By CHRISTOPHER QUINN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 08/11/08

Twenty-five students who attended a satellite program of North Carolina Central University at Bishop Eddie Long's Lithonia church earned bachelor's degrees that are not recognized by the school's accrediting agency.

A school spokeswoman said 39 students were in the program earlier this year when it was shut down.

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Long and the school started the satellite campus four years ago. They closed it in June after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools learned of it, reviewed the program and refused to sanction it. All extension programs have to be approved by SACS for degrees to be recognized.

Tom Benberg, chief of staff at the Commission on Colleges at SACS, said any degrees earned at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, "would not be a degree from an accredited operation."

Long did not respond to phone calls to his office and his public relations firm Monday.

He is a graduate of NCCU, a school trustee and announced a $1 million gift to the university last week.

The University of North Carolina system, of which NCCU is part, learned of the New Birth satellite program last week, according to a spokeswoman. The program should have been vetted by the system's board of governors.

Erskine Bowles, president the University of North Carolina system, said in a written statement, "I can think of no justifiable reason why the former NCCU leadership would have completely ignored and failed to abide by the appropriate approval process in creating this program. Such action is contrary to all university policy."

The university system and the staff at NCCU are investigating the situation and trying to answer the legal and academic questions caused by it, said Joni Worthington, vice president of communications at UNC.

The school and Long's church tried to get the program approved ex post facto, but SACS denied their request in June.

SACS said the program did not prove that faculty was qualified, that it had adequate library and learning resources, that it was unable to measure whether students were adequately learning the subject matter and did not provide an adequate financial statement from the program.

NCCU provided The Atlanta Journal-Constitution a list of 11 NCCU faculty members who taught in the program, all of whom had graduate degrees. However, four were listed as noncompliant because they had no graduate course work in the classes they were teaching. The university paid the teachers and their travel expenses.

The program also had adjunct faculty members from the Atlanta area.

The college offered business, criminal justice and hospitality degrees at New Birth. The program began under then-Chancellor James Ammons of NCCU, who left to become president of Florida A&M University in 2007.

Calls and an e-mail Monday morning to Ammons were not returned. Ammons was engaged in board meetings there, an A&M spokeswoman said.

A statement from Chancellor Charlie Nelms at NCCU denied responsibility for the program. A university spokeswoman referred questions to Kimberly Phifer-McGhee, director of distance education at NCCU.

Phifer-McGhee said she did not know why or how the program started, did not know how much the university paid to run the program, or why SACS was not notified of it.

"I was not part of the leadership," she said.

She said that faculty members had degrees, but may not have had course work to teach what they were teaching at the school.

The university is trying to work out a program that would allow current students to remain in school in good standing.

Benberg said that SACS would not likely recognize the degrees already awarded.

"I am not aware that we have ever done that," he said.

OHMIGOD

Why would anyone attend a school without checking to make sure it's accredited? Especially a small school. In a church.