Accreditation in Higher Education Overseas
Thomas DeVere Wolsey
September 10, 2022
What happens when an overseas university desires the credibility of American accreditation, but institutional factors, cultural traditions, and accreditation standards collide? What role should accreditors play in enforcing their standards?
Accreditation in higher education is intended as a means of assuring that the programs offered are of high quality and meet standards of assessment, due process for faculty and students, academic rigor, and so forth. By the 1950s, millions of former United States military personnel were provided funds for higher education as part of the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of June 22, 1944, to the tune of more than 11,000,000,000 US dollars as of June 1951. Congress wanted to ensure that funds were spent in service of an acceptable quality of education[1], and that tradition continues to this day. Federal student aid is only available to students attending accredited universities[2]. Institutional accrediting agencies (different from those that accredit specific programs) are independent actors approved by the Department of Education to fill the need for quality assurance. But do they?
At one for-profit institution where I worked, an email went to faculty inviting them to a general meeting with accreditors. Within an hour, a program director called and asked if I thought I should attend; I said yes. Wrong answer. Her clear message was that only whiners attend those meetings, and of course I should not attend.
Until 2022, I worked at The American University in Cairo, Egypt (AUC), currently accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A key component of any institutional accreditation is that the leadership always adheres to fair and transparent policies; that is, democratically. Constituents, such as faculty and students, who feel an institution is failing to follow fair standards agreed to in accreditation may file a complaint with the accrediting agency with supporting evidence. AUC only operates educational programs in Egypt. Many challenges, I know first-hand, exist for accrediting agencies in this region. At present, the administrative class of faculty (e.g., Provost, Deans, Chairs) use an authoritarian approach that prevents effective communication. Moreover, the administrators weaponize processes intended to protect faculty against abuse and instead bully faculty who expect transparency and honesty. It appears that the administrative class similarly abuses authority in some dealings with students, as well.
No Transparency
A complaint to MSCHE must be filed using a webform with substantial word limits, and the Commission will only process those complaints so filed. Moreover, the staff who handle complaints work aggressively to limit complaints by implementing arcane rules that they know but an average, educated person would not be able to navigate without extensive experience. Moreover, the Commission asks complainants to provide a treasure trove of evidence which is often given to the university in question. The university’s response, however, is confidential (letter from MSCHE, August 4). What this means is that the Commission does not provide any useful information that can be refuted or appealed while the university can then use the evidence provided in its own defense in court or other regulatory environments or even to retaliate against the complainant.
Colonialism
A particularly sticky problem for an American (and indeed any Western-style) university operating overseas is the degree to which its programs are just colonial impositions that take no or little account for the values and culture of the host country (Egypt, in our example). American accreditation of overseas institutions is hardly a gold standard since anyone who applies to a regional accrediting agency and affects some due diligence in presenting appropriate documents is likely to become accredited; the universities themselves are members of, and contributors of financing to, the accrediting bodies. Professor Altbach at Boston College rightly asks, “Do we [Americans] want to take responsibility for shaping academic policy in U.S.-accredited universities in countries whose intellectual traditions and higher education context differ substantially?[3] The powerhouse American system of higher education accreditation may be instant credibility for the institution, but it also enforces American principles on the institution, to a degree.
Failure to understand the local contexts
Overseas contexts often are not fertile fields for American-style democracy. The failed military attempts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, as well as multiple Central American countries, in years past testify to the fact that simply having a rulebook is not sufficient. Contracts and governance documents are just intended for compliance with accreditation standards, but they are not guides for institutional conduct at AUC. The Egyptian leadership at AUC alternately adapts to the “Egyptian Context” or exploits it when their authority is challenged.
The abridged definition of “the Egyptian context” suggests a country governed by the colonial impact of the British system of the time which favored the elites and paid no attention to the larger populace. Further, the Egyptian context refers to the convergence of the Arab conquest, Middle Eastern influences, and Islamic traditions that favor a highly unequal power distribution between managers and workers, a high regard (and fear) of managers, and low individualism and autonomy for most of the workforce[4]. On several occasions, influential leaders have clearly indicated their disdain for teachers and their preference that teachers simply do as they are told[5].
