Ashford University is a for-profit university headquartered in San Diego, California. It is the largest educational holding of Bridgepoint Education. The University offers associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees in more than 50 degree programs on campus and online. While a majority of the student population is enrolled in online courses, the University also hosts nearly 1,000 students at their campus location in Clinton, Iowa. Ashford is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission.
History
Mount St. Clare history (1893-2003)
Ashford University's campus was established in 1893 as the Mount St. Clare Academy, a boarding and day school for girls. The idea for this school formed when Father James A. Murray invited the Sisters of St. Francis to help teach in Clinton, Iowa. The new Mount St. Clare building was erected for this school in 1910 and remains in use today.
Seeing a need for higher education in Clinton County and the surrounding area, the sisters founded Mount St. Clare College in 1918. This liberal arts institution was also an approved teacher education college from 1932 to 1954. In 1942, 60% of the rural teachers in Clinton County and 62% of the teachers in the city of Clinton school system had received all their training from Mount St. Clare College.
In 1950, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools first accredited Mount St. Clare College. The college then began to expand quickly, and acquired a convent building, new library, new gymnasium, the Science Building, and Durham Residence Hall. The college eventually became coeducational in 1967.
For the 1979-1980 school year, the college received approval for its first four-year degree, a bachelor's program in business administration. During the same year, Mount St. Clare Academy merged with St. Mary's High School in Clinton, forming Mater Dei High School (now known as Prince of Peace Preparatory). With the space freed by the academy's merger, the school began to offer additional four-year programs. In 1997, the sisters moved off campus into their new mother house, The Canticle. In 1998, the Durgin Educational Center was opened, which included new athletic facilities, including Kehl arena.
History (2003-present)
In 2003, Mount St. Clare College changed its name to The Franciscan University. At the same time, the university received approval to offer its first master's degree online. In September 2004, the school modified its name to The Franciscan University of the Prairies in order to avoid confusion with similarly named schools.
After a period of financial difficulty, the University was purchased by Bridgepoint Education in March 2005. After the completion of the sale, the institution's name was changed to Ashford University. Sponsorship by the Sisters of St. Francis ended.
Although the university was regionally accredited by The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, it sought regional accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) in 2010. In June 2012, WASC denied initial accreditation to Ashford University. Following WASC's denial of accreditation for being "lacking in several areas, including low numbers of full-time faculty, high student dropout rates and questions about academic rigor," HLC demanded additional information from Ashford prior to an October site visit.
In response to accreditation concerns, the school's trustees appointed Richard Pattenaude as president in October 2012. Pattenaude is a former chancellor of the University of Maine System who also served as chairman of the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, a regional accrediting body. Although its initial application to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges was denied in 2010, its second application was accepted in 2013.
Government controversies
2006 student complaints to Iowa Department of Education
According to U.S. Senate testimony by Arlie Willems, retired reviewer for the Iowa Department of Education, the Iowa Department of Education denied Ashford University's request in 2006 to offer an online Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) on the grounds that the program "was more a collection of discrete courses than a cohesive program, was understaffed for appropriate interaction with students and supervision of both courses and clinical experiences, including student teaching. Many faculty members lacked appropriate academic background and/or experiences for their assigned responsibilities. The most serious concern noted by the team was the lack of responsibility on the part of the program in providing quality clinical experiences, the aspect of teacher preparation considered the most important by preparation programs in Iowa."
Willems also testified that Ashford entered into partnership with Rio Salado Community College whereas education courses from the Ashford BA in Social Science with a Concentration in Education could apply to Rio Salado's post-baccalaureate teacher education program. Once students have completed the online Ashford BA and the online Rio Salado teacher education program, they are eligible for an Arizona teaching license. Willem's noted that this partnership could be seen as a creative way to solve a problem in order to continue drawing students, or it could be seen as a way to circumvent the accountability system for quality in order to continue collecting tuition from students. An individual who has attained an Arizona license in this way does not automatically receive an Iowa license because Iowa and Arizona do not have a reciprocity agreement.
