INDIANAPOLIS — Questions about faculty diversity in Oakland City University’s education department derailed an accreditation hearing with the Indiana State Board of Education Wednesday.
The university will now have to wait until at least August to learn if its state accreditation will be renewed before it expires at the end of the 2016-17 school year. Two separate motions to extend the school’s state accreditation came up short.
There are nine professors or associate professors of education listed on the school’s website, as well as several more adjunct professors and faculty. All are white.
Approval from the state board is generally a formality. A school receives approval from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education School. Oakland CityUniversity got the national approval, but an area of concern from the national council caught the eye of Indiana board member David Freitas.
He asked school provost Daniel Dunivan about faculty diversity at Oakland City. Dunivan said two of the three candidates for a current opening are minorities, and that improving the faculty’s diversity is a priority.
Freitas proposed to approve the small, Gibson County college’s accreditation, with the caveat that the state check back in three years.
His proposal did not receive the six votes necessary to approve an action. Only eight of 11 board members were present.
Board member Vince Bertram, a former Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. superintendent, voted against Freitas’ proposal, saying he was uncomfortable holding accreditation over a school’s head. Bertram argued that finding qualified, diverse candidates in an area such as Gibson County can be difficult.
“I’m concerned to what extent we hold a university responsible for who wants to live in a certain county,” Bertram said. “I feel like we’re dictating, to some degree, who they hire.”
The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 population estimate for Gibson County showed 77 percent of its population is white.
Bertram was also concerned about the precedent the board may set if it refuses to grant accreditation to a school until it fixed something specific, such as diversity. He made a motion to grant accreditation with no strings attached for the usual 7 years, but that motion also failed to garner the necessary votes.
State Superintendent Glenda Ritz decided to revisit the issue at the board’s Aug. 10 meeting.