I argue that the “Egyptian Context” in practical situations where it is accepted as a way of being is antidemocratic and contrary to the principles of American (and other Western) traditions that favor shared governance. That is certainly the case at AUC, and MSCHE seems not to understand that the principles of the Egyptian context as implemented by AUC precludes adherence to accreditation standards and conditions of affiliation. Simply, if confronted with the facts, AUC leaders make excuses or lie outright.
Inability to enforce standards and conditions
Currently, AUC and its trustees and students are facing at least three lawsuits stemming from abusive practices that include weaponized complaint processes in which supervisors simply gang up on fixed-term and tenure-track faculty. As a result, excellent faculty often do not apply, run out of Cairo for the next job, or are simply and illegally terminated. Students and trustees will pay, but they will never know that what they are paying for is to protect the egos of any leader caught abusing standards of institutional conduct. The thought of these so-called investigations is enough to make many faculty resign. Others are simply fired in defiance of the Egyptian law prohibiting this practice. Elections for department chairs and faculty search committee decisions are overturned by the authority of the provost while leadership simply pretends nothing untoward happened.
Deans can and do simply anoint the persons they think should be in the university senate without any public nomination process. Superficiality reigns as mock procedures cause the deterioration of academic freedom and the ability to conduct useful research.
It remains to be seen whether MSCHE can enforce its own policies under these circumstances. MSCHE may not even have the political will to try given the lack of transparency in the complaint and accreditation processes, a fatal flaw abroad.
Tenured faculty should help, but like many institutions at home and abroad, tenured faculty are frequently and simply the longest lived at the university with a collective narcissism about their own greatness[6], and anyone who gets in their way is subject to academic bullying[7]. Perhaps tenured faculty-to-be should take an oath of transparency and due diligence to ensure the integrity of the tenured class. Transparency is the critical component, and it is missing in accreditation and in AUC’s day-to-day operations. At AUC, tenure, managerial incompetence, and aggressive bullying by leaders seems certain to ensure that AUC will not be a global university any time soon, its MSCHE accreditation notwithstanding. Americans may not wish, collectively, to be an enabling party to institutions that cannot and will not embrace the standards some overseas institutions have promised to uphold.
If “American” and democratic education is critical to success in Egypt, and AUC is to fulfill its vision to become a “…destination of choice for students and faculty members from around the world…”[8], the active attention and intervention of accrediting agencies is required. Emphasis on intervention. AUC students are cheated by an administration that cannot and will not adhere to the democratic processes outlined in their own governance documents. Equally important: Students see models of undemocratic behaviors as something they should emulate. Someone ought to do something, but it probably won’t be MSCHE who carry their own past traumas like a shield to protect themselves and the institutions they accredit, no matter the realities of overseas higher education.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
[1] House Select Committee (House Select Committee to Investigate Educational and Training Program under GI Bill). (1951). Investigation of GI Schools: Hearings before the House Select Committee to Investigate Educational and Training Program under GI Bill. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015028765819
[2] Congressional Research Service. (2020). An Overview of Accreditation of Higher Education in the United States. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R43826.pdf
[3] Altbach, P. (2003). American accreditation of foreign universities: Colonialism in action. International Higher Education, (32), p. 5. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2003.32.7373
[4] El-Kot, G. & Leat, M. (2005). Investigating team work in the Egyptian context. Personnel Review, 34(2), 246–261. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480510579457
[5] for example: https://www.egyptindependent.com/few-numbers-of-teachers-are-corrupt-minister-of-education
[6] de Zavala, A. G., Cichocka, A., Eidelson, R., & Jayawickreme, N. (2009). Collective narcissism and its social consequences. Journal of personality and social psychology, 97(6), 1074–1096. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016904
[7] Pettit, E. (2022, February 11). Tenure without teeth. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/tenure-without-teeth
*At the time of publication, AUC had not responded to requests for clarification or comment.
