Accreditors Put Gallaudet on Probation

Gallaudet University was put on probation today by its accrediting agency, a warning sign that problems persist months after protests shut down the school for the deaf.

"We wanted to avoid that label," said President Robert Davila, who announced the news about 4:30 p.m. to the campus. "But we may look back on all this . . . as a blessing in disguise. It gives us an opportunity to change, and change is good."

School officials described a campus in the midst of rapid and dramatic transformation, as they rush to meet standards set by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. The core curriculum has been revamped, admissions standards have been raised, and a more united campus community has been rethinking the mission at a turning point for deaf education.

But probation is a blow to a school already hobbled by recent events.

Gallaudet remains accredited, but must prove by November 2008 that it has regained compliance with eight standards, including its leadership, integrity and retention.

Last year, before Davila arrived in January, the school was shut down for days by protesters angry about an earlier pick for president and other issues on campus. Soon afterward, the Middle States commission delayed its re-accreditation.

Without accreditation, students cannot receive federally funded loans. But the most important impact is symbolic, as colleges need that stamp of approval to remain respected and competitive.

Davila said he is worried the label could hurt enrollment. The school already struggles to attract and keep students, with more deaf children receiving implants that allow them to hear, and more interpreters and technology making it easier for students to choose mainstream schools. Gallaudet lost students during and after the protests, and there are 15 to 20 fewer incoming freshmen this year than last, Davila said.

Stephen Weiner, who officially starts as provost Monday, added that the enrollment numbers were bound to drop because they have put higher admissions standards in place as part of a new focus on academic rigor.

For more than a century, Gallaudet has been a center of deaf culture, and news from its Northeast Washington campus ripples quickly through deaf communities around the world. Divisions and acrimony remain from the protests -- one of the accreditors' concerns was that the campus would have to find ways to come together.

Davila said more than 100 professors are busy this summer in work groups, pushing to make improvements in the way they teach students, keep them in school, test them, prepare them for post-graduate life, and track that progress.

"We will be in compliance by November 2008 because we have no other choice," Davila said. "We will rise to that challenge -- we already have. . . . When we look back on this 10 years from now we will consider this an important turning point in the history of the university."