Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
Vol. 142 Issue 1 - August 29, 2018
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Hillsdale College has officially been reaccredited for another 10 years. Nicole Ault | Collegian
Hillsdale College earns 10-year reaccreditation By | Nicole Ault Editor-in-Chief After months of gathering documents and wrangling Hillsdale College’s identity into online essay forms, Hillsdale College faculty and staff reaped their reward: The Higher Learning Commission, a private regional accreditor, reaffirmed the college’s accreditation for 10 years in May 2018. The reaccreditation upholds Hillsdale’s status as a “legitimate institution whose education is serious and noteworthy,” said Hillsdale College Provost David Whalen. “We’re very glad and relieved that we got a good accreditation report and a full 10-year term extension, so we won’t have to worry about that again for a while,” said Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn. “The people who came for this accreditation visit were delightful, and we’re grateful to them, and they gave us an excellent report, which is justice, but also good to see.” Besides affirming the school’s educational legitimacy, accreditation means Hillsdale graduates are eligible for graduate and professional schools, and it pleases parents
of prospective students who seek an accredited institution, Whalen said. It also is important symbolically, he added, as “an example of a robust independent civil institution, privately organized, that bespeaks the integrity and health of postsecondary learning in the United States.” But the process has changed since the early days of accreditation and even since Hillsdale’s previous reaffirmation in 2007-2008. For the latest reaccreditation process, a committee of Hillsdale’s faculty and staff pulled together an assurance argument, a 30,000-word set of essays responding to five “core component” criteria required by the HLC. After months of culling data and documentation and editing, the college submitted the essays in December 2017 in online box forms corresponding to each core component: the college’s mission, ethical conduct, quality of education, improvement of education, and plans for future effectiveness. The method was more clinical than that of 2007, when the college submitted a book with color photographs and a
more narrative style called a “self study,” said George Allen, Hilllsdale’s director of institutional research. The HLC’s peer reviewers did get a deeper view of Hillsdale in January 2018 when they visited campus after reading the assurance argument. During their visit, they met with administration, faculty, and students, spot checked files, and held open hearings where faculty, students, and staff could comment on various aspects of the college, Allen said. The college then waited till May to receive official notification that the HLC had reaffirmed its accreditation. In contrast with previous methods, Arnn said the new one offers “less room for you to put your case together.” But Hillsdale’s provost office, deans, and department heads pulled it off, Arnn said: “We imported the entire fundamental arguments of Hillsdale College into our accreditation report, and we’re all pretty good at that around here.” About a century ago, accreditation’s “purpose was for colleges to join together in a league and evaluate each other and report on each other’s service to the mission of each
Bon Appétit to go strawless by 2019 straws. But since paper straws eventually see a strawless By | Julie Havlak come with a heftier price tag lid similar to those used by Collegian Reporter and a tendency to get soggy, Starbucks, which are made The summer of plastic Bon Appétit is considering of recyclable plastic, Persson straw bans might be over, but other options, Persson said. said. Hillsdale College students will Popular alternatives in“It may seem a like a still have to stop sucking. clude steel straws and comsmall step toward fighting Bon Appétit Management postable straws. Neither are the world’s plastic pollution Company will stop offering perfect substitutes, as steel problem, but we think it is plastic straws by September straws often go missing, while an important symbolic one 2019. to get people The movethinking about ment to rid both what single-use the environment plastic disposable and consumers’ items they really beverages of plastic need,” Bonnie straws swept Powell, Bon through the United Appétit’s director States during the of communicasummer. Seattle tions, said in an banned plastic email. “And since straws, restaurants we’re doing it across the nation company-wide, followed suit, and that’s almost 17 now the strawless million plastic movement—somestraws that won’t times referred to as end up in landfill #StopSucking—has or the oceans.” come to Hillsdale. The decision “Taking steps to to banish plastic reduce single use straws came on plastics seemed like the heels of cola pretty obvious lege campuses’ decision,” Bon straws bans on Appétit Marketthe West Coast, ing Coordinator said Persson. William Persson Disability said. “It’s not advocates have really sustainable protested the to keep producing bans on plastic that much plastic, straws, saying especially when that alternatives Bon Appétit will be opting for strawless lids or another most straws are fail to provide alternative by 2019. Alexis Nester | Collegian not recyclable. So the flexibility and from a food service compostable straws require convenience of plastic straws, perspective, that’s a small step specific temperatures and which can help those with you can take towards more compost bins to break down. impaired motor control. changes.” If Bon Appétit’s coffee Bon Appétit still has a Bon Appétit might substisupplier Zingerman’s Coffee stock of plastic straws to use tute paper straws for plastic cooperates, students could up, so students will not imme-
See Straws A2
