Instead of getting the decision from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges as expected this October, the accreditation process for Texas Southmost College has hit a snag.
At yesterday's meeting, during an item to discuss the status of TSC's application for accreditation, the board of trustees – including the three newly sworn-in members, were told that the application handed in September 2013 and to be approved by this summer had been delayed because data was missing from the assessment of core and comprehensive standards.
"When we separated the staff lost a lot of knowledge," Reyes said. "We should have been more alert. UTB did not collect the data. We didn't have all the data we needed to show compliance for an evaluation."
Now, instead of possibly getting the campus visit this summer as expected, TSC will try to make up the deficiency by collecting data for the last year that the community college has operational control of the courses taught in those areas and will turn them over to the SAC in lieu of the missing data that was not collected by UTB.
That means, that instead of getting a possible nod on accreditation for the college by this October, TSC will hand in a revised application and it might be July or even December 2015 before the SAC determines whether the college's "institutional effectiveness."
Although both Reyes and Tercero assured the trustees that TSC's courses will remain accredited until the 2015 deadline imposed by the Texas Legislature when it approved the end of the "partnership," they held out the possibility that the accreditation timeline could potentially be decided by SAC as late as December 2015.
"We just need to resubmit info that was incomplete because UTB did not collect. TSC did not cause these issues.
"Our courses remain accredited," Tercero assured the board. "Even if we get approval from SAC as late as December 2015, they will be backdated to January 2015."
Trustees Adela Garza and Trey Mendez pressed Tercero for details on the snag, but the other trustees seemed content to give her and Reyes the benefit of the doubt. New trustee Art Rendon said he was willing to give Tercero the benefit of the doubt, while the majority – Kiko Rendon, Dr. Reynaldo Garza, Ed Rivera and Raymond Hinojosa – seemed to accept her and Reyes' explanation that it was something that could be overcome within the timeline.
It is becoming clear that Tercero – who was hired based on her expertise on accreditation – is backpedaling to try to put out the brushfire, but if things don't improve, and in a hurry, even the support of the majority will vanish if the process has to be delayed again and the board has to go to the legislature to get another extension to accomplish this critical goal.
25 comments:
This is a failure of Julieta Garcia, not Dr. Tercero. She isn't "back peddling" she is, again, suffering for a vindictive Julieta Garcia. It was her responsibility to maintain and submit the TSC accreditation data as a part of the UTB-TSC "partnership". Julieta failed, or she just continues to be a "woman scorned"....aka, a vindictive bitch.
Another example of how the shortcomings of Juliet Garcia seem to always be blamed on others. The delay in accreditation was caused by Juliet's failure.
There you go...
UT System VP Pedro Reyes told the board that data on these categories was missing from the documentation handed them from UT Brownsville and which should have been collected for TSC.
"When we separated the staff lost a lot of knowledge," Reyes said. "We should have been more alert. UTB did not collect the data. We didn't have all the data we needed to show compliance for an evaluation."
About the ONLY thing that Queen Julietta was interested in collecting was a PAYCHECK! DUH!
LONG LIVE TSC!
TSC is nothing more than an alternative high school. Shut it down! Save taxpayer money.
When TSC started, the hiring of faculty was put off until the very last possible minute and then most were hired on a part time basis to save money The result was the people with memory of the programs and how they were ran went elsewhere. The new TSC was operating in a black hole of ignorance about what had been gone on before.
The few that did make the jump were told in no uncertain terms the new TSC had no interest in how things were done at UTB/TSC.
I am not a fan of Julietta, but Tercero shot herself in the foot on this one. She wanted no carry over from UTB/TSC and that is what she got. Now she has to "paga lo que debe".
Another result of the way it was started is the quality of the instruction and therefore the quality of student preparation has take a serious downturn.
Tercero should have seen this coming as allot of us did and she is supposed to be the smart one in the bunch.
With the separation of UTB and TSC, UTB just cut the technical programs loose and asked nobody for information of data. The faculty and staff got pink slips and that was all.
TSC didn't want to transfer faculty and so most went elsewhere and took the data and knowledge with them. I have all the files and data from one program in a box in my garage and on an external hard drive. I told TSC I had it, but nobody showed any interest in taking it.
The whole thing is a cluster fuck with enough blame to go around. Nobody from either school had their eye on the ball, so here we are.
YOU MAY THINK SO , BUT YOU ARE WRONG. IT HAS BEEN A STEPPING STONE FOR MANY , INCLUDING LAWYERS, DOCTORS , TEACHERS ETC. IT HAS TRAINED MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE AND HAS ALLOWED INDIVIDUALS TO FIND JOBS.. THE BOTTOM LINE OF ANY COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY IS TO PREPARE PEOPLE SO THEY CAN FIND JOBS. ALTERNATIVE HIGH SCHOOL SO BE IT
I agree with the post of
June 20, 2014 at 2:27 PM in the idea that is an alternative high school. I visited TSC before the end of the Spring semester and saw a former student. I asked her if she thought that the community college was 13th grade and to my surprise she said YES!!!
