Georgetown, KY - For the second time in 10 years, Georgetown College is facing accreditation issues because of its financial condition.
School President M. Dwaine Greene announced the latest development on the college’s website Friday.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) on Thursday issued a warning to Georgetown College officials following a determination by the SACSCOC Board of Trustees that the school is not in compliance with requirements on financial resources and standards on financial stability, Greene said.
“’Warning’ is the less serious of SACSCOC sanctions, and is usually levied in the early stages of a situation needing correction,” Greene said.
Greene said SACSCOC officials are aware of the college’s “strategic renewal plan,” announced by Georgetown’s first-year president in January and completely unveiled this spring. The plan aims to correct what Greene has called an “imbalance” of revenues and spending that has been experienced by the college over several years.
SACSCOC is the major university and college accreditation association for institutions of higher education in the Southeast U.S.
Michael Johnson, senior vice president and chief of staff at the SACSCOC, said, “A warning is a determination of significant noncompliance with at least one of the accreditation standards.”
But, he noted, it is the less stringent of the commission’s sanctions, the more stringent being probation.
After receiving the warning, Johnson said, a member institution has two years to correct the violation, but can be granted additional time. An institution placed on probation has a firm two-year time limit, or it will lose its accreditation.
The commission has asked the college to report back on its situation and the progress of the strategic renewal plan in December, Johnson said.
“I believe this (news about Georgetown’s financial situation) came in as unsolicited information... This (issuing of a warning) just began fairly recently,” Johnson said.
He was unable to identify the source of the “unsolicited information.”
Jim Allison, the college’s associate vice president for college relations, said GC officials have kept the commission apprised of GC’s strategic renewal effort since January.
The renewal plan aims to increase enrollment while reducing faculty and staff numbers to improve the college’s financial standing, Greene said. The college also eliminated academic major degree programs in music, French, German and computer science, although classes in those areas will continue to be offered.
Greene was not available for comment. Allison said.
“He anticipated that this was a likely action based on the strategic renewal,” Allison said.
Greene has said he was apprised of the college’s financial situation last summer, when the GC Board of Trustees interviewed him to be the successor to Dr. William H. Crouch Jr, who left the college in October 2013.
The college also had been placed on a year’s probation by the SACSCOC in December 2004, when the agency said the school had “failed to demonstrate compliance” with financial stability requirements.
That came after the school’s net assets declined from $61 million to $44.5 million in the wake of the post 9/11 economic downturn.
A year later, SACSCOC praised the college’s “accomplishments in addressing non-compliance” regarding financial stability, with Georgetown’s net assets having increased to $52.4 million, the college’s chief financial officer, Jim Moak Jr., said at the time.
Asked about recent progress in implementing Greene’s strategic renewal plan, Allison said, “All indications (are) we are on track” toward increasing student enrollment for the 2014-15 academic year.
Moak did not return a phone call seeking information about where the college’s net assets currently stand.
Friday – the same day Greene announced the SACS commission’s warning – the school conducted an orientation for 112 incoming students, Allison said.
Another group of a similar number is expected this Friday, he said, with another orientation planned for July 25.
“All indications on those numbers are that fall enrollment is very good,” Allison said.