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Edward Waters copied report crucial to future
By BETH KORMANIK
The Times-Union
Edward Waters College copied from another university substantial portions of a key document used in its accreditation process, an offense that could cost its students significant financial aid dollars.
A Times-Union review of the Jacksonville college's Quality Enhancement Plan shows it repeats word for word most of the Quality Enhancement Plan of Alabama A&M University, and passes off some detailed statistical information about Alabama A&M as its own.
The report does not list the names of the author or authors. But a committee of professors and administrators assembled the document, college spokeswoman Phyllis Bell-Davis said Thursday. Davis said it was e-mailed to faculty and staff but was not available to the public. She would not give a copy to the Times-Union.
A Times-Union source said the document was also posted on Edward Waters' Web site in a location that can be accessed only by faculty and staff. The Times-Union is not identifying the source because doing so could be traced to college employees who provided copies of the plan and fear retribution.
The Times-Union obtained a copy of the plan, but the accrediting agency does not discuss colleges up for review and declined to confirm the document was the one it received.
Edward Waters President Jimmy Jenkins and other top administrators at the historically black college did not respond to repeated requests for interviews over three days, including a message left on Jenkins' cell phone.
The college did release a statement from Jenkins late Friday afternoon acknowledging that Edward Waters reviewed "best practices" at other schools when compiling its Quality Enhancement Plan. Jenkins said the accrediting agency knew the college used solutions from other schools "and had no objections."
Jenkins said it's more important that the school implement a plan rather than scrutinize where the plan originated.
Virginia Caples, vice president for academic affairs at Alabama A&M, said she had not seen Edward Waters' plan but would investigate the situation.
"I would hope the ideas we put forth are stimulating enough that people believe this is something worthy, but I hope someone would give us credit for it," she said. "Because that's what one does in the academic community. One doesn't just steal an idea and say, 'It's ours.'"
The accrediting agency's consultant to Edward Waters, who visited the campus last week, declined to speak about the report and its similarities to Alabama A&M's.
Alabama A&M spent more than a year developing its plan, Caples said. It addressed specific needs at the school and includes detailed statistics, she said, so even if another school identified similar issues, the particular circumstances and data would differ.
"While an institution might look at the format and the procedures that were used by another institution in developing a plan, what they develop should be significantly different in the sense that each plan is specific to that institution," she said.
Serious consequences
The issue comes at a sensitive time for Edward Waters. The college has applied for a renewal of its accreditation, a process called reaffirmation, which occurs every 10 years.
Alabama A&M, a historically black university in Normal, Ala., also is going through the process but is on a schedule that puts it six months ahead of Edward Waters. The university's plan is available online through a link on its home page, www.aamu.edu.
The accrediting agency for both schools, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, requires a document from schools called the Quality Enhancement Plan. The report must include an analysis of how well the school meets its mission and must focus on at least one specific aspect of the school's quality and student learning.
Any school that deliberately provides inaccurate information risks losing its accreditation, according to the agency's written policies. If that happened, Edward Waters students could not apply for federal financial aid, a devastating consequence because 88 percent of Edward Waters students received federal aid in the 2002-03 school year, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Education data.
Less-serious consequences include entering a warning or probation phase for up to two years. It's unknown whether the accrediting agency would allow Edward Waters to revise the plan if it's found to be inaccurate.
Tom Benberg, associate executive director of the Commission on Colleges and consultant to Edward Waters, toured the school last week with a committee of volunteer peer reviewers from other colleges. It was a scheduled visit in which the committee reviewed college documents and interviewed faculty and staff.
"I think that this committee has been well informed on the various issues related to accreditation here at Edward Waters," Benberg said.
Benberg has been made aware of the similarities in the documents. A former Edward Waters professor wrote to Benberg last week about problems with the Quality Enhancement Plan, saying it listed courses that the college doesn't offer, described a developmental program that doesn't exist and ignored rules from a faculty union contract in a discussion of class sizes.
