Re: [HAPS-L] Accreditation update

["David Evans" <devans@xxxxxxx>]

As Ric says, this is an outrage at least in the case of DVM's: veterinarians have to know MORE not less than an MD and most of it is directly applicable to human a & p. For example, there not many cardiology experiments are done on humans! Vet schools produce the finest professionals in any field since they are almost impossible to get into and the colleges can pick the best students in the US. SACS is clearly ignorant in regards to anatomy and physiology.

David-not-a-vet, in Darkest PA

> > > martini@xxxxxxxx 1/18/2006 9:48 PM >>>

[The following will be sent to the HAPS membership; it is being 
posted to the listserve so that interested nonmembers assigned to the 
list will be aware of the details.]

Greetings and Happy New Year to everyone.
The situation with regard to the accreditation of A&P faculty in the 
southern region continues to be problematic.  In a response from the 
school admininstration at one college, we were told:
"Like [another college], we are credentialing medical doctors, 
osteopaths, and dentists who have 18 graduate semester hours in A&P 
that was completed in a university setting.  Also like [same 
college], we are not at this time credentialing chiropractors, 
veterinarians, podiatrists, or physical therapists.  We are also 
using individuals with a master's degree in biology that includes a 
minimum of six graduate semester hours in anatomy or physiology." 
This policy resulted in the elimination of 2/3 of the part-time 
faculty teaching A&P, with a concommitant reduction in the niumber of 
A&P sections taught.
The idea that a veterinarian or board-certified physical therapist, 
chiropractor, or podiatrist has inadequate training - as defined as 6 
graduate credit hours in anatomy or physiology - to teach intro level 
A&P illogical and indefensible.  We have written to SACS once again, 
with a strongly worded protest over the unreasonable and 
inappropriate criteria being applied.  One of our major concerns is 
that the rulings, and the criteria applied, are delivered verbally to 
college administrators and the decisions and justifications and 
criteria are never presented in writing.  This violates all sorts of 
precedents established for accountability and transparency.  I will 
continue to keep you informed as to further developments.
Meanwhile, one of the foundations of our argument is the data from 
the HAPS credentials survey.  We now have data for courses teaching 
approximately 35,000 students per year, 8-10% of the estimated US 
total. Based on our sampling, the disqualification of professional 
degrees other than those noted above would result in the immediate 
loss of ~8% of full-time faculty and ~12% of part-time faculty.  The 
criteria being applied for course background would have a much 
greater pruning effect; at one school, none of the MS degree holders 
teaching the course "made the grade," yet MS degree holders represent 
~50% of the part-time faculty surveyed.
I am writing to you to ask that you do the following:
1.  Help us expand our dataset.  Log onto the website and fill in a 
report for your institution if you have not already done so.  The 
link is 
http://www.hapsweb.org/displayemailforms.cfm?emailformnbr=43589  If 
your number of faculty exceeds the number of allocated spaces (even 
on the expanded form) just fill out the survey twice.  Since I am 
manually extracting the information, I will simply combine the 
numbers.
2.  Monitor the accreditation situation in your region closely for 
sudden shifts in policy and advise us immediately if problems arise.
3.  Let me know if you have any contacts in the media who might be 
interested in a story about the mechanics of the accreditation 
process and how one person can disrupt tertiary education in a key 
discipline across a significant part of the country.
4.  Contact your Regional Director or email me directly with other 
questions, comments, or suggestions.
With best wishes and thanks for your continued interest in this 
topic, I remain,
Sincerely,
Ric Martini
President, HAPS
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