Penn State accreditation in jeopardy
Penn State season ticket holders and 1963 graduates Pat (L) and Dan Amey wear shirts supporting Joe Paterno outside Beaver Stadium before the start of the Penn State vs. Nebraska NCAA football game in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal on November 12, 2011 in State College, Pennsylvania. The Penn State head football coach was fired amid allegations that former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was involved with child sex abuse.
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education has officially given warning to Penn State University that the school is in jeopardy of losing its academic accreditation.
CNN has reported that on August 6 the commission voted to place the school on warning status based on "information contained in former FBI Director Louis Freeh's report on Penn State's handling of the sex-abuse allegations against Sandusky and a National Collegiate Athletic Association action against the school."
GlobalPost reported in July on the Freeh report, which found that university administrators "repeatedly concealed critical facts" regarding the sexual abuse of children by former football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.
In the commission's public disclosure statement regarding Penn State, the commission stated that when it warns a school, "It believes that, although the institution is out of compliance (with the commission's accreditation standards), the institution has the capacity both to make appropriate improvements within a reasonable period and to sustain itself in the long term," USA Today reported.
SB Nation noted that the commission also said that it does not issue warnings unless the commission believes that an institution can make improvements. Blannie Bowen, vice provost for academic affairs with Penn State, said in a press release, "This certainly is true for Penn State. We're confident that our monitoring report and the site visit will confirm this to the commission."
Commission spokesman Richard Pockrass told CNN in July that if the commission pulled Penn State's accreditation the school would face the loss of "eligibility for federal student aid programs, guaranteed student loans, federal research grants and could lose eligibility for state aid."
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