College to Lose Stamp of Approval

The academic agency that evaluates the state’s two-year colleges has decided to strip Compton Community College of its accreditation at summer’s end because of financial and administrative problems, officials said Monday. The action threatens the 6,600-student school’s ability to remain open.

State and college officials are scrambling to find ways to appeal the accreditation move and to keep the college operating -- perhaps by merging its governing district with another community college district. Without accreditation, the campus would be ineligible for the state funds that are its main source of revenue and its students could not receive federal financial aid.

Beset by financial mismanagement and allegations of corruption for several years, Compton is the first community college in California to be so threatened with the loss of accreditation, according to the California Community Colleges chancellor’s office.

The state chancellor took over the troubled campus and put it under the control of a state-appointed trustee last year, turning its elected board into an advisory body.

The nongovernmental Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges announced Monday that it would terminate Compton Community College’s accreditation, but not until Aug. 19 to allow students to complete summer classes.

Beyond its effect on funding, accreditation is seen as a stamp of approval of a school’s quality and allows other campuses to accept its transfer credits.

If the accreditation is lost, “it basically makes the place unworkable,” said California Community Colleges Chancellor Marshall “Mark” Drummond. But the chancellor said Monday that it is difficult to predict the odds of the college closing.

Drummond said Monday that he anticipated his system’s board of governors and the college would take at least the first step toward an appeal by requesting that the commission review its decision.

He said one possibility would be for the accrediting agency to put the college back on the probationary status it has been on recently, allowing more time to address the problems.

If a request for review is rejected, the college could then ask for a formal appeal. During both a review and appeal process, the college would remain accredited.

Drummond also is exploring whether another college could be contracted to run Compton’s scheduled courses or agree to merge with the troubled college.

The chancellor, who described himself as shocked by the commission’s decision, said he had thought the campus was making reasonable progress toward resolving its problems.

“I would guess they lost patience,” he said, referring to the accreditors. “Although my feeling since we got in there has been that it’s probably a two- or three-year process to get the place completely up to snuff. Now, suddenly the rug is jerked out from under us.”

In October, the chancellor released an audit identifying numerous problems at the college, including potentially illegal practices of steering contracts and jobs to relatives of officials and out-of-control spending in the past. It did not list names or say how widespread those practices might be.

The college has been under federal and local criminal investigations for possible corruption, but no one has been charged with any wrongdoing.

The state also called for a written code of ethics and for board members to undergo training to better understand budgets. It recommended that the college hire a permanent business officer and a new auditor, streamline its administration to give the president more power and improve ways to measure student achievement.

In April, the accreditation commission reviewed those problems identified in the state report and found that the college had made progress in straightening out its finances, but “there is still much to do to bring the college into compliance with accreditation standards.”

The commission also found that the college failed to properly counsel students on transferring to four-year colleges and did not evaluate faculty adequately.

Barbara A. Beno, executive director of the community college accrediting commission, said Monday that Compton College was warned over several years about such issues as “very serious governance problems” caused by the actions of its elected board.

Drummond said turnover in management since the state takeover also may have figured in the accrediting decision.

In February, longtime college President Ulis C. Williams was put on administrative leave, which Williams said was forcing him to retire.

Compton’s state special trustee, Arthur Q. Tyler, and its interim president, Rita Cepeda, are both leaving the district this summer to take jobs elsewhere.

“I think all that was probably looked at as just indicative of more chaos at Compton Community College,” Drummond said.

Jamillah Moore, the state system’s senior vice chancellor for governmental and external relations, had been tapped to arrive on campus in early July to ease the transition from Cepeda to another still-to-be-appointed interim campus leader. Instead, she flew in from Sacramento on Monday morning to help deal with the crisis.

“We’re all in shock because we really felt we were making progress,” Moore said. “I guess they felt we weren’t making it fast enough.

Members of the Compton Community College District Board of Trustees said Monday that they were stunned by the loss of accreditation.

“I’m still in a daze,” said board member Lorraine Cervantes, who ran for the board in 2003 on a reformist platform. “We’ve been working really hard trying to correct problems that have been here for years,” she said.

Carl Robinson, a board member who has served off and on since 1980 and for whom the school’s science building is named, blamed the state’s takeover for the accreditation loss.

“The state has been there a year and a month and just really messed up the college,” he said.

Robinson said the state’s harsh pronouncements about the school’s problems drew the accreditors’ scrutiny.

News of the accreditation loss came on the first day of summer classes at the campus off Artesia Boulevard, where most students are African American and Latino.

Some faculty, staff and students gathered in the student lounge Monday morning to hear the news from Tyler and Cepeda.

District spokesman Stan Myles said they were told that the summer session would continue and that “they should not feel worried in any way.”

Shalita Evans, 29, said her instructor in an ethnic studies class talked about the problems during Monday’s class. Students are anxious about what they would do if the school closed and whether their credits would transfer.

“Everybody was so puzzled and stressed, we couldn’t focus on class,” said Evans, who graduated from Compton in 1999 and was back to take a class fulfilling a requirement for a bachelor’s degree at Cal State Dominguez Hills. “Everybody was upset and disappointed, saying this was their only hope.”

The college, she emphasized, “is a part of the community and it should stay open.”

Willie Middlebrook, a full-time instructor in digital photography and computer graphics for the last five years, said students and faculty were being smeared for the failings of the college’s administration over the years.

“I personally don’t think that’s fair,” said Middlebrook, who graduated from Compton 30 years ago and said he thought enough changes can be made over the next few months to ensure the school remains open.

Meanwhile, he said, students can still get a good education there: “We’re as good or better than any community college.”

Patrick McLaughlin, an English professor who has taught at Compton for 33 years, said: “I am more disappointed than I am nervous. I just think it’s a real tragedy that they would consider not accrediting or closing a community college with a long history like this one has. There is a real need.”

He said he is “confident that we’ll pull out of this. We have the talent here that can do this, given an adequate amount of time and a fair hearing.”

Times staff writer Natasha Lee contributed to this report.