HLC Report Excerpts - (Community) College of DuPage

The Higher Learning Commission found COD non-compliant in the area of institutional integrity and in the area of effectiveness of administration and governance. This could result in the college being placed on probation. It also found problems with the Suburban Law Enforcement Academy at the college. I've had the opportunity to read the 45 pages of the report (a link to the report was published in an earlier post dated October 20, 2015.)

It's been apparent that recent board and administration have had functional difficulties. The report makes quite a few observations and recommendations. Here are a sampling and anyone who thinks this is going to be cleaned up quickly is kidding themselves.  The report states that one of these problems was apparent during an earlier visit in 2007. Eight years have passed and it seems things are worse today. But the college has successfully spent several $hundreds of millions of taxpayer money on a sparkling campus upgrade complete with many new buildings and roads, fountains and large ponds that were once wetlands, lots of parking lots, storm sewers and thousands of trees and shrubs.

From the HLC Report, last paragraph on page 23 which continues to page 24:
“The College of DuPage Foundation is a separate legal entity from the College of DuPage and operates under its own governing board and policies. The Foundation and College operate under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) dated June 22, 2009. Over the last number of years, the College entered into a number of competitive and non-competitive bids with vendors whose owners (or persons who work for the vendors) also serve on the COD Foundation Board. Questions have arisen around whether or not such activity, especially with respect to the awarding of noncompetitive bids to such vendors, was proper or permitted. There is also the question of whether the awarding of such contracts avoided potential conflicts of interest or even the appearance of such conflicts of interest. Investigations by some external entities and by attorneys retained by the College are ongoing. In addition, the College itself identified one particular contract as being improper. During an interview with the internal auditor, the team was advised that a contract with Herricane Graphics was entered into after the contract deadline. According to the internal auditor, this contract was therefore invalid. Yet, despite knowledge of this clear violation, the contract was still accepted by the College.”

Page 18: "........fissures in the linkages among the stakeholders of this academic community are visible. The most poignant of these observations was a quote from a COD student, recently elected by the student body as the student representative on the Board of Trustees, 'Many times the discussion progresses and falls into a political or financial debate accompanied by bickering that focuses on the past and rarely the future.'"

Page 21: "The COD Board of Trustees would benefit from an enriched professional development program focusing on governance within higher education, duties of board members, and communication both during and outside of Board meetings. The lack of appropriate training and ongoing strife that exists among the Board members serves to impede the Board’s ability to serve the public good. Further, the role of operations should be delegated to the President and College staff. Therefore, the team finds that the evidence demonstrates that further organizational attention and Commission follow-up are required."

Page 43: "As a whole, faculty held a generally unfavorable review of the Division of Continuing Studies." "....the College has not permitted the faculty to participate substantially in the development and implementation of curriculum. "

"Finally, during the team’s interview with the Board, it was reported to the team that the Board felt faculty relations between the College and the faculty were good. However, the faculty asserted that even with the President on administrative leave, the “next level down in the hierarchy” have not addressed concerns faculty raised in the vote of no confidence (dicsussed (sic) earlier in this report). In fact, the faculty complained that practices involving “bullying and corruption” continued. During the open faculty interview, the faculty as a whole felt they were the “B-team.” This particular issue was noted by a visiting team in 2007. Yet, it does not appear that circumstances have improved since that time. In fact, the vote of “no confidence” indicates that matters involving the faculty continued to deteriorate. This is consistent with faculty comments regarding the lack of a true shared governance structure."

Pages 42-43: "......during an interview, criminal justice faculty complained they were not consulted about the recent change in the number of credits for the SLEA program. These faculty members provided a history of the awarding of nine criminal justice credits as the work of administrators and one former criminal justice faculty member in 1994. At that time, the faculty disagreed with the awarding of the original nine criminal justice credits.

Moreover, SLEA instructors indicated they, too, were not involved in the recent decision to increase the criminal justice credits awarded saying they “know nothing about it.” SLEA instructors said they have not seen the criminal justice objectives or the crosswalk completed by administrators. In fact, they teach the ILETSB curriculum (discussed above in connection with Core Component 3.A.).

The Vice President for Academic Affairs stated during an interview that faculty should be involved whenever there is a change in credits such as a change from “3 to 4 credits for a course.” When asked if the faculty was involved in the decision to change the number of credits awarded from 13 to 22, she replied that they were not. When asked why she approved the change in credits, she replied that she thought the faculty were involved since the Associate Dean for Social and Behavioral Sciences brought it to her for approval.

From a broader perspective, fifty-four faculty members attended the open session with faculty. Without a dissenting voice, faculty members indicated they were upset that the administration had increased the number of criminal justice credits awarded to SLEA cadets without faculty involvement. They expressed concern that administration would repeat this action in other programs citing the Carpenter’s Apprenticeship  Program, Pharmacy Technician, Real Estate, and Massage Therapy as potential examples. Faculty also asserted the College’s alternative credit peer review or Prior Learning Assessment is distorted. Administration and faculty agreed in separate interviews that COD had no consistent format for evaluating prior learning. For example, SLEA and the carpenter’s union credit program were handled in different ways by College faculty and staff. Faculty also felt that a “crossover” program was going to be increased to turn more non-credit courses into awards for credit. At this point, the College maintains that only two above-referenced programs exist of this kind.

As a whole, faculty held a generally unfavorable review of the Division of Continuing Studies. Individual faculty felt that Continuing Studies were naming their non-credit programs similar to credit, accredited program in order to “confuse” students that appears to have an effect of driving down enrollments within Academic Affairs. Faculty cited examples that include medical assisting, pharmacy tech, and medical coding classes which appear in the Ed2Go portion of their catalog."

Suburban Law Enforcement Academy (SLEA)  
Pages 12 and 13 of the report: "As discussed later in this report, the amount of credit awarded, as well as the process in which the credit hours were determined, raises concerns in connection with several Criteria and Core Components."

Excerpts from Pages 34 to 39: “.........there is the potential for these “students” to receive federal and state financial aid for 22 credits in violation of the federal credit hour definition. The federal definition of credit hour is the standard for all of higher education. COD’s practice of awarding this number of credits for SLEA participation is not appropriate to higher education.” “The College’s Vice President for Academic Affairs (Jean Kartje) likewise referred to it as Prior Learning Program credit. The College, however, does not have a Prior Learning Program policy even though some individual areas grant credit for prior learning.”

"In sum, College of DuPage is giving 22 college credits for the non-credit SLEA program by simultaneously enrolling students in college courses and in the non-credit program. The crosswalk between SLEA instruction units and the objectives of the three recently added criminal justice courses does not show that adequate attention is given to the criminal justice courses’ objectives. In addition, the institution made a concomitant change in credit hours without an increase in the hours of instruction and was not able to justify the number of credit hours. Likewise, the clock hours allocated to the SLEA curriculum and the credits awarded do not follow the federal definition of a credit hour."