In an email sent over the New Year’s holiday weekend, University of Evansville administrators now say faculty input is not necessary for their academic realignment plan to be implemented. As WNIN’s Steve Burger reports, the move could affect the school’s accreditation in some areas.
UE administrators have said during the realignment process that all current students will be able to finish their areas of major study regardless of faculty or program cuts. But at what cost?
In the first specific example of how the plan will negatively impact students, UE electrical engineering department chair Tony Richardson says the national accrediting body for that academic major will likely drop UE’s accreditation when the department is closed and current faculty are fired in May of 2022.
“Yeah, that would affect all of our freshman and sophomore students," Richardson says, "We have about twenty four freshman and twenty four sophomore students.”
Richardson says those students will either have to transfer or risk graduating from a non-accredited electrical engineering program, which would negatively impact their employment and graduate school options. He says many employers and nearly all graduate schools require that applicants graduate from an accredited program.
UE's electrical engineering program is scheduled for an accreditation visit later this month from representatives of the Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology. Richardson says they'll know more after that visit about the possibility of losing accreditation because of the academic realignment at UE.
