Carver College s Public Response to ABHE s June 20, 2018 Action Letter Atlanta, Georgia August 13, 2018 By Robert W. Crummie, President & CEO, Carver College 3870 Cascade Road, Southwest, Atlanta, Georgia 30331, www.carver.edu
The Association of Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) Commission on Accreditation (COA) reviewed Carver College at its February 17-21, 2018 meeting and took the following action: Withdraw accreditation from Carver College (GA) in light of the Commission s judgment that the institution fails to comply with 11 ABHE standards. Carver College was not in aggreement with the COA s judgment and requested and was granted a face-to-face appeal, which was held on June 13, 2018. The Appeal Panel reviewed documentation from the February COA meeting, appeal documentation supplied by Carver on March 23, 2018, and testimony and responses to questions by Carver s leadership representatives during the appeal meeting. The decision of the 5 member Appeal Panel was 4 to 1, upholding the COA s decision to withdraw Carver s accreditation. The effective date of this action was June 13, 2018. Carver College contends that none of the citings of non compliance which the COA acted upon were worthy of accreditation removal, neither did they hinder Carver College from achieving its mission. Carver College also contends that the COA violated their own Policy of the Spirit of Accreditation which states that, The spirit of accreditation should be one of constructive evaluation and helpfulness and that strict conformity in every detail is not required. Excellence in major areas may well compensate for minor deficiencies. Then too, the final test of an institution s or program s strength is whether it is achieving its objectives in preparing students for effective Christian living and service. At no point before the COA or the Appeal Panel were the achievement of such objectives evaluated or discussed. Instead of evaluating Carver College on the citings in its March 6, 2017 Action Letter, the COA used a new set of deficiencies (with the exception of submitting timely audits and ethical obligation to its employees) in its February 22, 2018 Action Letter. Both the February 2018 COA and the June 2018 Appeal meetings failed to contexualize Carver s journey and focused on inquiries of past behavior that had been corrected. Carver College brought evidence of the remediation but the COA and the Appeal Panel chose instead to focus on the past. Further neither the COA nor the Appeal Panel considered nor appreciated the fact that Carver College received the highest composite score in several years and continued to survive and accopmlish its mission despite being on HCM2 status. While Carver College expected to receive applause and encouragement for persevering through some very tough times from the agency it had enjoyed association and many benefits of membership with from Affiliate status in 1997 to Initial Accreditation status in 2006 to Reaffirmation of its accreditation through 2021 in 2013, it surprisingly experienced an 1
aggressive effort to qualify accreditation removal. Our team further believes that this effort was motivated by fear of appearing too lenient towards a member college that appeared vulnerable due to loss of Title IV eligibility and the possibility of corresponding scrutiny of their own strengths by the Department of Education (DOE). This belief is supported by lack of sensitivity to the arguments made by Carver College in its Appeal to the COA. In addition, this belief is supported by the perceived inability of both the COA and the Appeal Panel to appreciate the following sequence of events that resulted in a severe economic downturn on Carver s revenue. Channel 2 News Story, Carver Bible College Hires Criminal Police Officers reported by Dale Caldwell in April 2007. o Dale crafts a story that The president of Carver hired criminal police officers. o Monica Pearson advertises the airing of Dale s story days in advance. o Dale recruits members of his Sunday School class to pose as residents near Carver to support his false claims. o He supports his story by using records that showed an officer hired by Carver had shot and killed a man while working as an officer at a night club. What Dale did not disclose is that the oficer worked at the night club 10 years prior to being hired by Carver and a POST investigation had not closed the case and thus, the wording of murder was still assigned to that case. Dale Dale chose to use the language murder to assign criminal to this officer yet the officer had never been arrested, indicted or jailed. o What Dale withheld from the viewers was that the officer had actually put a drunken patron out of the club. The man went to his car, got a gun and started shooting into the club windows. The officer responded with shots that killed the shooter. The officer was actually a hero and saved the lives of patrons in the club. The results of this false TV reporting: Carver lost 60% of its donor revenue, including a major donor withdrawal from a $1 million dollar matching gift campaign. Carver lost one of its strongest Board Members and three potential Board Members withdrew their nominations. Enrollment dropped for the first time in several years and Carver experienced a significant lost in tuition revenue. Alumni confidence was lowered and in turn alumni giving also. o The college had worked ard for 9 years to accomplish accreditation with ABHE to validate itself in the eyes of the public and believes public confidence was significantly dimished by the airing of one false story. Channel 2 News Story, Students Say Carver College Owes Them Thousands reported by Matt Bellanger in May 2015. 2
