The university committees of the university and school committees have been under new leadership since retired earlier this year after two decades of stewardship with Belle Wheelan and Belle Wheelan.
Stephen Pruitt, the new SACS president, comes from the Southern Regional Education Commission, resigned from 2018 to June before resigning before starting his current job in August. Pruitt previously worked as an Education Commissioner in Kentucky, worked for the Georgia Department of Education, and taught at K-12 and part-time faculty.
Pruitt arrives to approve people increasingly slammed by federal and state officials who accuse the bodies (especially Sacscoc) of going beyond, while the Trump administration Designed to make it easier for new recognized players to enter the market. On the phone Last week’s interview Internal Advanced EDPruitt discusses how he intends to handle the work, his 100-day plan, current certified landscape and more.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: First of all, are you interested in work? What attracted you to the world of certification?
one: I had a great time with the Southern Regional Education Board. This is indeed a great place to work [has] Great people, we do a lot of good things there, but when the opportunity to move to the bag comes up, I’m eager to help shape policies to improve the way we see advanced ED and hopefully improve every aspect of advanced ED. It feels like the right avenue.
Q: What are the steps of Belle Wheelan, who is himself an institution?
one: Belle is a good friend, which helps. I’ve known Belle for a while, so our transition has been a good one. She was our longest-serving president; she was there for 20 years and I kept joking with her that her records were safe. I haven’t seen it for 21 years. But it is an absolute honor and honor to follow her, to build what she started to realize that it is a good time, as we also need to look to the future and see the world and how we do in advanced ED have to change.
Q: How can such a job be entered into such a job? I think there is a lot to learn and accept.
one: Part of my background is responsibility. Given, it is at K-12 level, but there are a lot of similarities there. Jump into something like this, the first thing (whether it’s this job or something), and when I was a Kentucky Education Specialist, I did the same thing—you have to listen to people, learn the motivation for certification, learn the current system. My staff will tell you that I might ask a thousand questions every day because I tend to get into weeds so I can understand. Every day I ask questions in a different office. But for one month in the transition, I had no management responsibilities. I was able to take that month, call the president, spend time with contacts, and spend a lot of time listening.
Q: Did your ex give you any advice on how to handle the work?
one: She did it. I don’t know I could summarize it in a statement, but she gave me advice on different aspects. She gave me a list and she felt I needed to solve it early, and some of the things you saw in the 100-day plan. She provided some ideas. But at the end of the day, the most poignant advice is probably that listening to membership is important.
Q: You announced a 100-day plan soon. What’s inside?
one: Our focus forward is thinking about how we really need to be responsive and flexible in order to manage things in the current environment so that our institutions are properly accountable but also motivate behaviors we know [are] Our best students? …First of all, students have always been our first pillar. Everything has to be achieved, is what we are doing actually making our students better?
The second thing is that we have to have leadership and transparency. We want to make sure everything we do is on the board and transparent. We wanted to provide me with some service… For me, it’s about walking with our institutions, working with our state institutions so that we can build a shared vision to understand what we think advanced ED can do, and then we invest in that vision.
We will have our own communications department, which we have never had before. We are now conducting a communication review of the ways we communicate with members and the public. One of the biggest things that have the biggest impact is that we will conduct a review of principles, in other words, a standard review. We will announce and launch this in October… Now, let’s say, I think we need to focus on simplifying our principles.
[Reporter’s note: Full details of the First 100 Days Plan are available on the SACSCOC website.]
Q: Does SACS plan to expand, or where do you want to keep your membership number?
one: I think we will continue to expand. Now, I’m more focused on being organized, so to speak. Like our sister organizations, we hope not to go out and recruit other places, but we also hope to have time. We do have international members and I think when people come to us, we may see some potential expansion. But at the end of the day, we will do business. If there are other agencies that like what we are doing then we can offer value, then, of course, we will be happy to bring them into it.
Q: In recent years, Sacs have been caught in political headwinds, often the target of conservative politicians. Given the current political climate, is this involving you when you seek federal approval later this year? What are your expectations for the process?
one: I worked with state legislators and governors for the last 20 years of my career and one thing I hope people see in the new SACSCOC is that we will be completely ideologic. We want to make sure we are very nonpartisan and to make sure that things are currently divided in our country and that many of our legislatures and many of our things [Trump] What the government says is split-we are getting rid of these things and we focus on the business at hand. The business right now is ensuring the quality of advanced ED.
Does that worry me? Not really, because I can’t control either. What I can control is to do my best to ensure that we are not seen as organizations that promote a particular doctrine or a particular ideology. One thing we intend to do is to create a legislative advisory committee for legislators, which will help us ensure that we are kept at the right scope of focus in the right way to ensure that we do not intersect with any of these ideologies. I think they need to be part of the process. They never really participated in the process. I’m not sure if they are anywhere else. We will invite lawmakers attending the table to represent our country. We want to hear from them and hope to let them help guide us on how to avoid some of the pitfalls we have encountered in the past.
Q: Related to the conservative rebound, several national systems recognized by SACS announced that with the establishment of the Public Higher Education Commission, they will enter the certification business themselves. How do you view the release of CPHE?
one: I personally always think that competition makes us better. My understanding is that they are working to make sure their mission supports public institutions, but all of this is making it another option, not making it demanding. Again, this is something I can’t control. I certainly hope that when all of us affirmed the U.S. Department of Education, we all experienced the same affirmation and I believe we will. We will support each other. From my side, I won’t speak to any of them.
Q: Broadly speaking, given the political landscape, what do you think the future of certification is?
one: I don’t know how to answer. I’ve been asked a lot of questions. I don’t know where it went, but – if I had, maybe not a crystal ball, but my wand – my hope is that we are really focused on what is important around certification, which is improving our school, providing an environment where students can fully support so that they can be fully supported and that they have the proper structure to help them achieve it.
From certificates to doctoral degrees, this achievement can be anything, and it is preparing students to enter the workforce and become a production member of society. And I think certification plays a role in this regard. It’s not just about calculating library books or any library. More importantly, how do we evaluate the progress the agencies are making? So my hope is that, frankly, the future of certification is where I believe we are going forward, a place where we believe in achievement, a place where we believe in flexibility based on the size and mission of the organization, and a place where we provide opportunities for excellence.
Q: What else do you want readers to know?
one: Welcome to the new sacscoc. We have an incredible foundation and great people who lead and work in the organization, but it’s time for us to look to the future. So for me, we base ourselves on something (like peer reviews) which is the mark and gold standard of what happened in the past. But we are also on a new day and the way we want to handle the work and I hope people can look at us, [recognize our flexibility].
And raise some of your political issues, explaining your rights issues. We need to acknowledge that, as an organization, we will acknowledge this. I think historically, we may have been more involved than we should have. We will therefore recognize the authority of the state, an institution at the state level, and the work that the Governor has been taking place through the Governor through the Senior Board. It’s important, and then we just want to make sure we don’t create some disagreements, some real anxiety and some slings and arrows ideologies.
