Lack of money peril to accreditation

(U-WIRE) HONOLULU-Lack of funding and faculty at the University of Hawaii has created a problem for academic departments scrambling for accreditation.

Accreditation is a student’s insurance that U.S. colleges are offering academic programs that meet national college standards.

“It is a necessary condition to attract local and international students, faculty and extramural funding,” said Dr. F. Dewolfe Miller, a professor of epidemiology.

The UH School of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology recently celebrated the accreditation of their Master of Science and Master of Public Health graduate degree programs.

“I was just jumping and flying, I was so happy when I witnessed the accreditation,” remembered Josiah Alamu, an epidemiology graduate student from Gambia.

The two years of recruiting students, campaigning the accreditation groups, self-evaluating the curriculum and having public hearings paid off for the School of Public Health by providing the students with increased capabilities and resources.

The UH Department of Journalism faculty had a debate on Tuesday about whether or not their program will be re-accredited after the contract ends in 2004.

Professor Lowell’s retirement has left the journalism department one faculty member short of the required number posed by the private Accreditation Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, or ACEJMC.

“If there is not enough faculty, we do not get grants or external funds,” said Keever.

After petitioning for the position to be replaced by another journalism professor, the Dean of Social Sciences, Richard Dubanoski, rejected the campaign and placed the journalism program in jeopardy for re-accreditation by giving the position to another department.

“We are the only journalism program within 2,400 miles that is accredited,” said Dr. Beverly Keever, a journalism professor.

The accreditation of the journalism undergraduate program allows the department a national standard of 40 credits, which gives the curriculum more writing intensive courses that “will train students to be the best journalists in the world, especially with the diverse population in Hawaii,” according to Keever.

For certain departments, accreditation is “a regressive nature of standards” that limits the modernization of the curriculum.

“Newspapers already train people in technical skills, we want students to be critical thinkers,” said Ady.

Kimberly Gee, Ka Leo O Hawai’i (U. Hawai’i)

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