Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a new certification program in June has become a reality.
The Florida Commission voted Friday afternoon to establish a controversial new accreditation agency with five other state college systems. The decision comes after about an hour of intense discussions between board members and Florida State Prime Minister’s details about the program.
Prime Minister Raymond Rodriguez argued that the new accreditor, known as the Public Higher Education Commission, would eliminate the bureaucracy of existing accreditors and focus specifically on the needs of public universities.
“The Public Higher Education Commission will provide a certification model that prioritizes academic excellence and student success while eliminating ideological biases and unnecessary financial burdens,” he said. “Through CPHE, public universities and universities across the country will have a quality-focused certification process rooted in accountability and committed to continuous improvement.”
But before voting for the motion, board members repeatedly retreated, believing that it would be half a lifetime to start a program for a certified person from scratch. They raise many questions about how CPHE works in practice.
Some want to grasp the details of the governance structure that may become eligible before voting. Under the CPHE business plan, the Florida Council will use the $4 million grant from the Florida Legislature to join Florida’s nonprofit and serve as its initial sole member. (Similar amounts are expected to be invested in other systems.) All university systems appointed boards will be responsible for certification decisions and policies.
However, the roles of multiple swamp members in the psychological committee and board of directors are not clearly defined.
“With us being the sole member, it seems or may appear to be in stakeholders, that is, the guarantor lacks independence from the recognized institution,” said board member Kimberly Dunn.
Board vice chairman Alan Levine called for a clear “integrated corporate veil” between the two in the company’s documents.
“Our role is not to manage or guide the activities of the institution,” Levine said of CPHE. “It must be independent or the Ministry of Education will not even approve it.”
Board member Ken Jones gave greater details to the Council’s “Obligation or Governance of the New Entity.”
“I support this…I really believe it’s the right path,” he said. “I just want to make sure we all open our eyes further and understand what our responsibilities as a swamp are? … We’re breaking new ground here and we’re for the right reasons. But I want to make sure when the question comes up, I’m sure they’ll definitely – we got the right answer.”
Members asked questions about missioners’ future cybersecurity and their infrastructure and their associated costs. Some asked the acknowledgeers if they could have direct access to the university’s data system and raised concerns about potential hackers and board responsibilities; they were relieved that the university reported their data themselves. Some board members also requested budget forecasts for CPHE expenses.
“I made an internal, informal estimate of funds and revenue, but I was not ready to make public,” said Rachel Kamoutsas, chief of staff and company secretary of the system.
The answer does not seem to fully satisfy the Council.
“I do think the Prime Minister and the team have to do a lot of work to continue educating the board to make it speak out because the many questions we have to ask – forecasting, infrastructure, staffing, staffing – the last one is appropriate.”
However, he stressed to other board members that voting for the motion would initiate the process of incorporating new accreditors and providing seed funding for them. But, he added: “Until we had a document on how to spend that money, there was no penny going anywhere.”
Certified expert Paul Gaston III, an honorary trustee professor at Kent State University, asked similar questions in an interview Internal Advanced ED.
“The credibility of a certification is indeed related to whether the public can accept it is the source of objective assessments in the public interest,” he said. “The question I want to ask as a member of the public is how will the accreditors composed of the institutions that assess the credibility?”
Despite all the push, the swamp ultimately voted unanimously in favor of approving the measure. Now, CPHE can submit a contract, establish a board of directors, and list the multi-year process of gaining recognition from the Ministry of Education.
