Over the summer, the University of South Carolina joined five other university systems to create a new accrediting body, the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE).
The State University System of Florida is leading the charge and kicking up $4 million for the new accreditor, which will take the form of a non-profit incorporated in Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis said the new accreditor “will upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels” in a June 26 press conference.
Chair Thad Westbrook of USC’s board of trustees was also at that conference. There, he said the new accreditor would better demonstrate the value of higher education to taxpayers.
“It is not our mission to be involved in culture wars or political activity,” Westbrook said at the conference. “It is our mission to focus on our students and student outcomes.”
Westbrook said CPHE will focus on public universities, as opposed to regional accreditors which serve every type of institution, and streamline the reaccreditation process. This new venture would reduce the “expansive” list of current standards down to something more aligned with the Higher Education Act, Westbrook said.
However, faculty members associated with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) said the new accreditation body causes concern about academic freedom and the ability for outside forces to influence higher education.
Academic accreditors evaluate institutions based on their compliance to a list of standards the accreditor comes up with. Accreditation started as a way to facilitate the transfer of credits between institutions, said Allen Miller, a Carolina Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences.
USC's current accreditor is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), which conducts a comprehensive review every 10 years. The first campus in USC's system to be up for reaccreditation will be USC Beaufort in 2029, and that is when the university will start discussing whether to switch accreditors to CPHE, Westbrook said. USC's Columbia campus will go through reaccreditation in 2031.
Alongside the USC system, public university systems from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas make up the founding members of CPHE.
While assisting in its creation, USC is not committed to select CPHE as its accreditor, Westbrook said. He added that the university will monitor the performance of an initial cohort of institutions who have selected to go through dual accreditation with both CPHE and their current accreditors as part of the "practice" that CPHE has to go through before approval.
“We’re not committed to anything at this point,” USC President Michael Amiridis said at a faculty assembly on Sept. 3. “We’re just watching what’s happening with CPHE, and we are also working with SACS.”
At that Sept. 3 general faculty meeting, Westbrook spoke about CPHE and took questions from faculty members.
The rush to beat the end of Trump’s presidency
Conversations about starting a new accrediting body began over a year ago, according to Westbrook.
The new accreditor expects to receive federal recognition between December 2027 and June 2028, according to CPHE’s business plan. DeSantis stressed the importance of this timeline during the press conference announcing the commission.
“We need these things approved and implemented during President Trump’s term of office,” DeSantis said. “If it doesn’t get approved and stick during that time, you can have a president come in next and potentially revoke it. And they could probably do that very quickly.”
Creating a new accreditation system is possible due to a few changes in federal regulations, according to the business plan.
The first cited change came during Trump’s first term, when the Department of Education updated the requirements for new accreditors to be recognized. According to department documents, the changes ended the geographical requirements for accreditors’ “scope of recognition” and reduced the “the time and complexity associated with approving an accreditor’s application for initial or renewal of recognition.”
In 2024, the federal Office of Postsecondary Education paused the approval of new accreditors.
Upon Trump’s return to office, he signed an executive order in April, which directed the Secretary of Education to resume recognizing new accreditors and to streamline the process through which universities change accreditation agencies.
A week after the order was signed, Deputy Under Secretary James Bergeron of the Office of Postsecondary Education published a letter stating that “robust or onerous” reviews of applications for new accreditors are not required by law. The Department of Education would therefore expedite the review of new applications, according to the letter.
“This opportunity through the executive order to create a new accrediting body was something that we all decided would be a good opportunity for us to right-size accreditation, to get it in alignment with our institutions, rather than accreditors that are kind of a one-size-fits-all,” Westbrook said.
The commission will have a board of directors with representatives from each of its founding institutions. USC is sending Rose Newton, vice chair of the board of trustees, to serve on this board, Westbrook said. The university has also sent Cameron Howell, the board of trustees’ secretary, to work on CPHE’s staff, Westbrook added. Besides filling these positions, USC has not been requested to do anything else, he said.
This board has the ability to appoint additional members, including both representatives from additional university systems and people not associated with these systems "who possess content and policy expertise," the business plan reads. At the faculty assembly, Westbrook said CPHE would have a ratio of one independent director to two directors who are members of a participating institution.
Administrators and faculty meet
Kirk Randazzo is a political science professor, faculty senate member and official within the state chapter of the AAUP. Randazzo first learned about the university’s plans through a newspaper, he said.
“There was no discussion among the faculty,” Randazzo said. “I’m a member of the faculty senate as well as the AAUP. There was no discussion in either of those groups that this was even being considered.”
Mark Minett, an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and the outgoing president of the Columbia campus’ AAUP chapter, also learned about the new accreditor through the press, he said.
“A reporter for the Post and Courier called me and asked me for my thoughts about it and said ‘You've probably seen the article in Inside Higher Ed,’” Minett said. “And I said, ‘No, I’m leading a healthy summertime life.’ … We often get these kinds of summer surprises.”
