards.” But in his recommendation, Johnsen is against the idea of reapplying.
Layer said that since losing accreditation, UAA’s education department, under Interim Director Claudia Dybdahl, has created a quality assurance program they lacked in the first accreditation review.
“Should the board decide to permit UAA to move forward with accreditation, which is not the president’s recommendation, they have begun to collect the data necessary to make a strong case, should they try to seek re-accreditation,” Layer said.
The UA Board of Regents meets on April 8, and is set to vote on Johnsen’s recommendation. In her statement, Sandeen said she’ll abide by the decision to close UAA’s School of Education, should regents make that call.
This story has been updated.