Obvious examples of copying
Edward Waters structured its Quality Enhancement Plan to describe facts about the college in general and then to specifically address the quality of the freshman experience. The first 34 pages of the 68-page plan include original material about Edward Waters College.
From that point, Edward Waters lifts entire passages, replacing Alabama A&M's name and identifying characteristics with its own. But sometimes the cut-and-paste job was sloppy. In most instances, Edward Waters substituted "college" for "university," but some references to "the University" remain.
The most glaring example is in a passage describing characteristics of the Edward Waters freshman class. It reads: "Freshmen entering Alabama A&M University are underexposed to diversity."
In another obvious example, the Edward Waters document copied verbatim a section called "Project Resources." That section leaves in references to the School of Engineering, which Edward Waters does not have, and the "Scholartorium," a unique student learning center that Alabama A&M plans to create.
The first place where the document begins to incorporate material from Alabama A&M is a section called "preliminary conclusion."
Here's part of what that section in the Edward Waters document says: "The results of their efforts served as bases for discussion of the concerns and related findings by the larger college community at a Town Hall Meeting. Attendants at the Town Hall Meeting were provided an opportunity to give verbal and written expressions and responses. Students, faculty, and staff participated in the discussions. Concerned parties were also invited to contact focus group leaders by means of the college's e-mail if there were additional comments and/or questions."
It's exactly the same passage as one in Alabama A&M's plan.
Edward Waters also presents contradicting statistics within its own document. In a section about improving services for freshmen, the report lists the percent of students who returned for their sophomore year in 2002 as 46.8 percent. But 40 pages later, the report said the 2002 return rate was 69 percent.
The second reference in the Edward Waters report reads: "The year 2002 heralded the first increase in student retention from the previous rate of approximately 69% to 74.13% from freshman to sophomore year." That exact sentence appears in the Alabama A&M report.
Other instances show a document with little attention to detail. The Edward Waters report lifts passages from Alabama A&M that refer to students' average SAT and ACT scores. But Edward Waters does not require its students to take either college entrance exam.
The document refers to tables "as indicated below" and "as listed below" in a several places although the tables themselves do not follow. They do, however, exist in corresponding sections of Alabama A&M's report.
Unclear who's responsible
It's unclear who wrote Edward Waters' document. Unlike Alabama A&M, the college does not list the staff members, with e-mail addresses, who worked to compile the report. Edward Waters' is anonymous. The college's liaison to the accrediting agency, Maritza Yarborough, declined to discuss the document when contacted Friday.
The Commission on Colleges requires campus presidents to sign some documents, but Benberg, the accrediting agency's consultant to Edward Waters, declined to say whether the authors of the plan must be named or whether the college president must sign the Quality Enhancement Plan. Instead, he emphasized the importance of integrity in the accreditation process.
"What is required is that there be a clear demonstration of integrity by the college or university in all of its relationships with the commission," he said.
The Commission on Colleges relies on a self-reporting system when reviewing schools for renewal. Schools provide documents addressing the commission's core requirements and standards -- measures that include data on finances, faculty credentials and library holdings.
Colleges receive feedback and prepare for an on-site visit. In Edward Waters' case, that happened last week.
The committee that visits a college drafts a report on its findings, and then requires the college to respond in writing to any recommendations. The full commission -- made up of representatives from colleges throughout the Southeast -- decides whether to renew accreditation.
The commission is scheduled to review Edward Waters' accreditation in June.
Edward Waters ran into problems the last time it sought to renew its accreditation. The school was on probation in the mid-1990s because of low student enrollment and financial problems. College supporters credit Jenkins with turning around the school by eliminating the debt and raising enrollment from about 400 students to about 1,300 students.
But the problems did not end. In April, the dean of students issued an internal memo saying the school was in an "academic crisis" because more than half of all students had D's or F's in at least one class by mid-semester.
The school's leadership publicly downplayed his concerns but later fired the dean, the vice president of academic affairs, the dean of professional programs and human services, the faculty union leader and the chairwomen of the psychology and communications departments.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/101704/met_16936496.shtml
By BETH KORMANIK
The Times-Union
Edward Waters College copied from another university substantial portions of a key document used in its accreditation process, an offense that could cost its students significant financial aid dollars.