A request for comment on CPHE’s draft of proposed standards, dated for Aug. 19, was sent to USC faculty. Faculty were directed to send their thoughts to a CPHE email address by Sept. 16.
It is unclear who will be reading this feedback, Minett said.
On Sept. 3, Westbrook came to a general faculty for roughly an hour and took questions from faculty on the upcoming accreditor.
Distinguished Professor Emerita Susi Long of the College of Education told Westbrook she wanted reassurance that academic freedoms are protected amidst national trends around topics such as DEI in higher education.
“If we don’t know how it’s going to be in five years time, what we do during those five years impacts what it would be like,” Long said to Amiridis and Westbrook. “So we really need your support to ensure that we aren’t censored, that we aren’t denied access to promotion because somebody says, ‘Oh look at all the DEI work on that person’s publications.’”
Miller asked Westbrook whether having the State University System of Florida's board of governors as the sole "body corporate," as described in the business plan, would make USC answerable to Florida's government.
Westbrook replied that the structure of CPHE puts its administration in the hands of its board of directors, which has representatives from each of the member institutions. If Florida truly had control over the accreditor, Westbrook believes it would not likely receive federal approval, he added. CPHE's business plan states that the board of directors will handle the "administration and oversight" of CPHE.
Another professor brought up trends in higher education in Florida, such as the elimination of certain programs and the denying of tenure for faculty that are seen as incompatible with Florida's vision for universities. Westbrook replied that Florida's university system will only have one seat on the board like the rest of the founding systems. He also said South Carolina is not seeing the same kinds of political changes.
“I can certainly understand your concern, but those are things that are not happening in South Carolina,” Westbrook said.
NPR reported that a Florida bill passed in 2023 banned public universities from spending money on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs and mandated that general education courses do not include identity politics. A bill targeting DEI programs in higher education in South Carolina was introduced in February this year, but it has not been passed yet.
Academic freedom and outside influence
DeSantis’ comments about the agency combating “wokeness” worries Randazzo, since the definition of “woke” is ambiguous, he said.
“My overall concern is that institutions of higher ed are supposed to be apolitical, and I say that as someone that teaches political science,” Randazzo said. “There’s not supposed to be any influence from politicians, from government. Even though we are a state agency, there’s supposed to be academic freedom and shared governance among faculty.”
Minett said a key difference between the standards of CPHE and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) is the absence of a requirement for governing boards to protect the institution from outside influences.
“Whether you like the party in power or not, you probably don’t want whoever won the last election to feel like they now own the University of South Carolina, right?" Minett said. "This essentially clears the way for that.”
Westbrook said the new accreditor would not limit what faculty could teach.
“The accrediting body is intended to be less intrusive,” Westbrook said. “It’s not meant to infringe on academic freedom. In fact, it’s very much focused on protecting academic freedom.”
At the faculty assembly, Westbrook said he hopes CPHE will stay clear of politics in its operations.
“I would hope that there’s nothing political related to CPHE, as far as they are handling their business,” Westbrook said. “I know the rhetoric … but I’m saying for CPHE, I hope that when they conduct their business, there's nothing political related to it, because if there is, then that’s a problem for higher education.”
Minett said he is also concerned about the independence of the new accreditor. Unlike SACSCOC, CPHE only has six institutions on its board.
“You’ve got to have safeguards against people telling you everything is great, who have vested interest in you believing everything is great,” Minett said. “It can’t work like that. It doesn’t make any sense, and it goes against the principles of accreditation.”
If the independence and legitimacy of a university's accreditor is compromised, the value of a degree from that institution plummets, Randazzo said. While certain requirements from SACSOC might feel unnecessary, Randazzo said he has never questioned the accreditor's legitimacy, and it has never mandated certain topics to be taught or avoided in classes, he added.
"It's not clear what needs to be fixed," Randazzo said. "It's not clear what chair Westbrook means by that. And until we have a better sense of how we got to this place, it's not clear how we move forward."
After the assembly, Minett said he was happy that Westbrook came to answer questions and that Westbrook encouraged more collaboration with faculty. Minett was also glad to learn that USC is not completely committed to CPHE and has its options open, he said.
Minett still has concerns about academic freedom and the legitimacy of the new accreditor, he added.
"I hope that faculty were able to make an impression on Chair Westbrook and those who might be thinking about whether we're gonna stick with the CPHE or not," Minett said. "The risk is tremendous and far outweighs, I think, any reward in terms of streamlined accreditation process."
Miller also appreciated that Westbrook took questions for as long as he did, and he was happy that Westbrook and Amiridis indicated their support for academic freedom, he said.
However, Miller said he is still concerned about the vagueness of the drafted standards for CPHE, and he felt many of Westbrook's answers were non-specific.
"A lot of it was like, 'Well, we need your feedback,'" Miller said. "Well, that's good, but it doesn't really tell us much about what's going to happen."