Randolph College taken off accreditation warning

As Randolph College students took final exams Monday, the college was undergoing a test of its finances.

On Tuesday morning, the college announced it had passed. After a tumultuous first semester as a coeducational institution, Randolph College has had its warning status lifted from its accrediting organization, according to school officials.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the accrediting agency for 11 southern states, had placed the college on warning last December after determining that the school was spending its endowment at an unsustainable rate.

"I feel that it is good news for the college, and really a shot in the arm," Randolph President John Klein said by phone Tuesday morning from New Orleans, where the announcement was made at an annual SACS meeting.

"We're excited about it. After this semester, it's very nice. We've made some difficult decisions but it is nice to have some recognition of our progress."

SACS officials told the college of their recommendation Monday night, spokeswoman Brenda Edson said, and Klein sent an e-mail announcement Tuesday morning to students, faculty and staff informing them that the warning had been removed.

Klein said the Atlanta-based SACS will monitor the school and spending from its $153 million endowment over the next year. The college will need to show progress, he said, or it could face another warning. Next fall, the college will again submit another financial plan to SACS.

In the past year, the former Randolph-Macon Woman's College began admitting men, eliminated staff and faculty positions, announced closings of departments, reduced pension contributions and tightened expenses, among other measures.

Tightening finances would have been necessary even without the SACS warning, officials have said, but the sanction expedited the process.

The college also tried to sell four paintings from the Maier Museum of Art, a move that it estimated would raise $32 million or more for the endowment. But that sale is on hold pending an injunction that the Virginia Supreme Court issued last month.

Edson said the college will need to continue making decisions to strengthen finances over the next year.

"That includes making a substantial infusion into the endowment," she said. "… We still have plans to sell the unrestricted artwork in the future. That decision hasn't changed."

The college will receive details about the SACS decision in January, Edson said.

Klein said the school's financial plans might have encouraged SACS to lift the warning.

"Clearly, our revenues and expenses are not yet in balance," he said. "So they must have looked at the plan and felt that we were taking their financial warning seriously, and that the efforts we've taken and still have to take are going to have the desired effect."

SACS had several other options it could have taken with the college, including keeping the college on warning, putting it on probation or removing accreditation, according to Belle Wheelan, president of the SACS Commission on Colleges.

A college cannot stay on warning for more than two consecutive years, according to the SACS Web site. The next measure is probation, which is one step away from losing accreditation and, with it, opportunities for students to receive federal financial aid, Edson said.

SACS officials, who were attending the conference in New Orleans Monday, did not return requests for comment Tuesday.

Klein said a main emphasis of the college's financial plan will be attracting students at "reasonable tuition levels" in the coming years.

"Clearly, we have a large endowment," he said. "But it is important to have balanced expenditures and revenues."

Anne Yastremski, executive director of Preserve Educational Choice, a group that has protested the college's move to coeducation, said she was happy to hear of the news, but for different reasons.

"This decision by SACS indicates that … drastic changes like the sale of irreplaceable educational and cultural resources like the art in the Maier Museum were completely unnecessary to remove the SACS warning," Yastremski wrote in a statement released Tuesday.

The statement says that returning the college to a single-sex school would "strengthen the College financially by raising enrollment and tuition revenue - if properly managed … It's time for Randolph-Macon Woman's College to secure its financial future by returning to its mission of educating women in the liberal arts."

The college is in the middle of exam week, Student Government President Hillary Peabody said on Tuesday, so most students were busy studying, taking finals, writing papers and getting ready to go home when the decision was announced.

"I think a lot of students are looking forward to getting some time away and then coming back for a fresh start," she said. "Students are definitely relieved that the SACS warning was lifted. But we know that the school still does need to do a lot for SACS to see us on the right track."

"That leaves a lot of apprehension about what might be coming next, and that's really upset a lot of students," she said.

Lucy Hooper, president of the school's board of trustees, said the board will "keep on the path of ensuring that this college exists for a long time into the future."

"I hope it will be a real boost for everyone on campus - certainly it is for the trustees," she said Tuesday. "It's a very happy day for us."