According to Willems, complaints from Ashford students concerning this agreement and licensure include:
1) Individuals from Iowa and many other states had completed Ashford's online Bachelor of Arts in Social Science with a Concentration in Education. These individuals had been led to believe that, upon completion of this program, they would be eligible for a license in their home state because Ashford has a state-approved teacher education program (the on-ground undergraduate program).
2) Individuals were students or graduates of the Ashford online baccalaureate program, but were not aware of the need to complete the Rio Salado program as well in order to receive an Arizona license. These individuals were not even aware of the Rio Salado partnership.
3) Ashford students were intending to complete student teaching through Rio Salado College and believed they would then automatically be eligible for an Iowa teaching license.
4) Students were completing an online degree through Ashford in early childhood believed that this degree would lead to an Iowa teaching license. It does not.
2008 U.S. Department of Education audit
In May 2008, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit services division commenced a compliance audit of Ashford University covering the period March 10, 2005, through June 30, 2009. The OIG audit reached the following conclusions:
The stock of Ashford's parent company, Bridgepoint Education, fell the most in almost five months when the misuse of federal student aid was first publicly disclosed in 2009. When the official results were released in 2011, Senator Tom Harkin said this audit "reveals the same troubling pattern of for-profit colleges' taking advantage of students and taxpayers." The Department of Education has not yet responded to the findings.
The audit was the subject of a U.S. Senate committee hearing on March 10, 2011.
2011 Iowa Attorney General investigation
According to a February 15, 2011, filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ashford University and its parent company, Bridgepoint Education, received a letter from the Iowa Attorney General's office on February 9, 2011, requesting "documents and detailed information" from January 1, 2008, to the present to determine if Ashford's business practices possibly violated the state's Consumer Fraud Act.
2011 U.S. Senate hearings
On March 10, 2011, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) chaired a hearing of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that examined a case study of Ashford's parent company, which has experienced near-exponential profit growth in the last few years despite low graduation rates. Bridgepoint owns two universities that it purchased when both were near bankruptcy, Ashford University in Iowa and the University of the Rockies in Colorado. When it purchased Ashford University in 2005, it had fewer than 300 students but today it claims to have over 78,000 students, 99% of which are online.
Senator Harkin took issue with success of the company saying that while Bridgepoint may have had record profits the students were not succeeding. According to information provided by Senator Harkin in the committee hearing, 63% of students who enrolled at Ashford University during the 2008-2009 school year withdrew before completion of their prospective program. Senator Harkin pointed out that Bridgepoint recorded more than $216 million in profits in 2010; of which 86.5 percent of its revenues come from federal funds. In reference to the dependence of Bridgepoint on public funds, Senator Harkin was quoted as saying, "I think this is a scam, an absolute scam."
Kathleen Tighe, who is an inspector general with the U.S. Department of Education, testified at the hearing that in an audit of Ashford, she discovered Ashford was improperly distributing student aid to students. "Seventy-five percent of the improper disbursements to students in our sample were made to students who never became eligible," Tighe said. Bridgepoint hadn't returned the improperly obtained student aid to the federal government, and said on a recent report she'd seen that Bridgepoint was "sitting on $130 million" in these types of funds.
Due to the ongoing Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) proceedings, and in order to preserve due process, Ashford's parent company, Bridgepoint Education, chose not to send executives to the HELP committee hearing while engaged in negotiations with FSA. Rather, Bridgepoint published a summary of responses called Bridgepoint Education Transparency.
