ACCJC, the accrediting commission behind the City College of San Francisco crisis, issued an warning to Honolulu Community College in February of this year, with a report required by October 15. As described in Hawai’i News Now:
Honolulu Community College has been placed on warning accreditation status by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, the only of the University of Hawaii’s ten campuses to get such a warning.
The accrediting panel gave the 4,400-student campus the warning after an evaluation visit to the Kalihi school last fall.
What is interesting in this action is that one of the primary drivers of the warning was HCC’s lack of evaluation of the effectiveness of their online courses versus the comparable face-to-face courses.
More than 100 HCC faculty members teach courses online and that’s where the accreditation panel leveled its most serious criticism.
“The college should compare the instructional quality of face-to-face and distance education courses and develop a strategic plan for distance education,” the accrediting panel wrote.