o In 2014, Carver College was placed on HCM2 by the DOE. This placement reversed the college s advanced Title IV payments to a reimbursement system where the college had to grant students credit balances from their own internal funds. The college could be reimbursed within 30 days. o This placement on HCM2 increased Carver s need for donations to make advancing the funds possible. o Matt Bellanger s news report falsely communicated that Carver had received Title IV funds from the DOE and failed to disburse those funds to students. o His research did not accurately report the economic scenario that a college experiences under the HCM2 status. o He called the DOE in Washington, rather than the Atlanta Participation Division (who governs Title IV programs in our state and region) and asked the question, Did you instruct Carver College to freeze the student s financial aid funds? He reported that the DOE said, No and viewers are left to believe that Carver College received the funds (approximately $300k) and did not disburse them to students. o Matt s question to the DOE in Washington or local division should have been Did you disburse financial aid funds to Carver for its students? You can t freeze what you don t have. The DOE never released the funds to us and his choice of language criminalized Carver, again. o The result of this report was: Transfers of students into other colleges and universities. Significant loss in tuition revenue. Significant loss in donor revenue. Law suits from two students (reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution Carver College Student Sues School Over Loan Funds in May 2015). In March 2016, both students informed Carver s president in private that lawyers who saw Matt Bellanger s news report contacted them and convinced them that if they sue Carver they could receive a substantial lump sum. Both students dropped their lawsuits in March 2016. An inability of the college to timely meet financial obligations: Salary payments to faculty and staff (ethical obligations to employees was one of the major non compliance issues of the COA) Payments to auditors for timely release of audited financial statements to meet ABHE reporting standards (anothre one of the major non compliance issues of the COA). Diminished ability to sustain stellar student services. Diminished ability to maintain upkeep of facilties. Significant donor fatigue, among major donors who were were asked to make more frequent repeat gifts. 3
ABHE Sanctions: Probation Show cause Withdrawal I failed as President of Carver College and its chief fundraiser to raise enough funds to fill the financial gap resulting from loss of revenue caused by the Channel 2 news stories mentioned above. As an institution of higher learning, we are proud of our long history of quality academic programs, facilities, outstanding relationships with top seminaries and graduate programs and our highly qualified faculty and administrators. We are learning from this and on June 21, 2018, the College s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to begin the process towards accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Meanwhile, Carver s commitment to our educational mission, quality of faculty and staff has not diminished. We remain proud of our graduates, their leadership and influence in both ministry and the marketplace. Students who graduated in May 2018, including those who took summer courses to complete their degree, received an accredited degree. As Carver enters into its 75 th year of educating students to reach the world for Christ by serving the church, the community and the world as biblically minded, professionally competent men and women of character, we continue pursuit of our vision for sustainability as outlined below. Vision for Sustainability Accreditation (Initially granted in 2006 with the ABHE, Reaffirmed in 2013 thru 2021,. now loss and seeking to regain with SACS) 4
+ New Learning Environment (Purchased new campus in 2006 for $3.5 million, paid off) + Title IV Funding (Initially approved to participate in Federal Financial Aid program in. 2010, now loss and seeking to regain in the fall of 2019) + New Majors (Substantive requests approved by ABHE for Psychology (2013), Business Administration (2014), Elementary Education (2015), goal is one each year_ = Sustainability (The increase in enrollment resulting from accreditation, new campus, financial aid and several new majors will enhance Carver s economic scenario from a 20% contribution from tuition towards the budget to an 80% contribution functioning like most healthy U.S. colleges and universities and far less dependent on donations.) 5