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institution,” Arnn said. “So they’re to come in and find out are you doing what you say you do. It was all keyed off what your mission is.” With the creation of the U.S. Department of Education in 1979, accreditors, which are private organizations, have “gradually become regulatory bodies because of the force of government behind them,” he said. The Department of Education now uses accreditation as the gatekeeper for offering federal financial aid, meaning accreditors not only hold schools to their own standards but to the standards of the government as well, Allen said. “It’s very unfair,” Arnn said, that Hillsdale must submit to these federal regulations through accreditors though it refuses to accept federal funds. Additional federal regulations—which have grown over the past two decades— have not affected practice or policy at Hillsdale College, Allen said. Mainly, they’ve just caused a headache, compiling additional forms and paperwork. For a while, Hillsdale was largely exempt from federal
regulations because it doesn’t take federal funds, but in recent years, the Department of Education has borne down on accreditors, threatening their status if they don’t hold all schools to certain regulations—like meeting a specific definition of a credit hour and having a particular student-grievance reporting procedure, Whalen said. Arnn said accreditation ought to look more like what it did in the old days, when colleges evaluated each other without the influence of government regulation. “I think if you returned it to what it was, it would be vibrant again. Colleges are naturally interested in each other,” he said. “And you know, the old practice still mostly followed is they picked people from colleges like yours and so they know a lot and they see a lot and they bring a lot of ideas. Why is this third party that’s not in the college business laying down criteria?” Some change may be in the making: The Department of Education initiated a rulemaking process this year proposing to amend regulations on accreditors. But regulations are harder to abolish
than create, Whalen said. For now, Hillsdale College has more paperwork on its hands. The HLC requested an interim report, due Oct. 1, with a policy plan for Hillsdale’s documentation of faculty credentials. During its visit, the HLC discovered that some Hillsdale faculty files did not include transcripts -- an issue Arnn said would probably not prove problematic due to the stringent requirements for hiring at Hillsdale. Hillsdale also has to prepare for the next round of accreditation by updating its assurance argument for further review by August 2021. Though mostly creating compliance costs now, further regulations that affect institutional practice could pose a danger to the college, Arnn said. “It would take a long time for them to mess the college up, probably,” he said. “But the college is ambitious to last a long time. And so if something happens that would mess it up eventually, that’s tragic.”
The renovations to the top floor of Lane Hall will serve as faculty offices for assistant and adjunct professors. Isabella Redjai | Collegian
Lane Hall’s top floor renovated into offices By | Isabella Redjai Assistant Editor Stumbling into the top floor of Lane Hall last spring semester, one might find antique furniture, stacks of vintage composites, or photographs of Central Hall. Now the space has been replaced by new offices for assistant and adjunct professors. As assistant and adjunct professors have shared offices and exhausted the space in Delp Hall and across campus, the administration found the space available in the attic of Lane could be repurposed. “This spring the provost’s office notified me of the need of more full-time faculty offices for the fall semester,” said Chief Administrative Officer Richard Péwé. “The work started in June and concluded a few weeks ago after the fire marshal approval.” Foulke Construction is running the new renovations and has replicated the layout of Kendall Hall’s fourth floor offices, but with a twist. “Rather than create two more seminar classrooms, which according to room-use data were not needed, the college created two sizable spaces for adjunct faculty,” Péwé said.
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“Lane will have room for 10 full-time offices and about 12 to 15 spaces for adjuncts.” Additionally, one private office is available for testing and private meetings with students. The increased number of spaces for adjuncts will not result in an expanded faculty, though, according to Péwé. As professors move their belongings to the new space, they appear to be optimistic for the change. Final constructions are underway, and instructors have yet to officially move into their new offices. “I know that we are running out of room in Delp for office space, so this change was necessary,” Assistant Professor of English Andrew Brown said. “As long as I can conduct my office hours and meet with students, I have no problem with the change. I will do everything I can to make it work.” The furniture for the new offices was scheduled to arrive on Friday, Aug. 24, bringing the project closer to completion. As this new furniture comes in and the archives go out, Hillsdale’s antiquated art and furniture have found new homes.
“Some materials — museum-like objects, paintings, chairs, and other things — that we physically want to keep but don’t need to keep out are in a climate-controlled area in Jackson,” Mossey Library Public Service Librarian Linda Moore said. Certain archival items from various time periods of the college’s existence, such as extra Winona yearbooks, original college catalogues, and photographs, were moved to the Fowler Maintenance building for the library’s easy access. Other items, which could be used for the library’s archive collections and exhibits — for example, the poet Will Carleton’s exhibit, currently in progress — were moved to the library for the project’s purposes. “Although some of the items from Lane’s attic still need to be added to the database, the thing is, the most important documents and photographs are digitally available to students on our online archives,” Moore said. To visit Mossey Library’s online archives, visit www.lib. hillsdale.edu/archives. Look for The Hillsdale Collegian