A Times-Union review of the Jacksonville college's Quality Enhancement Plan shows it repeats word for word most of the Quality Enhancement Plan of Alabama A&M University, and passes off some detailed statistical information about Alabama A&M as its own.
The report does not list the names of the author or authors. But a committee of professors and administrators assembled the document, college spokeswoman Phyllis Bell-Davis said Thursday. Davis said it was e-mailed to faculty and staff but was not available to the public. She would not give a copy to the Times-Union.
A Times-Union source said the document was also posted on Edward Waters' Web site in a location that can be accessed only by faculty and staff. The Times-Union is not identifying the source because doing so could be traced to college employees who provided copies of the plan and fear retribution.
The Times-Union obtained a copy of the plan, but the accrediting agency does not discuss colleges up for review and declined to confirm the document was the one it received.
Edward Waters President Jimmy Jenkins and other top administrators at the historically black college did not respond to repeated requests for interviews over three days, including a message left on Jenkins' cell phone.
The college did release a statement from Jenkins late Friday afternoon acknowledging that Edward Waters reviewed "best practices" at other schools when compiling its Quality Enhancement Plan. Jenkins said the accrediting agency knew the college used solutions from other schools "and had no objections."
Jenkins said it's more important that the school implement a plan rather than scrutinize where the plan originated.
Virginia Caples, vice president for academic affairs at Alabama A&M, said she had not seen Edward Waters' plan but would investigate the situation.
"I would hope the ideas we put forth are stimulating enough that people believe this is something worthy, but I hope someone would give us credit for it," she said. "Because that's what one does in the academic community. One doesn't just steal an idea and say, 'It's ours.'"
The accrediting agency's consultant to Edward Waters, who visited the campus last week, declined to speak about the report and its similarities to Alabama A&M's.
Alabama A&M spent more than a year developing its plan, Caples said. It addressed specific needs at the school and includes detailed statistics, she said, so even if another school identified similar issues, the particular circumstances and data would differ.
"While an institution might look at the format and the procedures that were used by another institution in developing a plan, what they develop should be significantly different in the sense that each plan is specific to that institution," she said.
Serious consequences
The issue comes at a sensitive time for Edward Waters. The college has applied for a renewal of its accreditation, a process called reaffirmation, which occurs every 10 years.
Alabama A&M, a historically black university in Normal, Ala., also is going through the process but is on a schedule that puts it six months ahead of Edward Waters. The university's plan is available online through a link on its home page, www.aamu.edu.
The accrediting agency for both schools, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, requires a document from schools called the Quality Enhancement Plan. The report must include an analysis of how well the school meets its mission and must focus on at least one specific aspect of the school's quality and student learning.
Any school that deliberately provides inaccurate information risks losing its accreditation, according to the agency's written policies. If that happened, Edward Waters students could not apply for federal financial aid, a devastating consequence because 88 percent of Edward Waters students received federal aid in the 2002-03 school year, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Education data.
Less-serious consequences include entering a warning or probation phase for up to two years. It's unknown whether the accrediting agency would allow Edward Waters to revise the plan if it's found to be inaccurate.
Tom Benberg, associate executive director of the Commission on Colleges and consultant to Edward Waters, toured the school last week with a committee of volunteer peer reviewers from other colleges. It was a scheduled visit in which the committee reviewed college documents and interviewed faculty and staff.
"I think that this committee has been well informed on the various issues related to accreditation here at Edward Waters," Benberg said.
Benberg has been made aware of the similarities in the documents. A former Edward Waters professor wrote to Benberg last week about problems with the Quality Enhancement Plan, saying it listed courses that the college doesn't offer, described a developmental program that doesn't exist and ignored rules from a faculty union contract in a discussion of class sizes.
