South Carolina State University has been placed on warning for 12 months by its accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, for failure to comply with the commission’s core requirements.
The December sanction was given following a report from the special committee assigned to review S.C. State’s governance and intercollegiate athletics. If the university fails to improve during this period, it faces the threat of probation, removal of accreditation or an extension of its warning period. The warning accuses the board of trustees of not giving the university president and faculty enough room to run the institution, its intercollegiate athletics and fundraising. It also states that the institution must show evidence that the board of trustees is not controlled by a minority of board members.
The activities of S.C. State’s board came into question after the widely publicized firing of President Andrew Huginie Jr. in 2007. Hugine is now suing the university as well as current and former board members for defamation and conspiracy.
The suit singles out former board chairman Maurice Washington as being instrumental in the alleged conspiracy.
Washington, who has continually dismissed these allegations by Hugine, is being challenged for his seat on the board by the president of S.C. State’s alumni chapter, Patricia Lott, as well as Bill Goodwin Jr., another alumnus.
Students learned about the SACS action during their winter break, and many are upset.
“Our institution has been playing dodgeball with SACS for years,” said senior Business Management major Terrance Sean Porcher. “This time around, we just got hit with the ball.”
Porcher also said that the warning will light a fire under university stakeholders that will cause drastic changes to the campus -- changes that will either benefit us greatly or bring us down in “a whole bunch of confusion.”
Others, including sophomore business management major Kirsten Pratt, are concerned about the impact on their degrees. “This warning scares me,” Pratt said.
