By Leonardo Blair, Staff ReporterTHE UNIVERSITY Council of Jamaica (UCJ) has urged the Mandeville-based Liberal Arts College of Jamaica (LACJ) to comply with the standards of the Council to avoid the withdrawal of accreditation of two of their programmes by December this year.
The Council which made public its intention to withdraw accreditation the programmes, via newspaper notices last Sunday, dismissed claims by the institution that they were not given any right to appeal the yanking of the accreditation of the programmes scheduled, to take effect on December 31 this year.
"The way is still open, that is why we published the notice so early, to give them (Liberal Arts) the opportunity to make things right," said Dr. Ethley London, executive director of the UCJ.
Declaring that this is the first time in their 13-year history that they would ever be forced to withdraw accreditation of programmes at any institution, Dr. London told The Sunday Gleaner last week that they had tried very hard to accommodate the new approach to education being preached by Liberal Arts College. However, that new approach still had to meet the requirements of the Council.
"Liberal Arts College went contrary to the agreement. Many of the things that they had agreed to do they did not do. It is the Council that sets the standards not Liberal Arts College. It (Liberal Arts) does not want to abide by the standards," said Dr. London.
But Christopher Lynch, administrative assistant at Liberal Arts, charged that ever since the UCJ granted accreditation on March 28, 2002, they have set up "tedious and ambiguous terms of reference. They have taken this draconian action without appeal. Liberal Arts College is challenging the UCJ to make public the things they are accusing us of!"
UNREASONABLE
Dr. London explained, however, that Mr. Lynch's request is unreasonable as the agreement between the UCJ and institutions is strictly confidential. She also maintains that the threat of legal action by the institution does not make her nervous one bit as she knows that everything was done according to procedure.
"We have acted completely above board. We have even bent over backwards. You have to abide by our standards.
"We have been in the accrediting business since 1990 and not once have we had to withdraw a programme. If we did not think they (Liberal Arts) had possibilities we would not have granted them accreditation," she said.
In a letter to the Editor published in yesterday's Gleaner, Leighton Miller, attorney-at-law at Liberal Arts said the UCJ had purported to withdraw its accreditation on grounds that LACJ had not submitted a job description for Academic Dean; had not notified the UCJ of significant changes in its accreditation programme and that LACJ had misleadingly advertised that all its courses are UCJ-accredited.
However, Mr. Miller wrote, "these allegations are absolutely false."
He said that LACJ had documented evidence that it had "bent over backwards" in complying with UCJ's requirements.
The programmes expected to be affected by the withdrawal of accreditation if the Liberal Arts College does not comply by December 31 are: the Bachelor of Science in Business Adminis-tration with a specialisation in Organisational Management; and the Bachelor of Science in Education with specialisations in English, History, Religious Studies, Management Science and Sociology.