Presidents
Leaders of Ashford and its predecessor institutions have included:
- Mother Mary Paul Carrico, O.S.F., 1918-1921
- Mother Kristen Dunno, O.S.F., 1921-1924
- Mother Mary Paul Carrico, O.S.F., 1924-1936
- Mother Mary John McKeever, O.S.F., 1936-1948
- Mother Mary Regis Cleary, O.S.F., 1948-1958
- Sister Mary Cortona Phelan, O.S.F., 1958-1968
- Sister Mary Cecile Devereux, O.S.F., 1968-1971
- Sister Eileen Smith, O.S.F., 1972-1976
- Dan C. Johnson, 1976-1985
- The Rev. Charles E. Lang, 1986-1991
- James J. Ross, 1991-2000
- Brian McNicholas, 2001-2002
- Michael E. Kaelke, 2002-2005
- James Chitwood, 2005-2007
- Jane McAuliffe, 2007-2011
- Elizabeth Tice, 2011-2012
- Richard Pattenaude, 2012-present
Campus
While a majority of students are enrolled in online courses managed from the University's headquarters in San Diego, California, Ashford's traditional campus is located in Clinton, Iowa. The 24-acre (9.7 ha) campus is about a half mile (800 m) from the Mississippi River and about a mile (1,600 m) north of Highway 30. The most notable building on campus is St. Clare Hall, which has served as the Mount St. Clare Convent, Novitiate, Academy, and College. Today, the lower floors in St. Clare Hall house administrative and support staff, while the upper floors contain classrooms.
The Durgin Educational Center, which houses Kehl Arena, the athletics department, and the animation lab. The newly renovated Ladd Science Building has chemistry, biology, microbiology, research and biochemistry labs. The university has recently purchased the Best Western hotel for use as a residence hall. This hall, commonly known as the BW, accompanies both Durham and Regis Halls in providing residence to on campus students. An article in the Huffiington Post criticized the purchase of land from a local country club and described how "a new, 500-seat football stadium adorns the campus", even though no football team exists on campus.
Sports and student activities
Athletics
Ashford University teams are known as the Saints. The university competes in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) as an Independent member, part of the Association of Independent Institutions (AII). The Saints formerly competed in the Midwest Collegiate Conference (MCC). Men's sports include baseball, basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, soccer, tennis and track & field; women's sports include basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field and volleyball.
The official team colors are purple and gold, and the mascot for the Saints is a Saint Bernard dog named Champ. The university constructed a $4.6 million athletic facility in 2010. A new state-of-the-art artificial-turf soccer field and an outdoor all-weather track has been completed on the lower portion of the campus; it hosts the AU men's and women's soccer programs as well as the men's and women's outdoor track and field teams. After belonging to the MCC for many years, Ashford has become a member of Association of Independent Institutions (AII) of the NAIA on July 1, 2012.
Ashford has received the MCC President's Cup for 2009-10 and 2010-11 for high academic excellence among their student athletes with 96 individual students chosen for the Academic All-MCC Team. Additionally, 21 students were named Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes which requires a GPA of 3.5 to 4.0 at certification. Eight of Ashford's athletic programs have been named as NAIA Scholar Teams, which requires individuals on the team to maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. The programs named were men's tennis, women's soccer, women's basketball, men's soccer, volleyball, baseball and men's basketball.
The mascot of the Ashford University Saints is "Champ", a Saint Bernard dog wearing a purple Ashford University t-shirt. The mascot was created in May 2006 by Sarah Bogue, who worked as an employee for Facemakers Inc.
Scrutiny
As for-profit colleges have come under increasing scrutiny, a U.S. Senate report in 2011 listed Ashford's parent company, Bridgepoint, as having one of the highest withdrawal rates of any publicly traded school in the industry. Ashford has also been audited for its recruiting and finance practices in a U.S. Department of Education audit. Bridgepoint Education responded in March 2011 with a report asserting that the information used in the Senate hearing was either inaccurate or incomplete.
On December 3, 2014 a suit was filed in Arizona federal court charging that Bridgepoint Education is violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by robocalling sales prospects. Similar suits were filed in October in federal court in San Diego and the Northern District of Ohio.
References
External links
- Official website
- Official athletics website
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