From the San Francisco Bay Guardian, a liberal weekly paper (and quite good overall, especially on the issues of corporate malfeasance watchdogging, and regional issues like public power which they've championed since forever.)

http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2007/07/accredidation_report_blasts_ne.html

SFBG By G.W. Schulz Wednesday July 25, 2007

San Francisco’s New College of California has a culture of administrative "sloppiness and arbitrariness" in addition to flawed academic curricula, according to a report released this month by an accrediting outfit based in Alameda and obtained by the Guardian.

The accrediting commission for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges concluded following a special investigation that among other things New College fails to properly maintain student files and questions persist about how well the school handles and awards scholarships and financial aid to students under federal rules and regulations.

The group’s investigation began after it received six detailed letters alleging “various improprieties” and violations of its fundamental accreditation standards such as problems related to the fair and equitable treatment of students and the college’s ability to maintain operational integrity through sound business practices. ... has long teetered on the brink of financial disaster ... bought two properties “without necessary analysis and planning.”

As a result of the investigation, New College has been placed on probation and will now be “subject to special scrutiny and any new site or degree program is subject to review through WASC’s substantive change process.”

The college’s PHLUTE program (Pilot Hybrid in Leadership in Urban Transformed Environments) does not have a clear and published curriculum, the report concluded, and students are expected to handle an exceptionally large load of courses while only attending one-fourth of the necessary classes for the credits involved.

The school’s contention that students can get a degree in two years “seems highly questionable on its face.” The commission also called the PHLUTE program a “gross misapplication of academic advising, program administration and program design” due in part to doubts about the depth of the work involved for students and whether students who have to work while attending school can handle so many courses.

According to the report:

“The commission has repeatedly found that, in addition to longstanding and ongoing financial challenges, New College did not have systems and structures in place in very basic areas of operation, including governance, faculty oversight of academic matters, assessment of student learning, and financial management and accounting.”

The report, of course, merely adds to troubles the college was already facing. Scattered in a handful of buildings along Valencia Street, the experimental New College historically has been lefty-activist oriented offering everything from a green business degree to a Public Interest Law Degree to an MFA in “Writing and Consciousness.” The school already maintained a rocky history of accreditation with the WASC.

Late last year, however, the SF Weekly’s Matt Smith revealed that the bright and respected Jesuit priest who founded New College, John Leary, had allegedly sexually assaulted young men while he was the president of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. during the 1960s. More recently, the Weekly’s Francis Reade noted that two factions of students exploded at one another over whether the college should have done a better job responding to Smith's story.

We’ve created a link to the WASC report, which you can read here.

*UPDATE: Just realized the report was linked here first at a Web site compiling information about problems at New College. The site includes a Guardian story from 1996 about an administrative shake-up at the school.

When I was in my twenties I bought arguments of Koz et al.

Bought them! I might have even sold them, but never so virulently and obsessively. How can theses logical positivists be so haunted?

Possible Rx: Try reading a good novel, any good novel. Look for pieces of yourself in it, fellas.

Kevin Russell Cook

In terms you can understand, it means a lot of shit goes right over your head.

Don't worry. For the literal minded there are always career oppotunities in accounting.

Kevin Russell Cook

My bad. I was talking about what you might do after you got out of High School.

Where on earth did I ever get the wrong impression?

Kevin Russell Cook

Here's the link to New College Allumi page, which makes for informative reading.

http://www.newcollege.edu/alumni/

Here are some examples (names redacted):

P.D. 2002 MA Psychology (Feminist Clinical emphasis)
Area of Practice: Canine Behavioral Consultant and Professional Dog Trainer

SA aka AL 1992 MA Psychology (Clinical)
Currently, I have no employment. I've gotten divorced and am learning to live on my own. My last name is mine again: S. I live in North Beach with my dog and parrot (yes, she, the bird does bark). I'm a member of the Association of University Women. My education at NCOC was liberating and a high point of my life. I hope to have my website up this year. New Tales of Our City is a literary site - I'd appreciate any of your stories or tales about this wonderful city and its people.

HK 1993 MA Psychology (Feminist emphasis)
As of May 2005: I completed a PhD in clinical and community psychology at University of Illinois in 2003. I work at the Champaign Police Department, helping to guide and develop the Station Adjustment (juvenile court diversion) program and related services. I also have an adjunct zero-time professorship at UIUC, where I teach a graduate forensic assessment course and an undergraduate service-learning course. I hope to get my license and move back to the west coast in the next couple of years. I'm married (to a man as it turns out), and we are currently guardians for my 17-year-old niece. Areas of Practice: Research, program and policy development and clinical work focused on juvenile delinquency. Assessment and intervention with child/teen behavior problems in the context of family, school and community; juvenile justice policy analysis; juvenile diversion program development.

SS, Val 1991 MA Psychology(Feminist Emphasis)
I live and work in beautiful Humboldt County. I specialize in Relational Self Psychology and Art and Sand Tray Therapy.

GJ 2000 MA Psychology
I have worked in different clinical settings, currently I am a child custody evaluator/mediator for Family Court Services.

TJ 1993 MA Psychology
Our class was always on the verge of imploding, but afterwards I realized I got a great education in the Social-Clinical Graduate Psychology program. I was there from 1991 to 1993 and fortunate enough to get paid internship hours and my MFT license in 1996. I also had a terrific time as an intern at the NCOC Clinic. After that I spent 5 years employed by community mental health, establishing a school- based therapeutic program in the SF Public schools. I still do a few hours of work in the public sector, but mainly work in my Civic Center private practice, providing psychodynamic therapy to adults, adolescents and children. I appreciate the spirit of New College.

From humanities dept:

AM 2006 MA (Women's Spirituality) Humanities
MA is a graduate of the Woman's Spirituality at New College of California. Her background is in Catholicism, the Goddess revival tradition and South American shamanism. She is a mother, a teacher of sacred belly dance, a poet and an icon painter. She seeks to revive a sense of the divine feminine in the Catholic trinity and the iconography and prayer of Mary. Areas of Practice: Belly dance teacher, Goddess icon painter, poet.

BK 2005 MA Women's Spirituality
My experience at New College was transformational and empowering. Since completing my graduate work I have deepened my commitment to ending violence against all women through astute analysis, honest dialogue, out-of-the box solutions, and space for deep self and community healing. I am currently seeking to merge my experience in social justice work with my passion for the healing arts, creating alternative, inclusive environments where women and child survivors of violence can heal; a place where we can work to change the acceptability of violence against women in our communities-going all the way to the roots and the core. I also love poetry, walking in the woods, and all the folks that have supported me on my way. Area of Practice: Women and Social Justice Healing Arts (Yoga, Sound, BodyTalk, Reiki) Permaculture/Environmental Justice.

***

And so on. Well intentioned towards many a good cause to be sure, but...