MPA program appealing loss of accreditation

By Joshua Rosario | Published by Oct. 2, 2018

Kean University’s Masters of Public Administration (MPA) program was denied accreditation this summer and the university is appealing the decision. The MPA program remains accredited while they go through the appeal process.

If the appeal is unsuccessful, MPA graduates would be at a disadvantage competing in a job market with graduates from accredited programs such as the one at Rutgers University. As of Fall 2017, 102 students were registered for the MPA program, according to the university’s Office of institutional Research.

In a letter sent on July 30, the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA)  said Kean’s MPA program failed to meet standards in six areas: administrative capacity; faculty governance; faculty qualifications; research, scholarship and service; support for students; and universal required competency and resource adequacy.

The letter said the program continues to experience instability as a result of being understaffed.

“In the Commission’s judgment, the program cannot be accredited at this time or included in the annual roster of accredited programs,”  Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA) Chair Jeffery Osgood, Jr. wrote in the letter. “It should be noted that the decision to deny the program accreditation does not hinge on any one standard, but is based on the lack of evidence that the program is in substantial conformance with the NASPAA accreditation standards.”

NASPAA is the recognized global accreditor of master’s degree programs for graduate education programs in public policy, public affairs, public administration, and public & nonprofit management, according to the website.

Director of Media Relations Margaret McCorry noted that Kean has overall accreditation as a university, which includes all of its programs, through the Middle States Commission, and that the NASPAA accreditation is an additional credential.

“The administration is confident that the MPA program will continue to maintain its competitive position as it undergoes a review and appeal process, to continue its association with NASPAA,” McCorry said. “That process could take up to one year. In the meantime, the program remains part of NASPAA.”

But Kean Federation of Teachers President Dr. James Castiglione, a physics professor, said the denial underscores an ongoing negative trend at Kean.

He noted that the accrediting body for the much-publicized Physician’s Assistant program was denied provisional accreditation in Spring 2017 and Kean dropped the program. Additionally, several years ago Kean was issued a warning that was then raised to the higher level of probation before accreditation was restored by the Middle States Association on Accreditation, he said.

Without Middle States accreditation, students would not have been able to transfer credits to other accredited higher institutions, including for Master’s programs.

“I have spoken on multiple occasions at the Board of Trustees meeting that the university needs to do what the accrediting bodies are asking and it’s not just this one,” said Dr. Castiglione. “Many bodies are asking the University to hire more tenure and tenure track faculty, more professional support staff, provide more resources for the academic programs, and provide normal release time for program management and coordination by faculty, and also that the university engage in the normal practices of faculty shared governance.”

Release time is where professors are relieved from teaching a class to commit to other duties. He also said the KFT has been asking for years that the university  redirect its resources to address these issues. By not doing so, the university is “harming” the students.

“Now the chickens are coming home to roost,” said Castiglione. “This is part of a trend.”

Middle states is the accreditor for Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Middle States examines  higher education institutions as a whole. It does not look at specific individual programs.

However in a variety of specialized disciplines, particularly professional disciplines, there is a second layer of accreditation to ensure quality standards like the one for the MPA.

The general process is a seven year accreditation from NASPAA and a two year re-accreditation process.

In the sixth year, faculty does a self study, which includes hiring a faculty member from another NASPAA accredited program to assist as an outside consultant.  They analyze the program to see if there are any issues and what has changed.

Then a site visit team is assembled by NASPAA and they spend three days looking into the program. They interview students, professors, administrators, the provost, and the university president. The commission then reviews the report to decide whether the program receives another seven year accreditation.

The university’s MPA program started it’s self study three years ago. After the program received its first site visit, the site visit team had numerous issues and questions unresolved.

The commission gave the program another year of accreditation to deal with those issues. The letter received in July was after a second site visit last spring. The commission will review the University’s appeal and hold a formal hearing where they will make a final judgement.

“We here in the department continue to offer the high quality education that we have always done and NASPAA has cited us in the department… for the high quality of the faculty, for the high quality of the instruction, for the caliber of the graduates we produce,” said Dr. Craig Donovan, Coordinator of the BA/MPA Honors Program in the School of Public Administration.

Kean’s MPA program has been well-regarded and President Dawood Farahi was a faculty member in the public administration department.

Within the last two years, the department has lost two tenured faculty, Dr. John Erickson and Dr. Morgan Laury,  who passed away. Another tenure-track professor was not rehired for this year.

The program this year hired two, tenure-track professors Jung Ah (Claire) Yun, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, and Deborah Mohammed-Spigner, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, and two lecturers, Carey Brown and Gerry Nwabueze. Lecturers are on one-year contracts and are not given the opportunity to get tenure.

McCorry, Kean’s spokesperson, said President Dawood Farahi met with MPA students and faculty, including four new faculty members who joined the program this year, “to assure them that the program remains strong and is evolving to prepare students for the global marketplace.”

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