Obvious examples of copying
Edward Waters structured its Quality Enhancement Plan to describe facts about the college in general and then to specifically address the quality of the freshman experience. The first 34 pages of the 68-page plan include original material about Edward Waters College.
From that point, Edward Waters lifts entire passages, replacing Alabama A&M's name and identifying characteristics with its own. But sometimes the cut-and-paste job was sloppy. In most instances, Edward Waters substituted "college" for "university," but some references to "the University" remain.
The most glaring example is in a passage describing characteristics of the Edward Waters freshman class. It reads: "Freshmen entering Alabama A&M University are underexposed to diversity."
In another obvious example, the Edward Waters document copied verbatim a section called "Project Resources." That section leaves in references to the School of Engineering, which Edward Waters does not have, and the "Scholartorium," a unique student learning center that Alabama A&M plans to create.
The first place where the document begins to incorporate material from Alabama A&M is a section called "preliminary conclusion."
Here's part of what that section in the Edward Waters document says: "The results of their efforts served as bases for discussion of the concerns and related findings by the larger college community at a Town Hall Meeting. Attendants at the Town Hall Meeting were provided an opportunity to give verbal and written expressions and responses. Students, faculty, and staff participated in the discussions. Concerned parties were also invited to contact focus group leaders by means of the college's e-mail if there were additional comments and/or questions."
It's exactly the same passage as one in Alabama A&M's plan.
Edward Waters also presents contradicting statistics within its own document. In a section about improving services for freshmen, the report lists the percent of students who returned for their sophomore year in 2002 as 46.8 percent. But 40 pages later, the report said the 2002 return rate was 69 percent.
The second reference in the Edward Waters report reads: "The year 2002 heralded the first increase in student retention from the previous rate of approximately 69% to 74.13% from freshman to sophomore year." That exact sentence appears in the Alabama A&M report.
Other instances show a document with little attention to detail. The Edward Waters report lifts passages from Alabama A&M that refer to students' average SAT and ACT scores. But Edward Waters does not require its students to take either college entrance exam.
The document refers to tables "as indicated below" and "as listed below" in a several places although the tables themselves do not follow. They do, however, exist in corresponding sections of Alabama A&M's report.
Unclear who's responsible
It's unclear who wrote Edward Waters' document. Unlike Alabama A&M, the college does not list the staff members, with e-mail addresses, who worked to compile the report. Edward Waters' is anonymous. The college's liaison to the accrediting agency, Maritza Yarborough, declined to discuss the document when contacted Friday.
The Commission on Colleges requires campus presidents to sign some documents, but Benberg, the accrediting agency's consultant to Edward Waters, declined to say whether the authors of the plan must be named or whether the college president must sign the Quality Enhancement Plan. Instead, he emphasized the importance of integrity in the accreditation process.
"What is required is that there be a clear demonstration of integrity by the college or university in all of its relationships with the commission," he said.
The Commission on Colleges relies on a self-reporting system when reviewing schools for renewal. Schools provide documents addressing the commission's core requirements and standards -- measures that include data on finances, faculty credentials and library holdings.
Colleges receive feedback and prepare for an on-site visit. In Edward Waters' case, that happened last week.
The committee that visits a college drafts a report on its findings, and then requires the college to respond in writing to any recommendations. The full commission -- made up of representatives from colleges throughout the Southeast -- decides whether to renew accreditation.
The commission is scheduled to review Edward Waters' accreditation in June.
Edward Waters ran into problems the last time it sought to renew its accreditation. The school was on probation in the mid-1990s because of low student enrollment and financial problems. College supporters credit Jenkins with turning around the school by eliminating the debt and raising enrollment from about 400 students to about 1,300 students.
But the problems did not end. In April, the dean of students issued an internal memo saying the school was in an "academic crisis" because more than half of all students had D's or F's in at least one class by mid-semester.
The school's leadership publicly downplayed his concerns but later fired the dean, the vice president of academic affairs, the dean of professional programs and human services, the faculty union leader and the chairwomen of the psychology and communications departments.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/101704/met_16936496.shtml