Students get a lot of opportunities to make up their work, they have dual enrollment courses, tutorials, etc. The "old" TSC taught college basics and vocational technical courses; the people running the college right now dont want to spend money, dont want to advertise, they have competition with other vocational schools (Kaplan, STVT, TSTC, etc). I went to the bookstore looking for something with the TSC logo and was told by an employee that they DONT carry ANY merchandise for TSC, that their bookstore is only for UTB. How are students at TSC supposed to get Scorpion pride if they dont even have a bookstore? Ah, but they are saving money (the TSC board). They are going to even save more money when SACS rejects their accreditation and the 13th grade students discover that a university will not take them until they take remedial courses. Right now is not the time to point the finger at Garcia or at Tercero, it is time for the board to really stop being cheap and find capable personnel to fill the many areas that need BIG assistance. I am all for TSC, for a Community College but right now, IT IS NOT WORKING.
UTB was responsible for the firing of many staff and faculty. TSC received from UTB what they received. TSC should have recognized the problem earlier. The fault there lies with Tercero and her team.
But there is little doubt that President Garcia is ultimately responsible for the gutting of UTB and the subsequent "loss of knowledge".
La Queenie J is at her old games putting the blame on others. This is her usual MO. La Adela no se queda muy atras Tampoco. la Zorra no se ve la cola.
Tercero did not blame UTB, UT System VP Pedro Reyes who is Dr. Julieta Garcia's direct boss came down from Austin and was at the TSC Board meeting to take responsibility for Julieta's screw up on behalf of her, UT System and UTB. Julieta did a great job of sabotaging TSC!
TSC has turned out to be a third rate institution under the leadership of Tercero and Kiko Rendon. La gorilla Terecero, besides being as ugly as the dark side of the moon, turned out to be a dud. What a freaking joke. Collegio para los pendejos.
This is the second "snag". The first application for SACS accreditation that TSC submitted was outright rejected. First, it seems that UTB personnel are basically submitted the entire application for accreditation for TSC. Also, I was told that TSC personnel advised UTB staff that they needed the SACS application only 2 days before the deadline and they simply threw something together as best they could in those 2 days (no wonder that first application was rejected).
Even if this present "snag" was due to UTB not having certain data TSC is responsible to at least be aware of what they need ahead of time....not waiting until SACS rejects their application.
tsc will be gone in 4 years. They can't even pay for the air condition to be kept on a decent tempature. How about the basics like english speaking teachers. No such thing as professors there. They should concentrate on teaching usefull things to the valley like auto repair, air conditioning and other trade school stuff.
UTB/TSC had accreditation together. UTB is certainly collecting data they will need for accreditation. If some data was not collected it is probably for TSC students (not UTB students). And somehow collecting this was the responsibility of UTB? How long can TSC continue blaming UTB for their failures?
The missing data is from 2008 through 2012, when UTB was solely in charge of the programs. Get your facts straight before you comment.
Pinche Julieta, she must have been the one that let the accreditations expire, how convenient only UTB had the paperwork ????
". And somehow collecting this was the responsibility of UTB? How long can TSC continue blaming UTB for their failures? "
Until the last toadie of Juliet stops sabotaging our community.
Paid for by the Sylvia Atkinson for TSC Committee: Adela Garza, Managing Director, Treasurer:Local Taxpayers
Anonymous wrote: "The missing data is from 2008 through 2012, when UTB was solely in charge of the programs. Get your facts straight before you comment."
UTB/TSC has all the data they needed for accreditation for this time period. If TSC needs some other data for their accreditation that is hardly UTB's fault.
Anonymous wrote: "Pinche Julieta, she must have been the one that let the accreditations expire, how convenient only UTB had the paperwork ????"
The accreditations didn't 'expire'. As the previous accreditation was for 'UTB/TSC' this will no longer be valid for TSC as a stand-alone institution. This is why they are having to apply for a new accreditation.
UTB kept all the data with them when they split from TSC. When the data was requested from TSC, UTB didn't give them the correct data they needed. It was UTB's fault and they have admitted it.
Dr. Pedro Reyes from Ut sysyem went to the tsc meeting to apologize for Utb not having collected the required data for that period. It is 100% utb's fault because they are the managing partner responsible for what was not done. Stop making excused for UTB when you have absolutely no clue as to what is actually going on. Viva TSC!
Just like UTB will also have to apply for new accreditation because they can not continue using the partnership accreditation.
Anonymous wrote: "Dr. Pedro Reyes from Ut sysyem went to the tsc meeting to apologize for Utb not having collected the required data for that period. It is 100% utb's fault because they are the managing partner responsible for what was not done."
If this were true obviously UTB wouldn't have been able to get accreditation. I'm no lover of UTB but I'm afraid as bad as things are there the competence level at TSC is even worse.
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